It's a Trap!

There's a lot of buzz in the Internet about “Cloud Computing.” That's where information is stored on someone else's computers and individuals access that information over the Internet. I've always felt that if its not on your own computer, its not really yours.

When I say it, I'm just some lone Luddite who won't embrace the wave of the future. When people like GNU founder Richard Stallman weigh in against it, thats something else. Stallman is a founder and a leader of the open source software movement. He knows computing. If that's not enough for you, Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, has nasty things to say about it too.

Stallman's argument is that you are putting your data in the hands of a third party and are locked into their proprietary systems. While that's a concern of mine, I'm also concerned that you need a good Internet connection to access your own material.

If your work is stored “in the Cloud,” a computer has to connect to those far away servers. No connection, no work. Not only that, you've no idea what's happening to your data. Would you store all your personal papers in a stranger's house on the other side of the world? Why should you do that with your electronic information? How would you even know if someone was going through your data for their own interests?

If it's not saved where you have physical control of the storage device, you don't really have control at all. Remember possession being 9/10 of the law?

-Sixbears