Cloud Computing

(Excepts from NPR: National Public Radio)

Do you have a Yahoo e-mail account? Maybe a Gmail account? Do you put up pictures on Flickr? Perhaps you've started keeping your schedule online. If so, then you are using cloud computing — that's what tech companies call it when people work and store information on the Internet.

Because it enables users to access their documents anywhere, cloud computing is very convenient. But it's also creating a whole new set of worries.

Michael 23, learned recently how it can all go wrong. He is pretty typical for someone his age; he stores the most important documents of his life — from family photos to e-mails— online using Gmail and Flickr.

"It's easier in a lot of ways," says Michael. "It's so amazing to have access to so many pictures and everything. Pretty much my life is up there." Until it wasn't: One day, he typed in his password and found that it didn't work.

"I typed the password again and again and again, and I realize something is wrong with the company itself or the server or the e-mail account," he says. Michael couldn't get to his photos or emails. He tried to reach someone at Google, but couldn't. Suddenly, he realized that he had no idea what kinds of rights he had over those e-mails, because he never did read that user agreement when he signed up.

"Nobody reads the user agreements," he says with a laugh. "You don't read that 90-page document."

Michael finally got back into his account. The company said there was some sort of security issue.

Michael isn't alone in his reliance on the cloud; Yahoo alone boasted 261 million active e-mail users in the month of June, and the company's photo sharing site, Flickr, reports that it hosts 2.5 billion photographs.

Increasingly, Internet companies are offering online services that appeal not just to individuals, but also to businesses. 

A small film company in the San Francisco Bay Area can't afford its own offices, so everyone works from home with help from Google's growing number of Internet applications, including online schedules for setting up meetings, shared spreadsheets for budgets, and Google documents for script collaboration.

(Google, the most visible example, took cloud computing a step further last October and directly challenged Microsoft by offering a suite of free word-processing and spreadsheet software Google Docs over a browser.)

These applications allow the employees to work together in real time. But despite the fact the company stored crucial documents — including scripts, video footage and working documents — online, they admit to never having read the user agreement.

Harry Lewis, a computer science professor at Harvard, says what's in those agreements may turn out to be no laughing matter. He warns that most online companies reserve the right to shut users down if they are accused of storing something illegal — whether or not the accusation is justified.

"If it's easier for them to just kill your account than it is to fight back against the complaint ... they might just find it easier to make you go away,"

Part of the problem is that there aren't any rules governing life on the cloud.

"We're used to the idea that if you don't pay your telephone bill, you know they're not going to shut off your phone while you're off on vacation (in USA!). There are laws about how quickly they can shut off your telephone service," he says. "But for your cloud storage service, there are no rules."

Life on the cloud can be wonderful — except when it's not. Recently, 20,000 paying customers of a small cloud storage company called Linkup lost large amounts of information when the cloud company shut down. And recently in the past few weeks:

1. The Google cloud apps go lights-out for 90 minutes.

2. The entire Internet is hacked and shut down in Georgia during the Georgia-Russia showdown.

3. Various people using Google apps get their accounts killed because of bogus accusations that they are spammers.

There are other major problems with "cloud computing".


For instance:

1. where does your data reside, in your country or somewhere else?

2. Whose law applies to your data, your countries or some other?

3. How will, where it is stored, affect your liability for such things as privacy, retention, search, seizure etc?

4. Although most vendors will not share your data in detail with other users, some reserve the right to use your data for other purposes.

5. If for some reason you decide to change vendor, how difficult will it be to get your data back. In several cases the vendors hold the data captive, or the data can be retrieved, however the vendor retains a copy which, as you no longer have a contract with them, they can sell to your competitors.

6. How difficult will it be to enforce contracts?
The contents of the user agreement, that most people don't read, can be surprising. For example, when you put up your Facebook page, you pretty much give the company the right to do whatever they want with the info. According to the user agreement, Facebook can "use, copy, publicly display, publicly perform, reformat, excerpt and distribute it."

(taken from Facebook user agreement)
“Terms of Use     -     Date of Last Revision: June 7, 2008

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS OF USE CAREFULLY AS THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS, REMEDIES AND OBLIGATIONS. THESE INCLUDE VARIOUS LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS, AND A DISPUTE RESOLUTION CLAUSE THAT GOVERNS HOW DISPUTES WILL BE RESOLVED.

Section 7, Paragraph 2

User Content Posted on the Site.
When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.”

Despite potential problems, tech companies see consumers inevitably marching towards cloud computing. Several companies, including Hewlett Packard, are making cheap portable notebook computers with small hard drives that will rely on the cloud for storage. Microsoft, Amazon and Apple now all provide online services and applications The team designing online applications at Google are very enthusiastic about the convenience it provides.

"The data is always where you can find it," he says. "Your laptop crashes, the hard disc gets erased — your data's still fine."

As we turn on our BlackBerrys, iPhones and laptops and expect the convenience of having our information anywhere we are, cloud computing seems unstoppable. Just be sure to read that user agreement before you click the "accept" button.

AND!!
If you use cloud computing make sure:
You own your own documents - keep them on your hard drive, and on a seperate drive or two as well. Use cloud software such as Google Documents as a backup, not your only file storage area.

If you use Google Documents exclusively you are taking a serious risk that one day Google will lock you out of your data. I'm not impugning anything about Google here - they may, indeed, plan to "do no evil". But you are relying on their good grace, and that should make you nervous.

It must be said that Cloud Computing is still in development.  It does seem that it will thrive and continue. It is the future and offers a unique way of computing. Hopefully the vulnerabilities will be addressed.