Subject: Re: [projectvrm] Why we need to escape the Land of the Silos
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 20:40:56 -0700
The important point is the *option* to self-host. It keeps everybody honest. That doesn't mean that everybody or even the majority of people ever will.
On May 18, 2013, at 20:12, Bill Nelson <
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Thanks for the clarification, Drummond. Won't the self hosting aspect make this by its very nature a limiting factor in the adoption of personal clouds? It does require some level of technology knowledge even to install network storage at home.
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On May 18, 2013, at 8:49 PM, Drummond Reed <
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Bill, it's a fair question since a personal cloud is by definition something you control, even if it's hosted by a third-party service provider (actually, in VRM terms, I believe that would be a "fourth-party service provider").
Anyway, the simple layman's definition I would offer of "self-hosting" a personal cloud is when the owner is running it on hardware he/she personally physically controls, e.g., on their own home network.
I am coming into this conversation late and I am sure that this was discussed at the IIW, but what are you referring to when you say 'self host'? Does a person need to have their own storage array at home? Or are you referring to people having their own Dropbox (or other cloud storage) account?
The key is to make personal clouds that are truly personal — in the sense that nobody else can hack into them. If we want to put our clouds in services that are not ours, that's fine — and I am sure will be a good business. But the ability to self-host needs to be a prime requirement.
Dan, great stake in the ground. The issues you describe become magnified x10 when it comes to personal clouds, so as an industry we need to drive an even bigger stake in the ground on this topic -- one that will restrain governments all around the world, not just the U.S.
I've sniffed a whiff of the same stench from here in the land of the free. Some time ago I heard about an Air Force RFP for software to create artificial "friends" for use on Facebook, probably for background investigation purposes. With friends like these...in the electronic age, we've lost much of the freedom we once had.