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Sarah Perez
Do you trust the cloud?
January 25, 2009
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Julia Pichler, Erhan Erdoğan, Lola Bean (Penguin) and 57 other people liked this
I mean like really, really, really trust it - enough to keep all your stuff there INSTEAD of on your own computer?
- Sarah Perez
No.
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For some things. Not yet for enterprise (GMail aside of course :)
- Charlie Anzman
Not at all.
- Yuval Atzmon
i trust cloudcontacts :-P
- Allen Stern
Only the kind you get to through a magic green pipe.
- Shawn Farner
@Allen LOL, nice plug
- Sarah Perez
no way - i dont even trust my own computer enough to just keep stuff there (learned that one the hard way)
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Perhaps I should ask - what sort of things do you trust to the cloud 100%? Your docs? (Google Docs?) Your photos? (flickr, facebook....?) Your contacts (Gmail?)
- Sarah Perez
I trust my own computer(s) more, my (encrypted) backups are in the cloud. (Smartest place for them, IMO)
- Anthony Citrano
I don't trust my own computer at all. Hard drives fail. Houses burn. Earthquakes shake rattle and roll. Most IT departments are far more organized and careful than I am and cloud providers have some very could IT departments.
- Todd Hoff
no, i don't trust it. I'll use it if there's a known backup. Evernote works as I know there's a backup on 2 of my laptops, as well as the cloud (though I do worry sometimes that some bug will wipe the cloud "version", and then without me knowing will wipe my local "version". gulp)
- William Stewart
In theory, yes. In practice, no, not yet. The biggest problem is the gatekeepers. Most things today aren't really in the cloud so much as they are a copy on a single companies' servers. The day when facebook can delete an account and they can't delete the account assets then maybe we can start thinking about trust.
- Todd McKinney
maybe i would trust the cloud (with a double-backup-cloud-solution maybe?) but i don't trust the internet providers too much.. i mean, whenever my net is dow, i can't have *any* of my files? naah...would be another thing with programs, but not all the files
- Le Big Z
Definitely not, especially w/ external hard drives multiple terabytes large & portable USBs at affordable prices, I don't see the rationale in a pay per month service.
- sofarsoShawn
For processing and storage, not for security.
- ·[▪_▪]·
I guess I don't trust "single point of failure" no matter if it's my HDD or the cloud.
- Sarah Perez
I'm with todd. I would prefer not to trust it all to one building (my house). I also would not prefer to trust it all to the cloud. What will Google kill next? Docs? Pics? Mail? How about what happened to Pownce? I had XDrive years ago, too. When I got a new phone from Sprint, they DELETED my picture mail account, and they failed to restore my pics from backup, so I learned that the cloud can fail me. I'm trying to keep my data on multiple services and home PCs, so that one failure doesn't mean total fail.
- MiniMage
@sofarsoshawn - and where do you store these external drives?
- Anthony Citrano
Sarah - It's not failure I'm concerned about. It's privacy and security in the enterprise. Anything can happen once someone else has the keys ... now or ten years from now.
- Charlie Anzman
I trust the cloud _less_ than I do anything else, especially if Google is somehow involved. But that's more due to privacy concerns than anything else.
- Chris Charabaruk
Yes.
- Mona Nomura
from fftogo
That's a different cloud Mona :)
- Charlie Anzman
We shouldn't have illusions here. All your network communication transits backbone networks that have taps on them. Your ISP has access to all your traffic. Are you sure MS and Apple don't have back doors installed? Are you sure your computer doesn't have a root kit installed that's watching your every key stroke and sending back to a bot master? There was a story recently where some guy was living in these people's attic and they never suspected. That could be a lot of us.
- Todd Hoff
Only for things that I'd have no problem with being public. I won't be storing my passwords on a remote server anytime soon.
- Victor Ganata
Not yet.
- Bob Gannon
Actually, I back everything up so Im not worried about trusting storage - local, external, or cloud.
- Mona Nomura
from fftogo
Eventually the true cloud will be multiple interacting clouds (instead of equating one service or hosting provider with THE cloud). When we get there, I think there will be more trust because the competing interconnected services will keep each other in check. We're a long way from there yet, but I think it will happen.
- mikepk
Ask former Mediamax users if they trust the cloud -- Mediamax (now Nirvanix) managed to lose a great deal of data for its paying customers. I was one of them. Lesson: always make multiple backups of important data, both locally and in the cloud. Redundancy is the watchword.
