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The Cloud Ate My Homework
theodp writes "Over at CNET, James Urquhart sings the praises of cloud computing, encouraging folks to 'really listen to what is being said, understand how the cloud is being used, and seriously evaluate how this disruptive model will change your projects, your organization, and even your career.' Fair enough. Over at the Google Docs Help Forum, some perplexed cloud computing users spent the month of November unsuccessfully trying to figure out why they've been zinged for inappropriate content. Among the items deemed inappropriate and unshareable include notes on Henry David Thoreau ('the published version of this item cannot be shared until a Google review finds that the content is appropriate'), homework assignments, high school yearbook plans, wishlists, documents containing botanical names for plants, a list of websites for an ecommerce class, and a list of companies that rent motorcycles in Canada. When it comes to support in the cloud, it kind of looks like you might get what you pay for."
This is exactly why I never want to move everything "in the cloud", or in to Internet services for that matter. Locally ran applications are there for a reason and things like this wouldn't happen for example with MS Office or Open Office. You're the one controlling your work, not some algorithms that suddenly decide to mark your work "inappropriate". And you don't have to wait for days for someone to answer to your support ticket with a copy-pasted "things to try" list.
Even if you're going for "cloud" services, get a reliable one that states exactly their backup plans and other things. And for gods sake, put out a few dollars for it if you're excepting any level of support or reliability.
That's exactly why I do any serious work by "offline" means. And I hope I can still keep doing this in the following years (aka: I hope Chrome OS's way of going "everything online" doesn't catch up)
Rule #1 of cloud computing: "Do not trust the cloud".
Why is Google even able to review the content? Content should be encrypted.
Ok, I understand that unencrypted content is never guaranteed to be safe, so don't put anything of value in there. But the general assumption people make is that there's just so much stuff in there and most of it is so uninteresting that nobody will probably bother looking at it, unless it happens to show up in debug traces by chance, or something of the sort.
But, "review" suggests somebody at Google *will* look at that content. Imagine that -- some drone at Google will be looking at your private work you want to share only with select people, or company data, and decide (when they get around it) that you can share it after all.
IMO just the possibility of this happening at all makes the whole thing suspect, and could bite you in the ass right in the worst moment. "Sorry boss, I can't share that report because Google thinks there's porn in it. We'll have to wait until somebody at Google looks at it". I'm sure that would make for an interesting day.
The cloud can kiss my shiny white ass. My data is mine, I own it, I control it, and they can pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
Exactly. If the word "cloud" means anything at all, it means that the server is owned and maintained by someone else. Thus "private cloud" is an oxymoron.
Perspective, chief. Before the Internet nobody but those with lots of money could ever transmit their ideas broadly. Before, say, the 1900's, nobody could, period. Now, sometimes you can, but if you rely on a free service to do it then they might set some restrictions; that doesn't sound like erosion of rights to me so much as it sounds like progress.
Google may provide tools that can enhance the effectiveness you enjoy when you exercise your rights, but that doesn't mean they're "abridging" your rights if they don't provide you with those tools.
Have you committed every resource at your disposal to helping other be heard, even when you disagree with them? Does that mean you're "abridging" their rights? Sure, you have less money than Google so you'd be doing less good than Google can do, but we all do what we can, no? No. Of course not. It's one individual's job not to infringe another's rights, but it's not one individual's job to bolster another's rights.
As for the right to bear arms - where is that listed as inalienable? The only rights I'm aware of having been given that distinction are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I've never seen anything that suggests you should be able to carry a weapon anywhere you want at any time you want.
What makes the space you rent to sleep in any different from any other property you don't own? Do you believe the 2nd ammendment intends that you can bring a weapon into my home whether I want you to or not? (That's actually the kind of behavior that can lose you those inalienable rights.)
No it's not. If I own a building I don't have to let you "express yourself" all over the wall.
Google owns it's servers and software. They let you use them, subject to certain conditions. If you don't like those conditions, don't use them (an approach which I take to a greater or lesser degree).
Censorship is serious. Save the rant for when there's actually some censorship going on otherwise we'll be in a crying wolf situation.
