Forget 'the Cloud'; Computing's Future Is in 'the Fog'

The "cloud" sucked when it was hatched, it still sucks and it will always suck.

It is simply a way to extract more money from consumers for services they don't really need.

The wave of the future present is to put the entire operating system, and storage, off site in the cloud where we have no control and rent it back to us, by the month. No more overpaying once for some lame operating system and getting upgrades as needed. You won't have any choice.

Yes, I'm a dinosaur.

'....hey mighty brontosaurus, don't you have a lesson for us?...'

Soon, I'll be gone, too.

As will we all. In probably far less than 10000 years no one will even remember our names or will be able to attribute anything specific to us. A relatively brief, by cosmological standards, time after that, the seas of earth will boil away and blow out to space. Even if bones have been well preserved up to that point, they will soon be eroded to dust and blown away, with no semblance of our individual identity remaining.

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Its kind of freeing to realize that even if I were to screw it all up horribly, that pretty soon no one would remember.

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BTW, I agree with you about the 'cloud'. It is an abysmal proposal for the end user. I am a little taken aback at how little resistance there is to the enticements of '...here, let us handle it. You can trust us with all your personal private communications and images, all your valuable business information, and all your critical software. Here, just hand it over, that's right...' in light of how large organizations have been flaunting their lack off concern and often open hostility to the rights and welfare of individuals.

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Sometimes I think humans are destined to become much less individuals and far more like a collection of ant colonies...devoid of individuality.

Well, ants cooperate.

On the one hand, they do and, on the other, they don't.

One huge advantage of using a cloud is security. I think we've all learned what a chore it is to keep your systems patched and configure them to properly control access to your data and other resources. Even if you're always on the ball, there is no counter for all the zero-day exploits that exist. Contracting with someone whose job it is to provide proper security (in addition to providing the processing power) takes much of the security burden away, and you can focus on what you do best.

Yes, giving all your data to someone else for safekeeping is a risk. But if you realize that your systems aren't that secure to begin with, keeping it in-house is already effectively giving it away. All anyone needs to get it is a little technology that's easily obtained.

Think of the cloud as a bank for data, just not nearly as mature and not yet as well-regulated as the ones with money in them. You can keep all your data under the mattress, or pay someone to put it in their vault.

(I don't have a stake in any cloud company/service, but I do work computer security issues on a daily basis.)

"...You can keep all your data under the mattress, or pay someone to put it in their vault...."

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I understand the analogy, and you make some good points.

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What I find more interesting though, is how strange our view has become of the industry your analogy referenced as a reliable norm...

'Pay someone to put it in their vault'?

The banking industry has done an impressive job of making that seem reasonable. Banks and bank like institutions have in times past been able to develop robustly under a model of paying people for the privilege of storing and making use of monetary deposits. An open but little utilized secret is that a whole class of these institutions still operates in that same way.

Those institutions are of course credit unions in the US. If you haven't already availed yourself of the advantage of being a member of a credit union instead of a sucker host mark for a bank, you should consider it. If you are in the US or are a US citizen, you almost certainly qualify. You can locate the nearest one here.

I was thinking about how mature the banking industry is compared to computers when I wrote that. In 50 years, there will probably be a lot more regulation controlling commercial data centers. Or, technology will continue to move too fast for government to keep up.

It's in a data center's interest to keep your/our data safe, of course. But the bite of failure to do so might need to be made harder before they get as good at it as a bank is protecting your cash.

Your point about interest prompts an interesting thought: maybe Amazon, Google, etc., should just let you pay for their cloud services by granting them use of your data...?

(I don't use a bank, btw.)

I suspect Google and others already do this in a number of ways. Google isn't footing the bill for gmail, just to have the 'g' at the front of the word.

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The aspects of your analogy comparing the differences in maturity of the two industries was not lost on me. Your point about the possibility of the technology continuing to advance at a pace too fast for regulation/government to keep up is interesting to consider.

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I have mixed feelings about whether or not additional regulation and government involvement in something like secure off site backup or things in the cloud realm really improves safety overall. I know it changes the risks, I'm just not sure those different risks weigh out.

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I think you analogy is useful. It is important to also keep in mind the important differences though. Data and money are very different in important ways. Data is not fungible and whereas with money, insurance can completely offset the risk and make the victim 100% whole by replacing any loss in kind, that type of recourse does not exist for the loss incurred by inadvertently divulging a secret.

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...btw, congrats on not using a bank!

Hey, it could pretty soon be all in the fart--guess whose.

All the great information and positive spin has been generated by the industry. Companies are mostly going the other way with information they wish not to share. The move is to physically remove sensitive information from any remote access. The cloud may be great for storing entertainment information but I don't even use it for that. When you can buy a gig of storage for 5 cents I don't need anyone to store my information for me. I have seen too many cases where 'completely safe' has been lost. Outsourcing data storage and backups has always been risky. I have always trusted persons who work for you over outsoursed persons since they are far more accountable to you.

Keeping your data on an offline device makes the data useless. But, an offline backup makes perfect sense.

The secure data can only be accessed by a private network but no bridge to the internet. Anyone needed access to the secure data has a secure computer as well as the normal one that can go to the outside.

I didn't make the rules I am just reporting it. I am sure most data is stored on a different network.

The cloud doesn't make sense for many applications. But for public-facing data, it certainly does. Lots of (most?) companies that deal with the public don't have or even want the expertise and cost of running their own data center. Better to rent the computers and let those hosts deal with all the hassles.

I think the article at the beginning of the thread is reasonable. But, whenever you add a processor, you've got to think about maintaining and securing it. (Granted, the maintenance for a smart phone is minimal.) Whenever you draw a connection to another processor, you've got to think about securing both ends and the data path itself.

Agreed

The cloud is a solution looking for a problem to solve.

Also anyone that claims that 100% of anything in the future will be done using one and only one method is a narrow minded fool. Look at the buggy whip market.

wait...wait....hold on just a minute. Are you suggesting buggy whips hold meaningfully less than 100% of their market?

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What else are they using to whip buggies these days???