Re: [projectvrm] Why we need to escape the Land of the Silos

[Joyce Searls < >]

T. Rob,

Wow. Thanks for confirming exactly what I was hoping for Space Monkey. Being 
almost completely non-technical, I thought that I might have been reading too 
much into what the Space Monkey value proposition was, but if you think so... 
I'm glad I bought one.

Joyce

On May 19, 2013, at 5:55 AM, "T.Rob" 
<
 >
 wrote:

> +1.   
>  
> I *definitely* don't expect people to go to the extremes that I did and we 
> know that functionality and ease of use sell.  I would expect that whatever 
> first gains traction will be commercially hosted and that the availability 
> of such solutions will encroach on in-home solutions due mostly to 
> complexity.  What's more, in a fast growing market I'd expect many vendors 
> will take advantage of consumer confusion and ride the wave of VRM, but 
> selling products that are not very VRM-y but still offer compelling 
> features and ease of use.  This would further skew the market away from 
> self-hosted solutions.
>  
> As noted in the earlier reply, our job will be to make the infrastructure 
> drop-dead easy.  For example, the Space Monkey product duplicates the 
> storage and encryption pieces of my in-home solution but does so in an 
> appliance form factor.  Plug it in, mount a share and all the cloud backup 
> is taken care of.  So if someone built a Personal Cloud app that used Space 
> Monkey as the back-end storage, the result is pretty darned close to a 
> consumer-ready solution that could be hosted in-home and compete 
> head-to-head with commercial hosting for ease of use. 
>  
> -- T.Rob
>  
>  
> From: Johannes Ernst 
> [mailto:
 ]
>  
> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2013 11:41 PM
> To: Bill Nelson
> Cc: ProjectVRM list
> Subject: Re: [projectvrm] Why we need to escape the Land of the Silos
>  
> 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 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 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. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On May 18, 2013, at 8:49 PM, Drummond Reed 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> 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. 
>  
> 
> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 5:42 PM, Bill Nelson 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 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? 
>  
> Please enlighten this unintelligent haggard. 
> 
> Sent from  my iPhone
> 
> On May 18, 2013, at 7:48 PM, Drummond Reed 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> +1. I think it's this simple: if you don't have the option to self-host it, 
> it's not really a personal cloud.
>  
> 
> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 2:44 PM, Doc Searls 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 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.
>  
> Doc
>  
> On May 18, 2013, at 8:40 PM, Drummond Reed 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 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.
>  
> 
> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Dan Blum 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 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. 
>  
> Please see my blog entry The Constitution and the Cloud in which I explore 
> these issues.
>  
> Thanks!
> Dan
>  
>  
> 
> On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 2:50 AM, Doc Searls 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> ... especially the ones that allow news like this to happen:
> 
> <http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/>
> 
> 
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