Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/03/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Nathan, Good question. There are pictures which are perfectly legal in one jurisdiction and not in others. For example, pictures of political figures such as the Dalai Lama are not welcomed in China and if the cloud happen to store that picture on a server in China, you could be subjected to prosecution if you ever visit China. With most clouds, you have no say in where your data is kept geographically. I am picking on Dalai Lama and China because of the current tussle between Google and China but there certainly are others. Data centres are subjected to national(/EU) laws just like everything else. Also remember you do loose control of the data you store in cloud. There is no guarantee that your request to delete data will be honoured by the cloud. It may just remove your pointer to the data and get around to deleting your data at some later point in time, if ever. Just look at Google search requests, Google keeps your search requests for far longer than what people expect. These search requests we tend to think of as useless bits of data but a company like Google can easily build, and do build, a profile of all its users using these throw away bits of strings. Imagine what it can do with all your data? Just the filenames of the data stored in the Google cloud alone will tell Google lots about who you are. If this doesn't worry you at all, then the cloud is for you. :) As for properly looking after server farms, are you really, really sure about that? Is it in the contract that they will guarantee that a copy of your data is always available to you on demand forever (as long as you pay) without any weasel clauses? Of course there are ways to store data securely on the cloud through strong encryption but how many people will do that when they can't keep their own computer from being turned into a zombie? Cloud storage is useful. Clouds also have limitations and drawbacks. Regards, Spencer On Mar 25, 2010, at 1:35, Nathan Wajsman wrote: > And why should I care where Google keeps my backed up photos? What I care > about much more is the fact that it is a reputable company and that I can > trust them to look after their server farms correctly so that the backup > will be there when I need it. > > My backup solution these days is local, but I am experimenting with Google > Docs for storage only. Right now it is a bit on the expensive side > ($256/year for 1 TB) but we all know what happens to those prices. I am > sure that in a couple of years my backup will be the cloud and my desk > will be much less cluttered.