The fact that they are using any "filter" at all is a reason never to use the service.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Yes, and this is indistinguishable from the concept of "a server," which makes the "cloud" part of "private cloud" even more meaningless than usual. As I said.
A technology that ends up dying a risible death, alone and unloved, can, at best, have been touted as a disruptive technology. Actually disruptive technologies have to do some disrupting.
This sort of problem isn't at all new; it's much of why the "personal computer" approach took over computing back in the 1980s.
Before that, and still today in some large organizations, the "mainframe" was the only computer. When the little desktop computers started appearing, the "computer center" people in most companies and other organizations argued against them, mostly on the grounds that the work could be done much cheaper on the mainframe. Buying a lot of single-user machines was illogical from a purely cost-oriented viewpoint. But people kept finding ways to use their funds to buy the new little computers for a very simple reason: The mainframe was in the hands of a bureaucracy that had completely controlled what you could do on it. If you wanted to do something new (like run one of those newfangled "spreadsheet" programs), you had to go begging the DP people for permission. You couldn't install software on the mainframe yourself; the DP people had to install it for you. If they didn't think you needed it, you didn't get it. They usually had no idea what a "spreadsheet" was, so you couldn't get it. You couldn't have a terminal that did real-time interaction with software on the mainframe anyway, so a spreadsheet was sorta unusable on a mainframe.
So people bought the new little machines, not to save money, but so that they could do the things that the people in the computer department wouldn't allow them to do. Eventually the people at the top learned what was happening, and the sensible ones figured out that it was to their benefit to take the side of the workers and allow this to continue. The ones that forbid the use of desktop computers found that their company was slowly being made uncompetitive by the lack of ability to do the sorts of data processing (such as spreadsheets) that their competitors were doing.
The "cloud computing" idea has its merits. But it will always have the same problems that mainframe computers had. It will be under the control of the giant organizations (mostly secretive corporations) that run the cloud. Those organizations will have unfettered access to any data stored on their part of the cloud, and will use your data for their own purposes whenever they see a profit in doing so. If they don't like something you're doing, they will be able to block it. If you want control of your own data for any reason, you will have to keep it and the associated software on hardware that you own and control. If you don't, you'll find your pictures of your kids being used commercially. If your photo collection contains a picture of your kids in the bathtub or otherwise naked, they'll be labelled as "child porn" and deleted or sent to your local police. (Gotta bring in "Think of the children" here. ;-)
It's the way things have always worked, and always will. There are reasons people want privacy, some frivolous and some serious. And there are things that are best done in public settings. For those things, the "cloud" will be a big win for everyone.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I'll use the cloud when the vendors decide on a open data access standard (along with standard data import and export capability) and actually adhere to it. Til then they can keep it. Submitting to vendor lock in is not a very intelligent IT strategy, which means using cloud computing isn't an intelligent IT strategy if it involves development.
Sometimes cheap isn't very cheap at all.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Yes, censorship is censorship, and you're using the word incorrectly.
The guy whose homework was eaten may indeed find the situation very serious and he should certainly think twice about trusting important documents to third parties again, but he was not censored. He is free to distribute his ideas as he wishes, using his own means of communication.
To summarize: there is a problem, but it is not censorship.
``When it comes to support in the cloud, it kind of looks like you might get what you pay for.''
Oh, please. The connection of "you get what you pay for" with support is only used to discredit whatever technology the speaker doesn't happen to like.
There are free products with great support just as there are expensive products with crappy or nonexistent support. The phrase "you get what you pay for" was widely used to discredit open-source software, but it turns out that such software is now actually preferred over commercial software in many instances. And you often get quite a lot of support that you didn't pay for if you browse the fora.
"When it comes to support, you get what you pay for" is a cheap, meaningless slingshot.
There are real disadvantages to cloud computing, but bad support isn't one of them. You get the support that the provider gives you, and that can be great or horrible, regardless of whether they charge for it and regardless of whether or not they provide cloud computing.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
So you are telling us that you felt qualified to give IT advice to a PhD student, yet fail to understand basic design principles as "no single points of failure" ?