Doc,
I agree.. actually all the hacking going on recently (including all the repeated reissuing of credit cards to individuals from all the companies we deal with dues to breaches in security -- in my household this has happened monthly for the past 6 months to at least one person here) is cause to rethink the security issues for better approached.
My point was that clouds of any sort add multiple points of potential failure compared to offline systems, and given the ridiculous state of security at companies with repeated breaches, you have to wonder. They are major companies... but the standard of security for some cloud and online systems is not good.
When you have to constantly change credit cards and you are regularly locked out of accounts all over because the company was compromised, requiring a ton of proof that you are who you say you are, the individual is regularly signaled that things are not secure.
For example I just helped a friend in Chicago who is not technical, but has a paid MSN mail account for his small business, get back into his account. Microsoft wanted the subject lines of the last 4 mail he sent before the breach and shutdown -- complicated because he uses long and detailed subject lines reflecting specific jobs and then the system adds things like "Re:" and "FW:" and "Re: FW: RE:" to the front of them; the CC #, expiration and security code (that was three cards back even though he paid a year ago... ); his address about a year ago across the street (he moved his office.. couldn't remember which one he gave them); his BD and 2 silly security question and answers; his billing phone no -- again, which one?; his home address; at least 4 different folder names -- difficult because they are specific to clients but had to be perfectly replicated in terms of caps, dashes, etc. and he couldn't remember exactly how he'd done them, etc etc.
We had to get 75% of the entries exactly perfectly right in order to get the account back (with 10 years of business email). He had tried to make backups and had an IT guy try as well, but MSN blocked the download of more than about 10% of his mail each time.. they wanted to lock him in, we assume.
We got the account back but not without hours of hunting down the info and then entering the syntax and answers just right. After we got it back, i tried for 2 days with multiple systems and programs to get his mail out of MSN to a local copy backup.
And he pays a few hundred dollars a year for this cloud system and has for years. Seriously.
I think cloud is here to stay, but we don't seem to be improving security from the individual perspective.
Until this gets fixed, people will debate cloud services ..
*and*
until we deal with the issue of rights over the data in the cloud, we will have people like Woz condemning it.. which doesn't do our causes or work any good.
Clearly my friend doesn't really own the data in practice because of the blocks Microsoft put in place to make it impossible to get the data out either with the API, or with about 3 different tools we tried. All got stuck at about the 10% mark.
I would much prefer Woz promote cloud services because we had security and rights issues sorted out, and the tools to have our data copied really worked.
m
On Aug 6, 2012, at 6:21 PM, Doc Searls wrote:
A bank is a cloud for money.
iCloud is a bank for data.
Somebody broke into Mat Honan's iCloud account, stole data, and vandalized much else.
While the case is cause for blame(s), it is also cause for creating better approaches and fostering better practices.
It's still early.
Doc
On Aug 6, 2012, at 10:42 AM, Mary Hodder <
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> wrote:
An interesting incident involving cloud services.. Mat Honan's iCloud account to be exact.. getting hacked which led to Gizmodo's twitter account getting hacked.
"Don't rely on the cloud. It's great to have online storage you can get at from all your various devices, but when the shit goes down and you're under attack, nothing is more secure than a hard drive you can unplug and hide in a shoebox in the closet. It's not the most convenient way to back up, but you'll thank yourself for it."
Just another perspective...
mary
On Aug 6, 2012, at 9:53 AM, Craig Burton wrote:
Too bad. Too late. Who cares?
Craig Burton
Distinguished Analyst
KuppingerCole
On 2012-08-06, at 10:51 AM, J Clark <
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> wrote:
Apple co-founder condemns the cloud
By Jason Meyers
The outspoken Steve Wozniak is not doing any favors for supporters of the cloud, going so far as to publicly label it "horrendous." The Apple Inc. co-founder spoke his concerns Sunday to monologist Mike Daisey after a performance of Daisey's one-man show, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," according to a report by Agence France-Presse. Wozniak expressed serious concerns about how content is stored in the cloud and predicted catastrophe in the coming years as cloud-based computing takes hold. "I really worry about everything going to the cloud," AFP reported Wozniak as saying. "I think it's going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years." According to AFP's report, Wozniak's worries are based on businesses and consumers not owning anything as more and more content gets transferred to and stored on the cloud. "The more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it," he said. In its coverage of the comments, CNET added that the aim of the cloud is just that--relieving people of their need to own everything but giving them access to it and making them feel in control. "We all want to believe we're in control," the CNET story stated. "But we are but mere pawns on the imaginative chessboard of those in the nerd herd who take their pleasure in gaining access to your digital life." For more:
- see the AFP report
- read CNET's coverage |