Don't Store Your Data in 'The Cloud' Unless You Don't Mind Losing Control Over It

Some Hotmail Users Report Missing Emails

January 1, 2011

AP – Some users of Microsoft Hotmail are starting off the new year scrambling to get back e-mails of old. A chorus of frantic users has posted complaints on Microsoft's online forum that all of their messages have disappeared.

"Please help me get them back," wrote one user under the moniker 'Zacgore' in a post dated Saturday. "All my kids' info and pictures are in there!"

Others complain that the majority of the e-mail in their inboxes was sent to their deleted mail folders instead. It is unclear from the posts how widespread the problem is. The free Web-based e-mail service is the world's most used with about 360 million users globally, according to comScore Inc.

Windows Live support technicians have said in numerous threads that the Hotmail team is aware of the problem and working on a fix.

"At this point it appears to be a limited issue, and Microsoft is working with individual users who are impacted. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers," Microsoft spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said in statement Saturday.

She declined to disclose what caused the glitch.

Microsoft's forum contains 476 pages of complaints about lost and deleted e-mails that date back to early November.

Forcing Everyone to Live with Their Heads in ‘The Cloud’

December 29, 2010

Infowars.com - You’ve probably begun to hear a brand new buzz word being thrown around. Maybe you caught wind of it circulating around the office or maybe that annoying cousin that you only talk to in case of technologic emergency dropped it into conversation a couple times. In all likelihood, you feigned comprehension but one thing should be completely clear by now — ‘cloud computing’ is coming.

What is ‘Cloud Computing’?

Cloud computing is an internet-based computing model. This is in stark contrast to the traditional model for computing where almost all processes take place on the user’s system. The cloud, a euphemism for the internet, will provide all the software used by your computer. Users will no longer be the owners of software but rather tenants paying a subscription to use them. In addition, all processing and related data will take place in ‘the cloud’ and not on the users personal computer.

Accolades have been building into a unanimous chorus and the general perception is that this new model for computing will save money on capital expenditures for hardware, software and services because users will only pay for what they use.

But when has any technological innovation ever been about saving the consumer money?

The answer must be a resounding never!

So what is cloud computing really?

Just like global warming, cloud computing is an attempt to create an entirely new market and subsequently a brand new revenue stream for multinational tech giants while allowing them to maintain complete control of their products. In the spirit of full spectrum domination ‘The Cloud’ also has many other lucrative uses in a ‘new world order’.

In an article, How Secure is The Cloud?, an argument is made in an attempt to counter fears that ‘The Cloud’ is insecure. Having all your personal data floating around in a cloud on some unknown server(s) raises obvious concerns over security and this article attempts to ease those fear shared by IT professionals.

Security of Cloud Computing Users: A Study of U.S. and Europe IT Practitioners
Published: 6 May 2010

CA and the Ponemon Institute conducted a cloud security survey of U.S. and Europe IT and IT security professionals. The findings show that about half of the respondents don’t believe the organization has thoroughly vetted cloud services for security risks prior to deployment. It also showed that 55 percent of respondents are not confident they know all the cloud services in use in their organization today.

The overall study calls for a need for IT and Security professionals to embrace the cloud and help their organizations more securely adopt cloud services.

Of course, the ‘security’ they mention in this study is not to be confused with a question of privacy but simply denotes the security of ‘the cloud’ in terms of system exploits. While this allows protection from hackers, data is ultimately left wide open for the new war on terror spearheaded by events like wikileaks cable leaks. In other words, your information will be even more easily available to those agencies policing the web in the name of security.

Recently, examples of abuse have been uncovered where the FBI is under suspicion of planting backdoors in OpenBSD IPSEC stack. As if it weren’t completely obvious that our government is tightening the reigns, these moves show the real motives behind our government’s involvement in technology development.

The Final Unveiling of the Control Grid

We are moving in a dangerous direction. The current incarnation of the internet is far too open for our controller’s comfort. So a new internet is being rolled out; one that will control its users absolutely. All computing will be done offsite; and instead of policing individual users, which often sounds illegal, government agencies can just surveil the ‘anonymous’ cloud. Of course, they already know exactly who you are and will soon be able to remotely kill your computer at will.

I don’t know about you but I feel much more ‘secure’.

Don't Store Your Data in 'The Cloud' Unless You Don't Mind Losing Control Over It

New cloud computing OS released by Google is plan to push people into 'careless computing', warns free software advocate

December 14, 2010

Guardian - Google's new cloud computing ChromeOS looks like a plan "to push people into careless computing" by forcing them to store their data in the cloud rather than on machines directly under their control, warns Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the operating system GNU.

Two years ago Stallman, a computing veteran who is a strong advocate of free software via his Free Software Foundation, warned that making extensive use of cloud computing was "worse than stupidity" because it meant a loss of control of data.

Now he says he is increasingly concerned about the release by Google of its ChromeOS operating system, which is based on GNU/Linux and designed to store the minimum possible data locally. Instead it relies on a data connection to link to Google's "cloud" of servers, which are at unknown locations, to store documents and other information.

The risks include loss of legal rights to data if it is stored on a company's machine's rather than your own, Stallman points out:

"In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant."

Google gave ChromeOS a "soft" launch last week, showing off aspects of the software and providing developers and some journalists with Cr-48 laptops set up to run it, while saying that it won't be widely available until mid-2011.

Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, praised it in a blogpost:

"For me, these announcements were among the most important of my working life—demonstrating the real power of computer science to transform people's lives. It's extraordinary how very complex platforms can produce beautifully simple solutions like Chrome and Chrome OS, which anyone can use from the get-go—as long as you get it right," he wrote.

"As developers start playing with our beta Cr-48 Chrome OS computer, they'll see that while it's still early days it works unbelievably well. You can build everything that you used to mix and match with client software—taking full advantage of the capacity of the web."

But Stallman is unimpressed.

"I think that marketers like "cloud computing" because it is devoid of substantive meaning. The term's meaning is not substance, it's an attitude: 'Let any Tom, Dick and Harry hold your data, let any Tom, Dick and Harry do your computing for you (and control it).' Perhaps the term 'careless computing' would suit it better."

He sees a creeping problem:

"I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear."

The accountability of cloud computing providers has come under close focus in the past fortnight after Amazon removed Wikileaks content from its EC2 cloud computing service, saying that the leaks site had breached its terms and conditions, and without offering any mediation in the dispute.

Stallman only sees one aspect of ChromeOS to applaud: its GNU/Linux heritage.

"In essence, Chrome OS is the GNU/Linux operating system. However, it is delivered without the usual applications, and rigged up to impede and discourage installing applications," he told the Guardian. "I'd say the problem is in the nature of the job ChromeOS is designed to do. Namely, encourage you to keep your data elsewhere, and do your computing elsewhere, instead of doing it in your own computer."

Stallman warns would-be hackers not to download the LOIC software being pushed as a method of expressing anger with sites that have acted against Wikileaks—not because he thinks the protest is wrong, but because the tool's code is not visible to the user.

"It seems to me that running LOIC is the network equivalent of the protests against the tax-avoiders' stores in London. We must not allow that to constrict the right to protest," he notes. "[But] if users can't recompile it, users should not trust it."

Update: Richard Stallman writes:

"A BBC article reported someone from Sophos said that LOIC was "unknown software" and I thought that meant it was proprietary, but I was mistaken. It turns out LOIC is actually free software, so users can see and change the source code. Thus, its workings are not a secret like those of Windows, MacOS and Adobe Flash Player, so nobody can impose malicious features through it, the way that has been done in those packages."