Too Paranoid?
I recall a scene from one of R. A. Heinlein's works (In the Moon Is A Harsh Mistress world) where they pass an old Chinese man sitting at his computer terminal with an abacus next to him. The editorial is, "Probably working on his books."
I find that scene delightful and insightful in capturing the essence of human nature. People stick with what they trust and know best, even when there are significantly better tools available. I laughed at the description when I first read it, and I use it to remind myself of human priorities to this day. It helps me understand that not everyone is as embracing of change as I tend to be. It is one of about a dozen pictures that I use daily to help me work with people.
Then I started thinking about "The Cloud". The latest iteration of Mainframe Thinking (tm) where all the data is centrally located and controlled, and all we get for local computing power is the ability to see it on a screen. This time around, it is about the internet, with data available from anywhere (centrally located), and you can get it from any device (your phone/dumb tube.) The first issue is, how often does your internet connection go down? That question is pretty obvious to everyone, and the answer is, Not often. (I have failed to maintain a phone number for my ISP because I can always look it up on the net. Problem is, I only need to call the ISP when the net is down. [Dumb, dumb, dumb...] We also have phone service through the ISP, they have a nasty habit of shutting down the service between 12:00 am and about 3:00 am, which was really bad when my wife was on call during those hours. We had to upgrade to a business service to maintain connectivity through those hours.)
The issue that has just started percolating through my brain is, Do you trust the provider of those Cloud services? Not just that, do you trust the company that buys your current Cloud services provider? If they decide providing service to you is not profitable, will they just shut the service off? (Micro$oft has done that for DRM'd music files.) What are your option for local backup? What format?
The last issue that just hit me, Can you trust your Cloud service provider to not "adjust" your data? Will you need to maintain a local copy of your information just to keep the service provider honest? What happens with discrepancies? If you run your household accounting online, what are the ramifications of it being altered?
That last point sends me past the point of paranoia, but we have the computing horsepower on the net right now to actually sift through public and cloud data looking for things. We likely have the idle computing horsepower to do it. I look at the public pressure on Wikileaks, where private companies declined to continue supporting the site, even on a public service like the internet. What are the enforceable protections of our cloud data? What constitutes proof? How can we know? Are there commercial or governmental agencies that would like access to our data? Would a government alter financials to increase tax loads?
Those are all implications of my mental picture that simply don't occur to me, but are enabled by The Cloud. My paranoia doesn't stretch that far, but I am not even tempted by The Cloud. I see it as a way to try to extract a monthly rent for (maybe) keeping my data. I prefer to host my own data, and be responsible for my own backups. I can access my home systems from the net, in limited ways, that I define. The Cloud hold no temptation for me. I strongly suspect that it is yet another failing attempt to regain the control (and income) that a mainframe system provides. Will people fall for it in this iteration? I doubt it. There is that strain of cussedness in human nature, a sense of independence and exploration. The mini computer severely dinged the mainframe, and the microcomputer caged it. The battle is still going on, but the microcomputer won. Giving people their own computing equipment and storage is still the winning side, and I believe it always will be.
I find that scene delightful and insightful in capturing the essence of human nature. People stick with what they trust and know best, even when there are significantly better tools available. I laughed at the description when I first read it, and I use it to remind myself of human priorities to this day. It helps me understand that not everyone is as embracing of change as I tend to be. It is one of about a dozen pictures that I use daily to help me work with people.
Then I started thinking about "The Cloud". The latest iteration of Mainframe Thinking (tm) where all the data is centrally located and controlled, and all we get for local computing power is the ability to see it on a screen. This time around, it is about the internet, with data available from anywhere (centrally located), and you can get it from any device (your phone/dumb tube.) The first issue is, how often does your internet connection go down? That question is pretty obvious to everyone, and the answer is, Not often. (I have failed to maintain a phone number for my ISP because I can always look it up on the net. Problem is, I only need to call the ISP when the net is down. [Dumb, dumb, dumb...] We also have phone service through the ISP, they have a nasty habit of shutting down the service between 12:00 am and about 3:00 am, which was really bad when my wife was on call during those hours. We had to upgrade to a business service to maintain connectivity through those hours.)
The issue that has just started percolating through my brain is, Do you trust the provider of those Cloud services? Not just that, do you trust the company that buys your current Cloud services provider? If they decide providing service to you is not profitable, will they just shut the service off? (Micro$oft has done that for DRM'd music files.) What are your option for local backup? What format?
The last issue that just hit me, Can you trust your Cloud service provider to not "adjust" your data? Will you need to maintain a local copy of your information just to keep the service provider honest? What happens with discrepancies? If you run your household accounting online, what are the ramifications of it being altered?
That last point sends me past the point of paranoia, but we have the computing horsepower on the net right now to actually sift through public and cloud data looking for things. We likely have the idle computing horsepower to do it. I look at the public pressure on Wikileaks, where private companies declined to continue supporting the site, even on a public service like the internet. What are the enforceable protections of our cloud data? What constitutes proof? How can we know? Are there commercial or governmental agencies that would like access to our data? Would a government alter financials to increase tax loads?
Those are all implications of my mental picture that simply don't occur to me, but are enabled by The Cloud. My paranoia doesn't stretch that far, but I am not even tempted by The Cloud. I see it as a way to try to extract a monthly rent for (maybe) keeping my data. I prefer to host my own data, and be responsible for my own backups. I can access my home systems from the net, in limited ways, that I define. The Cloud hold no temptation for me. I strongly suspect that it is yet another failing attempt to regain the control (and income) that a mainframe system provides. Will people fall for it in this iteration? I doubt it. There is that strain of cussedness in human nature, a sense of independence and exploration. The mini computer severely dinged the mainframe, and the microcomputer caged it. The battle is still going on, but the microcomputer won. Giving people their own computing equipment and storage is still the winning side, and I believe it always will be.