Cloud Computing, according to Richard Stallman, "worse than stupidity"

by Michael Smith

Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU project – which is NOT an operating system as claimed by one author and journalist recently – finds the euphoria as regards "Cloud Computing" as entirely over the top.

Stallman sees in this present debate simply another way of the software companies to bind as many users as possible to proprietary concepts, and he finds the use of Web-Software, such as Google-Mail, as a means of storing personal data “in the cloud” somewhere “as worse than stupidity”.

While on some levels Cloud Computing might look good and useful and having some sort of documents for working on the move online is a good idea, probably, total Cloud Computing is, I have to agree, as Richard Stallman says. Especially if we consider the small print in the EULAs of Google and other in the cloud services, the majority of which consider the data that the user stores there as also legitimate theirs. This is to say that Google, etc. claim that they have been given, as soon as the user stores data with them, an extension of the copyright and hence can use the data as and how they see fit to use it. Doh?

To him all the talk of Cloud Computing is nothing more than market hype and to me, personally, it has some sinister undertones.

According to Stallman there are no possible positive reasons as to why anyone would want to store personal data on the servers of those businesses whaile one has the possibility to store such data locallly. The argument, he says, that the use of bought in, in other words hired, services instead of the use of local software saves money is more than ludicrous. Furthermore is it as ludicrous to claim that, as it is being done, the development towards Cloud Computing is going to be inevitable.

"Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true." Stallman said.

The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.

A sentiment that I can but agree with wholeheartedly and this for more than one reason, though privacy being the greatest of them all.

His comments echo those made last week by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who criticised the rash of cloud computing announcements as "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish".

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do," he said. "The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"

The growing number of people storing information on internet-accessible servers rather than on their own machines, has become a core part of the rise of Web 2.0 applications. Millions of people now upload personal data such as emails, photographs and, increasingly, their work, to sites owned by companies such as Google.

But there has been growing concern that mainstream adoption of cloud computing could present a mixture of privacy and ownership issues, with users potentially being locked out of their own files.

This is a dangerous affair, however, for once they are uploaded to those servers the question remains as to who owns them, and if the EULAs are to be believes, and I have addressed that earlier in this article, then the service provider, whether Google, or whoever else, owns a shared copyright of your data.

Think about it... they claim that they own the data, your personal information, your essays and manuscripts, your photos, and whatever else, equally and the right to do with it as they please. Do you really want to hand such rights over to such people?

The possibility of being locked out of your own files is real, let me tell you that. It happened to me and while I do store bookmarks and such online, they are but copies of what I store off line either on a hard drive, a flash drive or CDs.

Stallman, who is a staunch privacy advocate, advised users to stay local and stick with their own computers.

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."

This advice of Richard Stallman I can but endorse and while he may be better in many aspects of computing and have much more knowledge on the subject, I have been there and experienced the issue of not getting to my data for over two months.

While I know that there are many advocates of Cloud Computing I wonder how many of them have, in fact, stopped to think as to what they are doing and how many have, in fact, carefully ready the EULAs of the services. If they have done with those licenses the same that the majority of us tend to do with the EULAs of software, whether Open Source, Freeware, Shareware or proprietary, then they, more than likely will not have done so. Few of us ever tend to read those licenses, do we now. In the case of Cloud Computing services, free or paid for, I do sincerely think that we should read those licenses and we should read them very, very carefully indeed.

© M Smith (Veshengro), October 2008
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Risk and Opportunity of “In The Cloud Computing”

by Michael Smith

I have written about my take of “In The Cloud Computing” before and while this can be a useful idea for data storage away from a PC and even for working from a host PC it also has lots of drawbacks, not the least of them being security.

Some of those risks are such things as identity management. Most cloud services rely on simple password authentication and authorisation occurs on an application by application basis. The outcome will inevitably be multiple login experiences with different IDs and passwords. This creates an additional burden for user account management auditing within the organisation.

But even for a web worker this can be a security issue as to the strength of the password and such but especially as to the possible lack of any encryption.

