FTC Worries About Consumers, Cloud Data, and Privacy

pcause writes "Ars Techina has a nice article about the FTC's concern that consumers don't understand the implications of storing their data in the cloud. From the article: 'Data is now sitting on servers outside of your control, where it can be accessed far more easily by Google itself, hackers, and law enforcement than it ever could if kept within the device. Once data passes over the network, it gets much easier to access in realtime; once it is stored on a remote server, it gets much easier to access at any time. And those are just the phone settings. Google also has access to search history data, anything stored in Google Docs or Spreadsheets, complete schedules stored in Google Calendar, and recent Maps searches. Combine them all, and companies like Google become one-stop shops for authorities looking for personal information.' Do you think the average consumer even has a clue about this issue?"

Comments

They can know about you, do you know about them?

[LostCluster]

A hard drive in your house is just as accessible as data in the cloud, they just need a warrant. However, they have a hard time hiding the fact they took your computer, it's somewhat questionable whether you can detect they got a wiretap, and outright impossible to tell what they copied out of a cloud... so the net change is that you'll have a harder time telling you've been snooped on, but that won't make it any easier to do the snooping. If you have info, they can make you turn it over whether you want to or not. What's at stake here is whether you know.

We'll be right back after this from the cloud.

[LostCluster]

Most cloud services these days are funded by companies who have ad interests too. Google has the web's largest ad network, Amazon loves to sell things, Microsoft has an ad platform too. Will what you post on MySpace suddenly influence which ad you see when you're watching Fox? Should it?

No.

[Rossman]

"Do you think the average consumer even has a clue about this issue?" No. And they don't care, and can't be made to care.

Re:No.

[causality]

"Do you think the average consumer even has a clue about this issue?" No. And they don't care, and can't be made to care.

... until something happens to them, personally. They just don't believe in prevention, that's all.

I was just thinking about this today

[t0qer]

My friend that works as google gave me a droid G3 phone for christmas. I guess they all got the nexus this year so he was giving me last years present. It doesn't have a SIM card in it, and I don't have it activated on a cell network. I don't really have any intentions on doing so either.

I let my 4 year old daughter play with it. There's a coloring book application called Zebra Paint. Today though I hear the phone talking.

"Hello? Heloo? Emergency 911"

I guess even without a phone plan, you can still use these things for 911?

I politely told the 911 operator what happened. He told me to be careful letting my girl play with it and that was that.

Scary thing though, this thing has GPS. If someone really wanted to track me down they could. Even without a cell phone plan or sim card in the device.

Re:I was just thinking about this today

[Shadow-isoHunt]

No, they cannot. GPS is one way, receiving timestamps via radio transmitted via multiple transmitters, then it does some fun maths involving the speed of light, and relativity. It requires the cellular link to transmit it's location to 911 via E911 services, but with the default firmware of your phone they can't remotely turn this on directly as it's not part of the E911 functionality. In order for them to turn it on remotely, they need to push a firmware patch to the handset which disables any GPS icon indications, and enables the vendor-specific command set. On top of that they have to figure out which handset is yours, which is going to be hard without an associated account with a valid GSM provider in your area. However, if they had previous knowledge of your IMEI/ESN, they could use that to locate you as IMEI/ESNs are globally unique to each GSM handset.

Also, the GPS is overkill since they can passively monitor your location via triangulation of your cellular link. This is the most likely method of monitoring, as it won't kill your battery life(tipping you off), it's passive requiring no interaction with the handset, it doesn't require the GPS chip to initialize and possibly download the GPS ephemeris if it's a cold start(which will take 40s minimum due to the 50bits/s).

Also, they could theoretically do it without a warrant if they used their _own_ equipment and knew your CDMA code - anyone can listen in to any radio transmission in the US, though decrypting a GSM/CDMA signal may be illegal. No decryption is necessary though, as long as they know your timeslot(GSM's tdm)/code(cdma).

Re:They can know about you, do you know about them

[Lunix Nutcase]

Especially when they don't have to worry about any backlash from their customers as the government will just give them immunity from any suits after the fact.

Would somebody think of the future of our data?

[LostCluster]

All hard drives will fail eventually. Flash memory drives are starting to outlast them, but those will fail someday too. CD/DVDs age poorly. Nothing is safe in your house anyway.

So, a cloud with a big RAID where dead drives are replaced with no loss in a nice safe datacenter sounds like a nice option. The problem with that is that clouds are run by companies, and no company lasts forever either. Look at what happened to drive.com.... they were bought by AOL, and then thrown out. Users were given a couple of months to retrieve their data, after which everything was deleted.

Is there any way to write data and then 10 years later get that same data back?

Re:Would somebody think of the future of our data?

[Brian Gordon]

Is there any way to write data and then 10 years later get that same data back?

