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The Cloud: Convenient Until a Stranger Nukes Your Files
jfruh writes "Thanks to a plethora of cloud storage accounts, Dan Tynan thought his days of carrying a thumb drive around with him and worrying about email stripping out his attachments were over. But that was before he discovered that his Box.com account and all the files in it had vanished without a trace. With tech support coming up empty, Tynan had to put on his journalist hat to track down the bizarre sequence of events that ended with his account handed over to another user, who didn't ask for it and didn't even know who Tynan was."
Cloud services take all of your IT problems, and give them to someone else, period. A cloud is not inherently going to fix your problems, or make them worse, but just delegate them to someone who may or may not be able to handle them better.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
FTFA:
* Financial records. I scan all my paychecks and store them (on SkyDrive, not Box.com - fortunately). Our tax form PDFs are all on some cloud storage service, either SkyDrive or Dropbox, as are all our receipts. These would have been in the hands of a total stranger - perfect fodder for identity theft. And if the IRS suddenly decided to audit us? We'd be at their mercy.
* Health records. We scan all our doctors bills and insurance insurance statements and store them in the cloud. So now we're talking about medical identity theft for us and our kids - a situation that's much harder to resolve than standard financial ID theft.
What an idiot.
I can't remember where I first heard this, but the quote is along the lines of:
Whenever you hear a reference to "the cloud", replace it with "someone else's computer" and see how much sense it makes
Once you start doing that it shows you how little control you have over such services and how dependent you are on other parties, especially if you consider them as a panacea to not having to keep your own backups (as the OP seems to have done)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I can sum up exactly why people do it in three words: fast, easy, convenient.
Once you start handling it yourself, all three of those are going to take a hit - and for non-technical people, it can be a pretty heavy hit.
Cloud storage can not be trusted both in terms of privacy and reliability. So follow these steps and you'll be fine:
1) Thou shalt not store unencrypted files in the cloud
2) Thou shalt have backups of files in the cloud
Does that reduce the convenience of the cloud? Yes. Because that is all that online cloud storage can offer - unreliable privacy invading storage.
For the "someone nuked all my files", this is why you should backup your files (or use a Cloud service with integrated backup/history or better use both).
Remember, a proper Backup uses MULTIPLE Backups and not all from the same service provider.
PS: for the "someone saw all by financial records", you should use an encrypted Cloud service where YOU own the encryption key and where the service provider can NOT help you should you ever lose that key.
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In my neighborhood, we have these house fire things that would totally ruin your day. I pay $1600/year in home owners insurance - an extra $10/month to have all my data at some far-flung location keeps me feeling warm and fuzzy. My house could burn down and I'd have all my data back as fast as they can overnight a hard drive (or I could be cheap and download for a few weeks...).
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
And when somebody takes your messenger bag, *poof* there goes your data AND your backup. Happened to my father, he was always backing stuff up. But he put his backup in his laptop bag. His truck was broken into one evening and the laptop bag was stolen. The data on the laptop was worth many multiples of the cost of the laptop. He would have been happier if they left the bag and took the truck! A fairly new truck that was worth less than the data lost.
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
Cue the Nelson "Ha-Ha" picture here...
As a CISSP with 25+ years in the IT industry, I can wholeheartedly advise that anyone who stores their mission-critical data in anyone's "cloud" without local backup copies that are positively under your control, and a "Plan B" ready to access that backup data... then that person is a complete retard (and you should pronounce that as "REE-tard" for the proper level of dramatic emphasis).
Oh, and BTW... if you think your confidential data is secure from anyone else's eye while "encrypted in the cloud", you're doubly retarded.
What I find interesting is that you appear not to have backed up the files elsewhere. While I appreciate the convenience cloud storage offers I also make sure all my files are backed up on some other media so if the cloud goes poof at least I don't lose anything. In your example, you were fortunate it was am administrative error and not box.com simply going out of business overnight. Had that happened, you might never get your files back or even worse someone would have a HD full of you data bought at a bankruptcy auction; which as a second point makes me wonder why you would store such sensitive information as pay checks / tax forms / etc. anywhere nut media you have physical control of to ensure it's security.
On a side note, it is interesting the difference in response you get when you say "I am writing an article..." vs "I need help..."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I agree with your premise that the person you responded to does not know how the service works. It is possible to share files with other customers without giving away personal data. I toyed with SecuriSync and it does similar sharing but requires that the recipient has an account in order to touch "shared" data.
With that out in the open, let me explain why on /. you will receive much venom. You don't have to listen, of course, but as a writer I think you understand the value in knowing your audience.
/. is not like other sites. There are numerous experts in numerous technical fields on this site. It's a stomping ground for an experts to provide opinions in their area of expertise without a "Company Slogan" involved. It also has subjects more political in nature where those same strong opinions abound. While there are a few kids, sock puppets, shills, etc... the majority of the audience here is intelligent. They notice spelling and grammar errors, they recognize common fallacies, and look for details beyond just the articles submitted. Submitters are inspected and critiqued right down to the ads on the page the article appears in. Slashdot is a unique environment, the audience is very detail oriented.
Your "about the author" makes claims that you probably intended as humor, but comes off as being egocentric or arrogant. On a site full of Computer Scientists who have been telling people of the dangers of "The Cloud" since the time it was called "Grid", the article and self description appear to be hypocritical and contradictory. If "Dan Tynan has been writing about Internet privacy for the last 3,247" was a true statement how could they not know about the dangers of "The Cloud"? Has Dan ignored the "experts" during his three thousand years of writing and only knows the corporate spin?
An omission of data is very important to the Slashdot crowd, at least as important as what you submit. Again, I mention that the crows is very detail oriented. You may be encrypting data, but that was not mentioned in the article. If you didn't mention it, it never happened.
I think the article itself backs the claim that experts have been giving for years. "Don't trust Cloud!". That said, the article poses no question as to whether or not that statement is correct. The article does not back the expert opinion in any way. The article appears to be a well articulated rant against box.com. Warranted or not, it's bound to receive lots of venomous comments from people on Slashdot.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.