The other issue is that of service reliability and availability. One must keep in mind that a loss of availability might not always be down to the service provider: routing problems, cables being cut, and other unfortunate incidents could all result in the systems being inaccessible.

On the other hand, how do we know that those services will always be available to us. Having had personal experiences with the lack of access to my bookmarks stored online with My Web 2.0 from Yahoo, with the service refusing – for about two month – to actually log me in while all the other services of Yahoo showed me logged in with no problem. The issue resolved itself after that time without explanation from Yahoo or whatever. So, what if that happens with your data, especially if you have not got copies of this data stores elsewhere, whether also online or off line? It could cause you and your business untold damage if you would be unable to get access to your important data stored somewhere in the cloud.

If you use “in the cloud” computing, especially as regards to keeping data there for collaboration and your use when on the move, ensure that you have the same data also in other form and readily available should problems occur with the online system and service.

Like with so many of some of those things, including hand-held PCs, I am still someone who needs to be entirely convinced as to the reliability of those. The same goes for Software as a Service (SaaS), whether provided by Microsoft, Google or whoever else.

While I personally make use of some of the Web 2.0 services online such as Google Calendar, Google Documents, and also, but only as a print out of a small diary planner thing, iScribe, I rather still have my stuff off line as well.

Data protection laws could be another minefield when it comes to “in the cloud computing”. If you are a company with globally dispersed offices collating customer information from each of your regions of operation then sharing it across your business from a Cloud service based in America, which data protection laws apply?

And there is more that one could and probably should discuss at length. Being aware of the risks is always good because it means one can plan contingency. In the case of Cloud computing the business sees the opportunity and that really makes it all worthwhile because, if we like it or not, this is where we are all going in the end. Personally I hope not but...

One of those opportunities is scalability and the way that services can scale up or down depending on requirements. This means that, in other words, you only, theoretically, pay for the processing time and disk space that you need at any given time, if you are not even using a free service. While the latter may work for the “lone wold” web worker it may not be (legally) possible for an enterprise of any size.

Just about anything can be offered as a cloud-based service.

Cloud Computing is more than just SaaS in that everything as a service (XaaS) would be a more appropriate way to describe it by now.

The opportunities for collaboration are the most interesting as described on the CloudSecurity blog where it states: Forward thinking companies use collaboration technologies to melt away the physical distance between disparate offices, remote workers and suppliers.

But, for all the benefits that “In the Cloud Computing” may bring us, especially in the way of working from home and such like, the question that needs addressing, more than anything, I should guess, is how to manage the risks.

While “in the cloud computing” also reduces the environmental footprint of the company and the individual workers, as they may not have to commute to the office in the case of those working for corporations – either not at all every, so to speak, or just say one day or two a week – or if they are lone road warriors of the web worker kind that they can work also from anywhere where there is a PC (not even needing to lug about a laptop) the security aspect remains of the data that is stored in the cloud. Then there is the accessibility aspect as to what happens when the service goes down. Having experienced this latter aspect personally I am, while I do use some online services of the “in the cloud” department I do not want to rely on it solely.

How many of us who use one or the other aspect of the “in the cloud computing” have not experienced some breakdown or the other of the services that we use, if only for a short while. I am sure most of us have, especially with regards to web based email services as well, and are not all of them services, theoretically, web based for most of them are accessible as Webmail as well. I have had problems with Hotmail, with Yahoo, and others. Fingers crossed, so far, Gmail has been doing well, though I access it primarily with an email client on the PC.

In my opinion, but then I do stress that that is my opinion as a user, “in the cloud computing” still has a way to go, especially as to security and reliability. Its time for proper use may come but, personally, I rather would like to remain on terra firma with my stuff – at least as a duplicate – on a hard disk.

© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
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Who exactly does own the documents you store online?

Storing documents, etc. in the “cloud”... My first and immediate advice... don't

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

With online office applications improving in quality all the time, they are quickly becoming the tools of choice for web workers.