/me glances over at the bookshelf.

Yep, still there.

Re:Would somebody think of the future of our data?

[drinkypoo]

The problem with that is that clouds are run by companies, and no company lasts forever either.

That is not even remotely the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that clouds are run by corporations, and corporations last forever. Someone else can actually win the right of stewardship over your data as part of a bankruptcy settlement.

Is there any way to write data and then 10 years later get that same data back?

Sure, it's called DVDs from Verbatim, stored in a cool dark place. If you mean "on the internet" then the answer is to get web hosting, and move data from host to host as necessary (e.g. when they go out of business.) But of course, you've got to have some excellent encryption. Luckily that will cost you $0.

use encryption

[timmarhy]

strong encryption means they can't access it no matter where the data is. why are we even talking about this?

Re:use encryption

[MichaelSmith]

They really can't ya know.. just remember these three words: "I don't recall". End of story.

Not in the UK.

A public well is easily poisoned

[HangingChad]

so the net change is that you'll have a harder time telling you've been snooped on

It's also easier to hide things you don't want to be seen. GMail can turn over your emails, but if they're encrypted, even with something simple, it will be harder to make it useful. How many secret messages I have hidden in the pictures I email around or post online? Who has the resources to check every one?

Searches can be masked using TOR and private browsing. Again, not bullet proof, but it doesn't have to be. Just enough to poison the data and make it unreliable. Go buy a pre-paid phone with cash and take the battery out of your regular cell phone at random intervals. You're not trying to create a smoke screen, just sow doubt.

That's if you're worried about it.

Law enforcement may think search data and social media information is some kind of lucky charm, but it's pretty easy to spoil that data, leave false trails and really easy to hide things. If they gain confidence catching stupid people, all the better for those with a little clue.

Re:They can know about you, do you know about them

[truthsearch]

A lot less people have (legal) access to my house than Google's servers. Maybe you live in a commune, but I don't!

What about private companies?

[bezenek]

Side note: The article should have mentioned gmail.

Companies change. Look at Sun Microsystems. Suppose Google ends up needing money. What is going to stop them from allowing me / your mother in law / the king of Sweden from paying to dig through all of the data they have related to you? This might not be done directly through Google, but through a "nice, responsible company" which has paid for access to Google's data. If Google makes the data available to other companies, who knows what those entities might do with it?

We need legislation and a way to verify compliance!

Of course, it would be good if the legislation also protected our data from the Department of Homeland Security, but I do not expect lawmakers to be able to do the right thing there anytime soon.

-Todd

I'm starting to feel old.

[starbugs]

With our lives stored on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. does today's younger generation even appreciate/want privacy?

Everyone knows who your friends are, what movies you like, that your cereal this morning looked like a smiley-face until your dog knocked it over.

Is our view of privacy outdated?

Re:I'm starting to feel old.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm old too.

Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End is the only case I've ever seen made for the "new" notion of privacy. Sounds like a pretty cool world in which to live, but I'm not convinced the real post-privacy world will end up anywhere near as cool.

Google's domination makes this much worse.

[doug20r]

Google reserves their right to suspend services for any reason in most of their terms and they do exercise this right by suspending people for life from the use of their services. Becoming dependant on Google's services, or being dependant on a market they dominate, leads to a large penalty and damage when services are suspended. Google will suspend services based on their suspicion alone, and clearly use data collected to make decisions. Their investigations are held in secret, based on secret information, giving the victim no chance to defend it, and this is not fair treatment. It has become so bad that employers are asking job applicants if they have ever been suspended from Google services to avoid the risk that Google will suspend the employers services. Clearly something needs to be done, but what can they really do?

Re:Google's domination makes this much worse.

[Wovel]

I would loved to see some documented sources on this. What google service were you suspended from? The only two services I am aware of them ever suspending anyone from are Adsense and Adwords and they usually have pretty good reasons. I suppose if you were using their mail servers to pump out spam they might shutdown your gmail account.

No.

[JustShootMe]

The average consumer cares about nothing more than having their immediate wants gratified. Notice I didn't say *needs*. And they are not willing to put in the effort to understand the consequences of their actions, either due to unintentional or willful ignorance.

This is not every consumer, but the average one.

There is no other possible way that I can explain American Idol. ;)

Cloud data already used against me...

[TrisexualPuppy]

...in an alimony suit with a woman that I'd never met. The case was quickly dismissed, but the attorney did some dirty subpoenas and essentially tore my dignity to shreds in front of several people. It's reaaaalllly funny to people who look at your search history, your emails, and your CC purchases with no context and absolutely no justification.

I USE ANONOMYZING PROXIES NOW.

Re:Cloud data already used against me...

[mwvdlee]

I assume the attorney lost his bar?
If your story is true, there is just no way that any attorney could survive this.

