When people entrust everything to the cloud.
But hey, Google is a big company, right? Practically like a government. So nothing could ever go wrong. And when it does, of course they’ll be just eager as little beavers to help one of their 343 million very important customers.
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Working on one of those blog posts that takes a lot of thinking about. So please pardon the apparent lack of productivity.
Rule #1: If you’re not paying for it, you’re not actually the customer.
Anyone who entrusts everything to the cloud (and especially to Google) deserves what he gets. The Cloud is only for unimportant stuff that you don’t care if anyone else (read: the government) sees. And always keep offline backups.
So I might go out on a limb and guess that Tienlon Ho is not a prepper?
If my server goes down – I can immediately take steps to correct the problem. If Google’s server go down – I’m screwed, if that’s the ONLY copy of important files I’ve got.
I never liked that level of risk.
my cloud lives at my home. my spare cloud lives in the Luminoferous Aether
Whomever owns the server(s) that the data resides on, effectively owns and controls said data.
And I’m sure he encrypted all that data he trusted to a company that honors thousands of no-warrant data demand NSLs from the Feds.
Honestly, I’ve never understood the lure of “cloud”* computing and storage. It’s (at best) a huge leap backwards to mainframes and dumb terminals, which we only put up with long enough to develop powerful and inexpensive computers for everyone. I can only assume that the idiots who like this concept are… idiots, never had to punch a VT100**, or have ulterior designs on your data.
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* As opposed to distributed computing, where the loss of a server doesn’t mean the loss of your data. But keep encrypting.
** Yes, I’m showing my age. But let’s get real. I actually started computing with one of these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Teletype_with_papertape_punch_and_reader.jpg/450px-Teletype_with_papertape_punch_and_reader.jpg
Likewise, I LRND 2 MSG UZG STPD ABBVNS L*R, because ASR Teletype keys are harder than a malfunctioning Glock NY trigger.
I’ll just point out a couple of things that jump out at me.
First, if your data doesn’t exist in at least 3 places, it doesn’t exist.
Second, the account was suspended because a file contained account numbers and passwords. No how, you may wonder, would someone know that? Very simple–Google scans your files if you’re using their storage. They scan your emails. The ride heard on your queries. If it goes through their system, it’s recorded, analyzed and used to market to you and market you to others.
While I use Google services, I have no doubt their whole “Do no evil” thing is nothing but marketing bushwa. And there is nothing on any Google service that I give a fried rodent’s posterior about that doesn’t exist in at least two other places.
Saw Oblivion the other day. Not having read anything about it (Wiki entry has spoilers, the whole plot actually), I was suprised that a film with that big of a budget was obviously “borrowing” story ideas from some other classic sci-fi films. Come to find out, it was partly an homage to those films, the creator being more focused on being original in his visuals. Which indeed he was. There were some obvious plot holes, but those were offset by twists that I could not forsee coming. The gunplay was borderline abysmal, but I should finally come to expect that and stop being disappointed.
7/10
Finally getting around to learning more about Loie Fuller. I’m guessing you know about this “museum for the public good, and for the betterment of French art in the far Northwest of America” that she had a hand in? My geography may be off a little, but it seems to be somewhat close to you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryhill_Museum_of_Art