Google, Sony, NASA, RSA secureID and Fox broadcasting; what do these all have in common? Well it’s not actually something great, but rather the fact that they have all been hacked in the last 18 months. It’s actually believed that 90% of companies have been hacked.
So you may want to know how I can start a blog about cloud computing with looking at the fact that so many companies have been hacked, well I am not just about the positive here, but I am also a bit of a conspiracy theorist; There are some massive holes in the cloud computing thing for me.
First, what Cloud computing is, in its simplest form, is the ability to save documents on a computer somewhere else in the world that you can access via a network or the internet. This is not limited to data but you can also use another computers’ applications in order to edit the documents that you have stored on that computer. Software as a service (SaaS) refers to this technique of using software not installed on your personal PC.
At present most computer users use the cloud to store data in some form or another, from drop box to one of the fastest growing cloud servers…Google. With the growing popularity of android devices which have increased by more than 600% from last year, Google is growing continually in popularity. So if you are like me and are an android device user, you will probably at some point put your personal information in the cloud – we’re getting to a place where we have very little option but to.
I guess that the most difficult thing to get around is the fact that cloud computing makes sense: have all your data with you at all times (well at least as long as you have an internet connection) no matter how bit your HDD is. My concern comes from the point that we are already monitored to the hilt: if you type an email in Google and say that you have attached something but nothing is attached, it will tell you… but remember they never monitor your emails! Yes that is just a small thing and many will say that the information that they put onto the cloud is actually not really worth anything and although this may be so, it is still an invasion of privacy! And then comes the inevitable hack from someone trying to prove a point…
I guess my final word on cloud computing would go something like this: “although I am not a fan, the logic of it makes full sense so: make sure you choose a service provider who is reputable and doing everything they can to keep up to date with security issues. Oh and of cause, don’t put majorly private documents on the cloud…happy ‘clouding’ ”.
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