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."

Comments

That cloud word again

[sopssa]

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.

Re:That cloud word again

[ChienAndalu]

I totally agree.

All it takes is to save your document, send it to everybody you want to share it with (or upload it onto RapidShare). Then all you have to do is wait for the ones that have the same version of MS Office to send their modified version of the document, which you open and figure out what changed and then edit your local file, while the ones with another version of MS Office simply use the PC of their dad and send you their edits which don't reflect the current state of the document so you send them the most recent version and explain that you do not have to use a premium account on rapidshare and please check your spam folder because I have definitely sent the mail but forgot the attachment let me send it again maybe the virus filter ate it then zip it with a password did and check if you send Tom the latest version and remember he is using OpenOffice .

Re:That cloud word again

[cbreaker]

This is the same reason I never ran Google Desktop. Google Desktop saves indexes on their servers. I want a level of privacy.

There's no, none, nada guarantee that your data is safe or secure when using ANY online system. Just look at what happened with the Sidekicks recently. Who would have ever thought that could ever happen? They had backups, they had RAID, they had redundant servers. But, shit happens, and it did, and it CAN happen to Google.

Plus, now you've got all this censorship bullshit. Well, it's not Censorship mostly, it's "protecting copyright." At all costs. It could easily disintegrate into real full-blown censorship, too.

These services will be popular and I'll probably even use them eventually, but only for documents and files that I don't care if people get their hands on, and that I don't care if I lose. For everything else, it's backups as usual.

There's services such as Carbonite and others that provide a way to back up your system in a mostly secure way. From what I understand, with Carbonite, everything is encrypted on their servers, and only your password will decrypt the files, even through the Web interface. This seems acceptable to me, and their servers aren't crawling through my documents making sure there's nothing copyright in there.

Re:That cloud word again

[mea37]

How you access your software is a distinct issue from software interoperability.

You think in the future of the Cloud there will only be one word processor? Not if the Cloud were to take off as the platform of the future there wouldn't. Look at the direction we're already heading. Someone complains about the lack of control in the Cloud, people say "use a pay service whose terms you like better".

Well, do you think there's just going to be one pay service? Or that it will give you access to everything for one flat rate? Maybe that will be the near-future model, while people are still getting their footing in this allegedly-new world.

If there's money to be made, the big players will each have a Cloud. They'll each support some set of software; why would you assume that it would all be the same, or even interoperable?

Sure, as long as you're using software that's part of a "free" service, anyone else can jump in and use the same software; but that's not the Cloud of the future, because there you have no leverage to control your content. (Sure, in this case Google's only limiting your ability to share the document; surely you don't think that's the only thing they could decide to do? Trust them to never decide to do more if you want; I don't.)

Even within a single cloud, are software companies forever going to give up on charging upgrade fees? do you really think they can't deliver incompatible versions of their software to those who don't pay for the latest and greatest, just because they're delivering it through the Cloud?

A lot of people have their head in the clouds.

Re:That cloud word again

[somersault]

Or, you could continue using google docs, but just keep offline backups of your files, or email the files to yourself, etc. Don't see what all the fuss is about.. anyone who doesn't keep backups of their important files, will either learn to do so the first time they lose data, or.. they're an idiot and are going to have problems on any system, as you point out.

Rule #1

[Carewolf]

Rule #1 of cloud computing: "Do not trust the cloud".

Why is Google even able to review the content? Content should be encrypted.

Re:Rule #1

[jitterman]

... google isn't minding its own goddamn business, it doesn't have to review private data shared between individuals, as long as its legal.

To the point, the question isn't "as long as it's legal" but rather, "as long as there is no legal warrant requiring overturn of documents to proper authorities." Google should NOT have any role in deciding whether something is legal in the first place, as that implies they have already reviewed your content and made an independent determination.

Review!?

[vadim_t]

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.

Re:Review!?

[vadim_t]

This part is certainly a big, big concern. I can understand why Google feels the need to do it -- they want to avoid facilitating a paedophile ring or whatever -- but normal users should expect that their data is not ordinarily looked at.

Ah yes, you can justify absolutely anything in the name of fighting child porn. At this rate soon everybody will get a rectal exam at the airport, just in case they have a flash drive in there.

But interestingly enough, the same filtering doesn't apply to email, AFAIK. So I don't get what's the point.

To be fair, you can always save-as HTML/RTF/DOC/etc. and send your boss that.

Yeah, that one is easy. The big deal is when you're really using the extra stuff google docs provides.

For instance, I worked in a situation where several developers located in different countries used google docs to work on the same document. If Google suddenly decides the document can't be shared, that throws a wrench in the works. Not the end of the world for sure, but it could be very annoying and very inconvenient. It will definitely mess up the workflow. All of a sudden, instead of getting work done people have to talk to each other to explain what happened, figure out a new workflow, a way to decide who works on what part, who to mail the changes to and so on.

And since Google can take whatever time it wants with the review, you don't even get an estimation of how long will this situation last. Very not cool.

Re:clouds can be private

[ceoyoyo]

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.

Re:Yet anothjer dirty minded filter

[John Hasler]

The fact that they are using any "filter" at all is a reason never to use the service.

Re:Disruptive !== Good

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.