Two rules

[Jenming]

Backup your important data.
Encrypt your sensitive data.

These two steps are as important and effective with the cloud as they are with any other form of storage.

Re:Two rules

[mlts]

I would add some more rules onto that after backups and encryption because cloud computing also covers networking, communications, and even virtual machines:

1: Don't create VM instances with sensitive data on machines you don't control. Yes, cloud functionality is awesome because you can create a VM you can ssh or RDP in that has a lot of CPU cycles. However, said VM is sitting on someone else's hardware, and has the possibility be shut down and imaged at any time, and the data given away. Even if one enables full disk encryption, the cloud computing provider has full access to the VM's RAM.

2: Use gpg or PGP, and consider a keysigning party or two [1]. gpg has the advantage of being able to be used as part of a MUA as an add-on, or used completely separate as a manual decryption mechanism. To a lesser extent S/MIME is good too, but it requires a dedicated MUA, and only Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices support it. Tell people to send confidential information encrypted. This way, should the mail spool get compromised, the blackhats won't be able to get any further than headers.

3: Offsite backup services like Mozy or others have the ability for the client to encrypt with a keyfile. For me, this is "good enough". For others with REALLY sensitive stuff, this is not acceptable at all, because one is letting someone else "pack your parachute" for you, with their encryption standard. Know your security needs. For me, this is an acceptable risk. If you are leery of this, put Mozy in a VM and share the directory with the TrueCrypt volume [2] that has the data you want backed up. This way, Mozy only sees the encrypted volume, no matter what it did inside the virtual machine.

4: If you use offsite storage, periodically log on to check your files still exist. I personally recommend gpg signing all files before you upload them just in case of corruption (or just sign/encrypt.) Don't forget to keep your gpg keys in a safe place [3].

5: Always remember if backing up to a cloud provider, cloud storage requires a good network connection. Backups are easy, but if you have a ton of data to recover, a restore may be a headache, or may require asking the cloud provider for media to be shipped via FedEx. Make sure to do backups to a local drive too. With utilities like Time Machine for the Mac, Acronis TrueImage or Retrospect for Windows, or bru for UNIX, this is an absolute no brainer to do.

[1]: I've made sure people's PGP/gpg keys were from whom they were by a number of means. If you can't do a keysigning party, sometimes you can ask the other person and set up a mutual passphrase where they can send you their public key, and you can send them your key. This way, the passphrase is only used for that exchange, and both parties can sign off on the keys as trusted.

[2]: On a Mac, you can get decent security through using the Disk Utility, and sparse bundles because the backup program would only have to copy the bands that were changed.

[3]: If you use the commercially licensed version of PGP, one idea is to generate multiple keys on a few smart cards, then have them all be ADKs and revocation agents for the cards. This way, if one card dies, you still have access to your protected stuff, as well can put out a revocation cert for the dead private key. To a lesser extent, you can copy the same keyfile to multiple cards in TrueCrypt, and store your private keys in a protected TrueCrypt volume that is only accessible by the keyfile on the smart cards.

Re:They can know about you, do you know about them

[neorush]

Only a subpoena is needed to get a company to hand over data its called "subpoena duces tecum" basically it orders a person give physical evidence to the ordering court or face punishment. Subpoena's are not the same as warrants, and because they are akin to a testimony they are very easy to have issued, and you do not need to be notified because they are often related to the authorities building a case against you, as opposed to something like a warrant, where YOUR physical property is searched. Read the TOS, a company is within its rights to hand this over to the authorities.

Re:They can know about you, do you know about them

[hallux.sinister]

Ouch!

Actually, even if they have access to the terminal, they may not have access to the data if you have separate logins... of course, I tried something like this with my ex, once; it didn't work out real well. Separate computers turned out to be easier.

Of course, this only works if you're running a real OS. If you use Misro$oft Win/DOS, well, best of luck.

Even if your SO insists on having access to your user account and password, unless she's *NIX savvy you can always bury stuff in /usr/local/bin/whatever_arcane_sounding_subdirectory, make root the owner, and set permissions to rwx------.

If you're really worried, put the data on a separate partition, and use /etc/fstab to keep it from mounting, make an alias from the mount command to a shellscript that quietly wipes that partition, and overwrites it with garbage, unless you mount it with the correct alternate command...

Yeah, guess I'm a little paranoid.

~Hal

If you're worried about your privacy, don't forget to rm -rf /home/[username]/.macromedia everytime you logout.

I doubt it

[Rehnberg]

Really, most people don't realize how much information is IN the cloud. For example, my mom was very surprised to discover that her email redownloaded after she deleted it from her computer.

Re:Don't you want target ads?

[Andorin]

I would rather see ads for products I'm interested in than things I'm not.

I'd rather see no ads at all.