Between the ability to access your documents from anywhere via a web-enabled PC or laptop, the easy sharing, and the automatic backups, and all that more and more people who are using these services.

But in this rush to go online, we all sometimes fail to understand exactly what we are getting for free there in the cloud. If you use these services for more business purposes, it is worth a look at their Terms of Service.

Let us therefore look at the terms for three of the major alternatives in the online document space – Google Docs, Zoho, and Adobe’s new Acrobat.com service. What I found might give you some pause for thought – especially if you tend towards the cautious and/or paranoid end of the business user spectrum.

In order to find the terms for Google Docs, you need to first go to the “Help Center”, and then follow three separate links to the privacy policy, terms of service, and additional terms. Here are a few excerpts – and may be here is the right place to insert the disclaimer that says, “I am not a lawyer”. Therefore, for full details, you do best to read the originals themselves and – ideally – discuss them with your own attorney ot paralegal.

As far as Google is concerned while you retain copyright, “you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through the Service for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its Privacy Policy.”

Oh lovely... so they can use anything you and I store online in any way that they like. I think so NOT!

Also, Google can discontinue the service at any time with no notice, and you may lose your files with no notice.

Furthermore, Google retains the right to filter or remove content, can put ads wherever they want, with no notice to you.

Also, you may like to note that deleted documents may remain on Google’s servers for up to three weeks.

Zoho’s Terms of Service and privacy policy are linked directly from their home page. If you read them, you’ll find:

“Unless specifically permitted by you, your use of the Services does not grant AdventNet the license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish or distribute the content created by you or stored in your Account for AdventNet’s commercial, marketing or any similar purpose.”

While this sounds already better than the previous ones, below a couple of more, namely that Zoho can block or remove content that infringes copyright or violates laws.

Zoho can also terminate your account at any time for any reason and here files may remain on their servers after deletion for an unspecified length of time.

So, are you still considering to store your documents in the cloud?

Acrobat.com, like Zoho, has its services agreement and privacy policy linked from their home page. On the minor annoyances side, the terms are only available as a PDF, not online as with other services. So, you have to download them first in order to read them, or have Adobe Reader open them in the browser.

Here are some ideas as to what the TOS and other policies contain:

Adobe can discontinue providing the service at any time, with no notice.

According to the information you retain ownership of your files, but “By maintaining your Content on the Services, you grant to Adobe a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free and fully paid license under all intellectual property rights to copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, and reformat your Content solely to deliver the Services to you.”

Sorry, do I understand rightly that the majority of them, that is to say here in this case two out of three, seem to take upon themselves the right that they own, theoretically, access to my documents that I may store on their services and the right to, while I “retain the copyright” they can use the material in any way that they choose. Duh?

And, Adobe may read your content for legal or technical reasons.

So what’s it all mean? Reading over all three agreements, it’s very clear that Google and Adobe have more lawyers hanging around than does AdventNet (Zoho’s corporate name). - and, like lawyers everywhere, they’ve gotten their fingers into the pie. Of the three services, Google has perhaps the most intrusive agreement, thanks to their explicitly reserving the right to serve ads anywhere. As far as ownership goes, you should be OK with any of these services; although Google and Adobe claim licenses, the full terms make it clear that these license are limited to actually providing you the service you’re using.

One thing that’s clearly missing is any sort of backup guarantee. While you may feel more secure storing your documents on Google’s or Zoho’s or Adobe’s servers than your own, that security is not something that you’re promised. Any of the three can lose your documents or terminate your ability to get to them at any time for pretty much any reason, and you’re out of luck. So if you do put important things online - back them up somewhere else.

Therefore, don't rely on this kind of storage. Do your own backup and store your data offline on internal and external hard drives, CDs, etc.

As I have previously said in my article "Cloud Computing – Methinks not!" you may, if the services fail, find yourself up the creek without a paddle and I certainly would not rely, ever on this.

