Comments on: Blowing raspberries at the cloud http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/ Tangled musings on identity, privacy, trust, and suchlike Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:31:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Eve http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/comment-page-1/#comment-211875 Eve Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:09:52 +0000 http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/?p=475#comment-211875 All good points... This weekend my husband and I helped non-techie friends recover email they had accidentally hard-deleted. It turned out buying a speciality recovery program was a viable option both technically and cost-wise, and they got nearly everything back. But they would be hosed in a major disk crash - no backup strategy at all. All good points…

This weekend my husband and I helped non-techie friends recover email they had accidentally hard-deleted. It turned out buying a speciality recovery program was a viable option both technically and cost-wise, and they got nearly everything back. But they would be hosed in a major disk crash – no backup strategy at all.

]]> By: David Holden http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/comment-page-1/#comment-211873 David Holden Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:23:26 +0000 http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/?p=475#comment-211873 re: terms of use, agreed, however like I said, I take care of my security, and the redundancy means I lose nothing if it goes away. I think a lot of the anti-cloud sentiment is over blown, most "ordinary" (not tech) folk I know make no backups of their "local" machine whatsoever, how much data has been silently lost and dogs kicked because of this. With regard to data archiving I think more "average users" will gain from the cloud than will lose from it, however, I'm less sanguine about data privacy. re: terms of use, agreed, however like I said, I take care of my security, and the redundancy means I lose nothing if it goes away.

I think a lot of the anti-cloud sentiment is over blown, most “ordinary” (not tech) folk I know make no backups of their “local” machine whatsoever, how much data has been silently lost and dogs kicked because of this. With regard to data archiving I think more “average users” will gain from the cloud than will lose from it, however, I’m less sanguine about data privacy.

]]> By: Eve http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/comment-page-1/#comment-211863 Eve Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:32:49 +0000 http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/?p=475#comment-211863 I took a look at dropbox some time ago, and it looked very elegant. Just be aware that the <a href="http://www.getdropbox.com/terms" rel="nofollow">terms of use</a> currently state, "You acknowledge and agree that you should not rely on the Site, Content, Files and Services for any reason" -- and if they made promises beyond that, you probably shouldn't trust those promises. :-) (Again, I'm not picking on any one service, just pointing out the reality...) I took a look at dropbox some time ago, and it looked very elegant. Just be aware that the terms of use currently state, “You acknowledge and agree that you should not rely on the Site, Content, Files and Services for any reason” — and if they made promises beyond that, you probably shouldn’t trust those promises. :-)

(Again, I’m not picking on any one service, just pointing out the reality…)

]]> By: David Holden http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/comment-page-1/#comment-211851 David Holden Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:24:27 +0000 http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/?p=475#comment-211851 I make quite a lot of use of dropbox (www.getdropbox.com) - a sync and share solution which I think has S3 as its backend. Although they highlight their security, I take the added precaution of storing data there inside a truecrypt drive (www.truecrypt.org). Since I have three computers linked to this sync and share services it effectively means I get three copies of this cloud data. I make quite a lot of use of dropbox (www.getdropbox.com) – a sync and share solution which I think has S3 as its backend.

Although they highlight their security, I take the added precaution of storing data there inside a truecrypt drive (www.truecrypt.org).

Since I have three computers linked to this sync and share services it effectively means I get three copies of this cloud data.

]]> By: Eve http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/comment-page-1/#comment-211780 Eve Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:28:32 +0000 http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/?p=475#comment-211780 Rita-- If you look at Jason's solution (shared in his comment thread), it looks like you're definitely asking the right question! The answer can be found in the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. John-- I've had people in big IT shops tell me that SLAs are kind of hope-for-the-best anyway for this reason. And if you sue them, you might have a "waiter spitting in the soup" problem thereafter as your relationship with them deteriorates. Rita– If you look at Jason’s solution (shared in his comment thread), it looks like you’re definitely asking the right question! The answer can be found in the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

John– I’ve had people in big IT shops tell me that SLAs are kind of hope-for-the-best anyway for this reason. And if you sue them, you might have a “waiter spitting in the soup” problem thereafter as your relationship with them deteriorates.

]]> By: John Cowan http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/comment-page-1/#comment-211771 John Cowan Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:33:58 +0000 http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/?p=475#comment-211771 It is nuts to count on institutions that have no commercial relationship with you, but then it's nuts to count on your suppliers (you may be able to sue, but they can't get your data back once they've lost it) or even yourself (the burden of my comment at Jason Scott's post). It is nuts to count on institutions that have no commercial relationship with you, but then it’s nuts to count on your suppliers (you may be able to sue, but they can’t get your data back once they’ve lost it) or even yourself (the burden of my comment at Jason Scott’s post).

]]> By: Rita http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/2009/01/26/blowing-raspberries-at-the-cloud/comment-page-1/#comment-211765 Rita Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:04:31 +0000 http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/?p=475#comment-211765 Eve, Thank you for covering this topic and providing important links. One link suggested we take personal responsibility for back up of our out data. My policy has always been to have a partition on my hard drive for back up, a second mirror drive and a "500 Gig notebook" drive. I recently discovered my notebook has a failure rate of about 75% after 2-3 years AND there is no way to repair it or retrieve the data. Research says this is not uncommon for external drives. What's a Luddite to do??? Lost in cyberspace.... Eve, Thank you for covering this topic and providing important links. One link suggested we take personal responsibility for back up of our out data.

My policy has always been to have a partition on my hard drive for back up, a second mirror drive and a “500 Gig notebook” drive. I recently discovered my notebook has a failure rate of about 75% after 2-3 years AND there is no way to repair it or retrieve the data. Research says this is not uncommon for external drives. What’s a Luddite to do???

Lost in cyberspace….

]]>