- Sean McBride
@citrano sorry never saw that ?, they're just small entirely portable hooked up to your main system through a USB. They're about the size of a medium sized novel you can store them anywhere as such. http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog...
- sofarsoShawn
Business idea/opportunity: automatically manage multiple/redundant backups for customers among cloud services.
- Sean McBride
not yet.
- Sebastian Küpers
Trying to.
- Bryan R. Adams
In soviet russia, the cloud trusts you.
- mikepk
Yes, working on getting more of my stuff off my HD and into the cloud
- Rahsheen
worth a read - http://ascii.textfiles.com/archive...
- Jonathan Greene
As much as I trust anything else.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
keep backups on your own drives, always...always! and backup those too
- Adam Singer
@greene the article shares my sentiments re: the cloud, aside from hosting photos I wouldn't store anything in it
- sofarsoShawn
The cloud is to awesome not to trust.
- Kyle
I trust 2 storage clouds a lot more than 1 local hard drive; FAIL is everywhere. to paraphrase: "Trust in Allah, but SYNC your Camel"
- dave mcclure
Genie -- if you are really security savvy, every statement you just made in that public comment should be misleading and false. :)
- Sean McBride
@mikepk I like that idea. For now, though, I wish there were more ways to cross-post data (like photos and files) to free online services. Like something that uploaded to gDocs and SkyDrive, for example. Anyone know of anything like that?
- Sarah Perez
from fftogo
Cloud backups are the only ones I really trust - so I guess I would say yes. What I don't like is "having" to have internet to access them - that is when I get a little panicky.
- Tony
LOLing @genie&sean
- sofarsoShawn
as A backup, yes--for some things; as the ONLY backup? No, and for private data, no, at least not yet.
- Steve Lowe
@Sarah Perez I've been wondering that same thing. A customizable cross poster would be a very handy time saver. I trust the cloud as a copy like the others.
- Boo
Thus far. I haven't got burned really bad yet...though I'm usually cautious to throw all my data into a platform without any weight behind it.
- Brian Bufalo
So far so good with Office Live and Small Business but I also use Outlook Connector with Desktop Office so I can move items if I want, but nice having Outlook always in synch with 3 computers
- MedicalQuack
i trust cloud as much as I trust my own computer : only 50% each ;-)
- Jacopo Gio
Absolutely.
- Håkan Dahlström
@sofarsoshawn my point was, if you're backing up to an external drive that you're keeping on your desk, or even in your house, your data is not protected against a *lot* of possibilities. that's why I back up to "the cloud"...
- Anthony Citrano
No, although I trust Google enough with my e-mail. I wouldn't bank on any service lasting more than a few years before the host/parent either goes bust, or discontinues the service, for what it's worth. (See Google Notebook, I Want Sandy and Pownce)
- Tyson Key
Yeah, actually. The cloud has been more reliable than my hardware often is.
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
I do, but as time marches on I'm starting to feel like it won't matter if I trust the cloud. I'm not going to have any other choice but to use it so, whether or not I trust it will be irrelevant. That's a little frustrating.
- Michael Fidler
I trust it more than my own storage. I guess both would be ideal - the cloud for offsite back-up.
- jjprojects
There's always a nagging feeling of "What happens if Yahoo! gets bought out/goes under, and Flickr vanishes?" or "What if MP3tunes.com gets struck down by the RIAA and takes the supposed "back-ups" of music collections belonging to people with them?"
- Tyson Key
Yep
- Rich
Trust No One. ;) I use the cloud as a useful place to store/access stuff, but I like to have a backup. I'm more reliant on the cloud now I have an iPhone, and more willing to store stuff online with providers who have been around a while, but there's always the danger (in these troubled times ;), that companies disappear and your data goes with them.
- Surferbill
in short - yes. but there are always exceptions. The Google cloud totally because I think they make too much money to be untrustworthy (opposite to most people I am sure).
- Alistair (alpinefolk)
I work representing an online desktop model and this is an often subject around in order to get ppl to try the service. What I often honestly recommend and do it myself is, to everybody think about Cloud Computing as an extra option other than only the traditional ones. It came a long way for all of us and it's been truly useful. Still, I don't think we should treat it as a replacement for all data. I'm sure it's just gonna get more reliable, it's a matter of time.
