This week marked the latest twist against the cloud. Twitter said it was going to court to protect tweets against subpoena by the Obama government. The announcement is a good move, for it revealed a troubling aspect of cloud-based data.
Twitter and other data storage providers are not allowed to tell the owners of the data that the subpoena exists. Paul Carr of TechCrunch reports:
The New York Times says over 50,000 “national security letters” are sent each year -- but even more concerning is the fact that often these subpoenas are sealed, preventing the companies from notifying the users they affect.
When the data resides on your computer, then you are alerted, should the government demand to see your data. When it's on the cloud, you are not allowed to be alerted. Twitter is trying to get the courts to at least let the owners of the data be notified.
As I keep harping, this is why the personal computer became so popular: so that we could be in charge of own own data, no longer victims of the foibles and vagaries of the mainframe gatekeepers. Some people apparently wish to return to such a time.
Yeah the cloud in all it's wonderfull glory. For cad on the cloud I think I can safely say the following and none of the proponents can prove me wrong. Exhibited to date in controlled lab like environments to the ohs and ahs of resellers, employees of companies that want to sell this stuff to you and college kids that think it is OK to spend half their employers day twittering away while on the clock.
I can't believe the traction this cloud stuff gets PR wise for a technology that has NEVER been proven to work reliably, securely and as promised over infrastructure the selling party neither owns or controls. There is not one example that any of these proponents can point to of sucessfull, serious, useable and meaningfull cad creation over existing isp structures. The only cutting edge tech here is the scalpel to be applied to your autonomy, right to choose to renew or not with a permanant seat, obligations to protect intellectual property rights and last but not least your wallet as none of these proponents have said one concrete thing about liabilities, costs and file ownership.There are numerous problems these guys sweep under the carpet and never address because they have no answers for them any serious cad user wants to hear.
This cloud stuff is nothing more than companies wanting to end piracy by making you have to check in. It is also about lockin and they want to make you pay with no recourse if you want access to your [well it is your's isn't it????] files and data. There is an old adage that says follow the money when the spoken words don't align with reality. I have asked repeatedly for anyone to present actual proof of this cloud concepts benefits for real cad work and no one has done so. They post stupid comments clarifying the clarification of what the present or past CEO has said but never post any working proof. I wish Dassault would just hurry up with this debacle so we can put this junk behind us when it fails.
Of course I am nothing but a technophobe because I don't want to endorse things that sound cool but have not been proven to work. It took me about half an hour to determine I was going to adopt worthwhile new tech the very first time I saw Synchronous in action and I bought SE just before ST1 was released as a result. We all know the cost in cash and time to leapfrog into a new cad program. But I had proof of use right in front of me and that is certainly of more value for making decisions than vaporware and CPA MBA promises of utility.
Posted by: Dave Ault | Jan 11, 2011 at 09:14 AM