Also, none of these services guarantee you privacy nor the integrity of your documents. While some, a great number in fact, of Web 2.0 services and such are great for all of us to use and I love the iScrybe service and Google Calendar and I also have a Google Mail account, I will not rely on Web 2.0 for storage of my data of any kind.

While this may upset some people and also some of the providers what I am saying here the fact remains that such services are – probably – great when it comes to document sharing and online collaboration but more or less permanent storage in the cloud I would most certainly advise against.

I know that I am still old fashioned and give me the option I probably would still make tape backups even. When it comes to documents and such like, they are all best kept close to you, especially if you value the information and do not, necessarily, want the entire world to know; at least not before you choose to bring out the information into the public domain.

So, in summing up, yet again my advice: by all means use online services, “in the cloud” services, for documents that you want to be able to access remotely or that you want to share with other for purposes of collaborations and such, but do not keep your data there as a means of more or less permanent storage facility. Those service are not ideal for that.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008

Cloud Computing – Methinks not!

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

I know that so-called “in the cloud” computing is becoming increasingly popular especially with the kind of PCs with little if any proper hard disk drive.

Other people who like the idea of “in the cloud” computing are those that are constantly on the move and those that have to do lots of collaboration work on documents and such with others many miles away.

They like the idea if “in the cloud” computing as they can, generally, access their data, their documents, their bookmarks, etc. from any Web-enabled computer from anywhere in the world.

While access to one's documents and other data from any Internet enabled computer from wherever in the world might be a lovely idea, however, and this is why I said “generally” a moment ago, what if the online service goes down for some reason or throws an extended wobbly? Or, if the problem that I am currently having with Yahoo's “My Web 2.0” where I can only get access at times for a short while and then it will not acknowledge my sign in for days on end.

If that happens the user is then “up the creek without a paddle”, as the saying goes, and especially and even more so if there is no other virtual or better still physical location where this data is held. If it is just in that particular cloud that is gone down then “oops!”

My advice would be rather to have but the data that you need to use when on the move and such on removable media, such as USB sticks – and those should, ideally, be encrypted ones – external portable hard drives or such. Do not rely in any way whatsoever on “in the cloud”.

This also applies for stuff when working in fixed locations.

If you want to use one of those new micro PCs or Laptops then have external portable hard drives as storage devices. Attached peripherals, including hard disks and others such as floppy drives and even, when they arrived, CD drives, used to be the norm in the early desktop computers like they were used with the military. Everything was attached on the outside, basically. With today's technology of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0, as well as Firewire, such devices are damned fast.

I know that I am rather contrary here to most people and I know that a lot of “web workers” love the “in the cloud” computing and storage but... I certainly advise against the “in the cloud” approach

While I know that this does set me at odds with a lot of people, if not indeed all of them, of the Web 2.0 field, it is my belief that online data storage and document storage is not a good idea. At least not without holding duplicates, and maybe even triplicates, of the information that is put up into the cloud, stored, back at base.

In addition to this, that is to say, data being inaccessible if the server of the host should have problems or whatever, my other concerns with regards to “in the cloud” computing are what if (1) the provider changes their rules and a free service suddenly is one that needs paying for or (2) what if service gets withdrawn, as most EULAs state that changes can be made without prior notification, or (3) what if the provider simply folds?

I know that those above are a worse-case scenario type of thing but, if you do not hold that data that you have in the cloud elsewhere that you may have lost it all.

The other question that goes with “in the cloud” computing in the security and privacy of your information and document. Many companies that provide online storage facilities, especially that that do so for free, have it in small print on the EULA that states that the data, the documents, the photos, the what-have-you, that you upload to store in their cloud becomes their property and they can share it, display it, etc. Duh? Sorry, not the way I am playing. I value my privacy and that of my data.

Therefore, as far as I am concerned, there maybe, in the future, some “in the cloud” computing for me, but certainly not much, and if I am going for some of those E-PCs then they will have HDD and other stuff attached on the outside. My data stays securely where I can control it, thanks. And where I can get to it when I want to and need to and where I am not reliant on a server that may, or may not, be working at that particular moment.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008