- May
It's no longer going to be a firewall it's going to be an umbrella :)
- Joe Dawson
Much less today, after 3 days of Google's FeedBurner returning 404 on my feed. And before, with Flickr randomly marking my photostream as unsafe. The cloud is great and is the way to go - but we need data portability, and a solid backup strategy that you can rely on if you care about such things. Companies go away, strategies change, priorities shift and the economy defines new rules - you need to take that into account. What is free today can return 404 tomorrow.
- Yaniv Golan
No. The cloud is inherently untrustworthy because the data flows out of your network and into someone elses. You can of course encrypt that traffic, but you still have the issue of trust of the other side.
- alphaxion
I barely trust hard-drives to retain my data, so no. And that's not even going into the privacy concerns.
- Daniel Bruce
Not me. Murphy lives in the sky.
- Phil Boiarski
I trust the cloud more than my own hardware; companies like Google can afford more redundancy than I can, so I feel safer trusting them.
- Apollo L
Absolutely yes! I trust Flickr, YouTube, Google and Diigo/delicious more than any of my own storage bins let alone DVDs
- Gaby K. Slezák
No, a local backup is always a good idea.It's not the cloud I don't trust, it is the companies I use to get to the internet (e.g., Time Warner Cable).
- LPH™ and his dog P™
I find it hard to trust what is free - for example diigo (which I like a lot) keeps a cached local copy of a page, but it doesnt do it of all pages, and it doesnt keep them - so a site that has disappeared might not have a local copy. No guarantees, no SLA - so I cant trust. Same thing with google - they can lose or remove data or services anytime, and youtube removes things as routine.
- Iphigenie
I trust the cloud enough in terms of privacy concerns. The key is to deal with reputable companies. That all said I keep copies of everything I use on the cloud on a local backup.
- Rob Cairns
I use it to build redundancy into my backup system. I back up locally and to the cloud.
- Dave Gambrill
I use S3 for backup and I have additional copies on google docs. i don't use google docs for my main document manipulation.
- Jason Shultz
from twhirl
The 3-backup set method/regime: 1. external hard drive (local) 2. online backup service 1 (automatic) 3. online backup service 2 (automatic)
- Sean McBride
@sean I'd recommend 1. external HDD on site. 2. a couple of external HDD's/Tape offsite in a secure storage swapped at the end of every week 3. online backup. The most important thing that people totally ignore is data ownership - make sure you have access to your data. RAID array external caddies are cheap enough now that you shouldn't rely on the cloud as your main active storage or backup. And for those who don't trust their own HDDs, why would you trust another company?
- alphaxion
Online backup companies like Carbonite, Mozy and Amazon S3 are entirely focused on backup -- I trust them more than I trust myself, especially if I distribute the risk of data loss among at least two of them. I doubt that two of these companies would mess up simultaneously. The best part: set and forget, and restore to any computer anywhere.
- Sean McBride
I'd still put preference on data you can physically get your hands onto - people totally under estimate the worth of data ownership until the fit hits the shan. Personally, I keep all my data on constantly rotating groups of HDD's - as in I'll buy a bunch of hdd's and copy the data over to them. It means I have a copy of the old data and an ever increasing pool of HDD's to recover from or put to use elsewhere in my home network.
- alphaxion
I Love the Cloud...just use trusted sources who aren't going to disappear anytime soon. And follow the same Backup rules you would on any computer.
- ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift
alphaxion -- a key issue for individuals (as opposed to companies and organizations) is that they are too lazy to maintain a consistent backup plan. If your backups are being made automatically in the background in real time, without any effort on your part, to at least two reliable online backup services, you are more likely to be able to retrieve your data when trouble strikes.
- Sean McBride
Only if it's Google's cloud.
- Jordi Soler
I do "trust" the cloud. Keeping in mind I multiple back-up my data on separate HDD's in different locations. At work, we go the route of a 2 week back-up rotation.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
Only if it's not a rain cloud. /me ducks ;)
- Tyson Key
I think the notion of Trust can be viewed along 2 different angles: 1/ RELIABILITY (not to lose my data, enough up-time), 2/ PRIVACY (my data not accessible by anyone in transit or on server, even system administrator). On RELIABILITY, getting there although for critical data, I would still have a backup somewhere else. On PRIVACY, would say no. What guarantee do cloud providers offer on sole accessibility to the data by the data owner? And how for data in transit? Unclear at best.
- Florent Buiron
@citrano yeah I was later thinking about ie "acts of God" so to speak, seriously, and I agree, w/ those in mind the cloud becomes more agreeable
- sofarsoShawn