The Rolling Stones had a big hit in the '60s complaining about invasions of one's private space, "Get Off of My Cloud." Well, it might be time for the song to make a comeback.
"Cloud computing" is a term that means using the Internet — and therefore the servers and storage capabilities of Internet companies — as a repository for your data. I guess "entrusting your personal information to mammoth corporations or shaky start-ups" didn't convey the right mood.
Apple, which likes people to think it invents stuff even when it didn't, gave the cloud a big push when it made its MobileMe data service a key element of the iPhone 3G rollout. Apple proudly proclaimed that MobileMe would allow users to keep the data on their iPhones in sync with that on their personal computers and vice versa. Instead, the system failed miserably at startup, and Apple had to frantically fix a variety of problems to get it on track.
None of this, however, has stopped Microsoft and others from trying to roll out their own versions of a cloud system. Adobe has added Web-based data sharing to Acrobat, Photoshop, and other applications, for example. More and more desktop applications are adding that feature. Media-sharing (You Tube, Flickr, etc.) and social networking (Facebook, MySpace) are entirely based on cloud computing.
The dominant power in this realm, however, is Google. Over and above what Google already knows about you from your searches, it offers services to put your e-mail, documents, contacts, calendars, finances, and a wide range of data online. It also owns YouTube and other sharing services.
So what's wrong with this?
After all, it's convenient. You don't have to worry that you have a key report sitting on your desktop when you need it on your laptop. Or instead of taking a computer with you on a trip, you can simply go to an Internet cafĂ© when needed and access your data. There's even a new class of laptops — "netbooks" — built around cloud computing, with stripped down data storage and processors.
Cloud computing is also inexpensive. Google's widely emulated model is that, in exchange for seeing some advertising when you go to read your e-mail or write a letter, you get the service free rather than having to buy Microsoft Office or another product. Many cloud services let you upgrade to "pro" versions that give you extra features and no advertising for relatively modest fees.
The problem is that when your data is out on the cloud, you no longer control it. It can be hacked. The other day I received a replacement credit card because the company had a security breach. This was the third time something like this has happened to one of my accounts in the last two years.
Now suppose that instead of a single account, the hackers had penetrated a server for Internet-based financial software. All of my finances would have been compromised. If you are a malicious hacker, what target is more attractive to you: one person's computer or a server with millions of people's records? I don't like those odds.
Second, the data is more vulnerable legally. When the Bush administration attempted to probe a variety of Internet information as part of post-9/11 anti-terrorism measures, Americans learned that investigators don't have to meet as high a legal standard to get data from third-party Internet servers as they would if the data lived on your personal computer.
Further data privacy, we discovered, depends heavily on the willingness of the Internet companies to challenge government subpoenas. For the record, Google and Verizon were stand-up guys, challenging the intrusion; Comcast, MSN, and Yahoo gave up the data without a peep.
Third, if you lose your Internet access, your data is literally lost in the clouds. It may not happen often, but as we all know, one of the immutable laws of nature is that things go wrong at exactly the worst moment.
This is not an either-or proposition. There are ways to strike a balance. E-mail lives on servers anyway, so Gmail and the like are only marginally less secure than any other approach. You can also use a file-sharing service to temporarily put files online when you need them. I have been having excellent results with Dropbox — and used it when writing this article.
But for sensitive data ranging from bank records to love letters, my best advice is: Get Off of That Cloud.
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Al Gordon is a Massachusetts-based writer who specializes in technology and consumer electronics. You can read more of his articles at www.algordon.com/techblog.html and e-mail him at eagle@algordon.com.
