Comments on: Feature: Would You Really Want All Your Data and Applications in “The Cloud”?

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:14:04 +0000

Wouldn’t you be putting your files right into big brothers hands?
Who is controlling this information? Third party companies are legally allowed to sell information to the government it could not legally collect otherwise..

By: Kris

Kris — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:11:58 +0000

I do have to definitely agree with the security aspect of things, Are the files being sent back and forth encrypted? or on https? If not then couldn’t someone just monitor packets and pickup your files? Another technological game of cat and mouse.. However I do believe that internet access and bandwidth are going to be big players in that. I live up in montana and I can tell you that a lot of people in this area are on broadband, but a lot more are on dialup. How could you possibly do any kind of cloud computing when simply loading up google.com can take 45 seconds.. ouch. I think cloud computing is merely a push to force people into paying for a monthly service and convincing them they need it.. because I am sure all of these cloud computing services are not going to be free.. Also how are they going to get this all to work? I have tried zoho, its nice and fancy and all, but I can do the same thing on my computer far faster than on their website, and there is also this transition of files to and from the desktop to server.. Im sure part of cloud computing is to eliminate this, but I just don’t see how this could easily be done short of having a server in your building..

By: Aviv

Aviv — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:05:24 +0000

I agree with you on most of these issues. Although there are both sides to all arguments, my gut tells me that the following “The most important one? Security. Sorry, but my stuff is too important to me to rely on someone else to take care of it.” — will probably be people’s most difficult hurdle to get over.

By: Jeff Lewis

Jeff Lewis — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:54:23 +0000

There are three primary reasons that the “Cloud” will never replace the desktop.

1) The most important one? Security. Sorry, but my stuff is too important to me to rely on someone else to take care of it. I’m not suggesting that the service providers are malicious or incompetent, but they’re businesses – my data isn’t directly important to them, my *business* is. What happens if they go under, or can’t pay the bills, or have a fire or… I’m sure they go to reasonable lengths to protect my files – but I’m not there – I don’t know what they’re doing.

Then there’s the content – not everything I have I want people looking at. I can control this when it’s on my computer – I can’t if someone else is holding it.

It’s nice to think every Cloud service provider is run by security/privacy minded geeks who are passionate about what they do – but the odds are, it’s run by someone who thinks ‘hey – I can make some money slapping some servers together…’

2) The Internet is still not really ubiquitous. We like to think it is – and in some places (typically where the pundits who believe the Cloud is the future live), it is essentially universal – but there are LOTS of places where it isn’t. I visit my father ever other week up in a city in the mountains 450kms from where I live. The route is on a major four lane divided highway and you can get cell phone coverage over most of it… but no 3G, just EDGE, and even that is spotty. Miles of the route has no phone coverage at all.

If I had to rely on a dumb terminal connected to the Internet – I wouldn’t be able to do anything with my laptop for big chunks of that trip.

Most airplanes don’t have Internet service (and it’s not exactly cheap when it’s available)… so scratch that.

3) The cost. If you’re talking about using your laptop tethered to your home cablemodem, this isn’t too bad – although many ISPs have use limits which may impact 100% Internet based services, but if you leave your home – the price starts to climb quickly unless you’re prepared to trawl the cities in search of free WiFi.

Then there’s international travel. I live in Canada, but I go to the States fairly often – and if I use cell Internet, the cost is staggering. It costs over $100 PER MEGABYTE to use cell data that way.

A lot of this mindset comes from a very select group of people who have access to resources most of us don’t have. In time, perhaps these resources really will be available to the average person, but there are places in North America where the only way to get to the Internet is over dial-up modem – yes, really – and the move to Cloud-based computing simple cannot work for them.