The term "the cloud" is an Orwellian attempt to hide the fact that your personal information is going to be stored on someone else's computer.
398 2016-02-20 by rabbits_dig_deep
Sounds like the term originated with Google. No surprise. Think how different it would sound to say "your photos, texts, emails, calendar, music, porn, location and passwords will be in OUR possession."
73 comments
63 nopozpls 2016-02-20
http://smashinglife.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/there-is-no-cloud.jpg
5 belgarrion 2016-02-20
Came here for this.
30 Kuraito 2016-02-20
That's painfully obvious. Offsite storage is incredibly useful and I think everyone should take that 15 free GB of storage Google Drive offers, just because it's so incredibly useful. But one thing it is NOT, is 'secure'. Do not treat it as such, assume it is just shy of being set to public access. You can be slightly, slightly, more confident if you are paying for corporate level offsite storage with complex legal agreement regarding data security, but in the end, always remember that this data is vulnerable and should be treated as such when you choose what to back up.
4 IPostWithThisAccount 2016-02-20
This is about the only rational comment in this thread.
4 DrDougExeter 2016-02-20
That said, go ahead and encrypt anything like normal and put it up there. They might be able to get the file but they still can't decrypt.
3 externality 2016-02-20
Yet.
27 charles-babbage 2016-02-20
Historically the Internet was represented with a cloud on architecture diagrams. However you are right that the cloud represents a huge threat to liberty. Also watch out for Internet of Things.
10 IntellisaurDinoAlien 2016-02-20
Nobody listened, as usual.
8 howard333 2016-02-20
IoT = remote control of all the things by .gov and corps. A play for omniscience and omnipotence. Will include the human mind and body through wearables and implants.
4 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
Bingo. The boring truth.
21 treerat 2016-02-20
The cloud makes it easier to data mine. The whole foundation of the internet is data mining.
With terabyte hard drives available for under a hundred bucks, and high capacity thumb drives, the "cloud" is an unnecessary risk for most people.
3 WarOnErrorism 2016-02-20
Yeah, microcenter had 128GB thumb drives on sale for under 20 bucks the other day.
16 ssjaken 2016-02-20
The term the cloud harkens back to networking diagrams where the internet was depicted as a cloud.
Google didn't come up with it.
11 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
It's so inconvenient when people like you come along and explain stuff with "facts" and "knowledge." Because it's all those gaps in knowledge that we can otherwise fill in with wild speculation and fantastic claims ... until killjoys like you come along and ruin it.
7 ssjaken 2016-02-20
Its shitty when a lot of stuff on here just deteriorates into people yelling buzzwords.
THE GOVERNMENT
BIG BROTHER
GEORGE ORWELL
11 frijolito 2016-02-20
I wouldn't necessarily assign it nefarious purposes. It is a handy marketing term for people who don't understand networking technology.
1 dianewarrens_boytoy 2016-02-20
2 KeavesSharpi 2016-02-20
0 PM_YO_TITTIES_GURL 2016-02-20
-12 rabbits_dig_deep 2016-02-20
I know nothing at all about networking technology, but I can certainly understand that my data is stored on your computer, not mine.
6 frijolito 2016-02-20
You are attributing to malice that which can be adequately explained by marketroids.
1 howard333 2016-02-20
Malice is structural.
-2 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
And adequately explained as cool features that people like. I like being able to keep documents in the cloud so I or anyone I give access to can edit them from any device anywhere.
I like having my Saved Games available on any of the computers in my house.
Even if, gasp, it's an "Orwellian trick" by Steam to "keep my saved games on their computers."
People need to calm the fuck down and grow the fuck up.
3 bezerker03 2016-02-20
In fairness, that's been the methodology of many things since the internet was created.
To get anywhere on the internet requires going through other people's machines (routers) and it was only in the recent years of the internet (past decade maybe slightly more) that encrypting data in transit became the norm for non security minded applications. At any point in time those places could steal, or alter data in some manner. (This is why SSL makes such a huge deal about certs being signed and matching the end host.)
Hell, email used to be stored on someone's machine until you downloaded it via pop.
Storing data on the internet is nothing new. It being marketed to the masses in a marketable buzz word is what is new.
Of course yes there are always security risks the minute you have data outside of the machine you own, but it's important to remember that has always been the case.
2 howard333 2016-02-20
Charging rent for Photoshop is not an improvement.
1 bezerker03 2016-02-20
So don't use it? There are plenty of other tools for photo editing. Or simply buy the non cloud version.
Adobe is a clusterfuck. I've known people who worked there. Half the automation team is in Romania. Lol
2 howard333 2016-02-20
I work in tech on the west coast. Not a brogrammer, but definitely not an innocent bystander. Getting my little slice of the decadence. A lot of people at these tech companies at all levels are stoned to the gills all the time (hard to cope with this madness otherwise). A lot of what people are getting paid for is pipe dreams with easy ZIRP money thrown at them.
2 eponabestpony 2016-02-20
You admitted that you knew nothing and then immediately said something illogical and misinformed. Hot damn this sub is awesome!
1 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
And?
11 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
No. The term was around long before Google. It has been used as a generic term for "stuff on the Internet" since at least the 1990s.
Yeah, it would be a surprise, since it's not true.
6 le_neant 2016-02-20
Who in 2016 does not understand that the cloud means a remote server?
3 DumbBroke 2016-02-20
Most people I talk to, even tech oriented people, think "cloud software" and then immediately think "that's too big for my comprehension." They say things like "I really need to learn cloud software" or "what exactly does cloud mean?" If there was an Orwellian attempt to confuse people away from understanding it, it's working.
I have worked with multiple cloud platforms and totally understand it. It's just a database that controls a web-based service, and the database is not owned by the customer. Most people understand remote data storage, like Dropbox or Google Drive, to be "cloud software." But it's really much bigger than that. All social media is technically cloud software. Netflix is cloud software. Email services like Gmail are cloud software. Salesforce is cloud software.
2 howard333 2016-02-20
On one level, it's just marketing noise. One gig, IT director's technical skills were last updated in 1995, only skill was bullshitting the other execs and managers at that particular corporation who had no frame of reference for how backwards the systems were. Migrated some servers from the closet to VM's at a (shitty) datacenter that was literally down the street. Huge latency and multiple weekly outages. Never saw the actual SLA, though my job was to call them and bitch when that happened. Speaking to some managers (big part of my job was to keep their expectations consistently low), and he'd told them their apps were "in the cloud", i.e. now made of magic.
1 le_neant 2016-02-20
Sure, I get that most people can't be expected to understand how the backend works or makes it possible, but I think on some level they have to realize that if the data is not stored on their phone, it has to be stored somewhere else.
But then again, there is this, my favorite quote ever:
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage
So, maybe you're right.
I can't wait to use that burn IRL someday.
3 brandor77 2016-02-20
I first saw the term in documents about 6 years ago. We joked that you could replace the term "cloud" with "web services" and it all would look like stuff advertised a decade before. It was just a buzzword - one that management took to mean three things: Unlimited, simple, and free, much to everyone's dismay.
The phrase "commoditize IT" has been bandied about forever because management can't stand the costs. The complexity never goes away, though - it just gets obfuscated.
2 outbackdude 2016-02-20
its actually a network of remote servers
1 le_neant 2016-02-20
thanks, I realize that
1 monomach 2016-02-20
Your average American who only accesses the web via phone or tablet, I'd say.
A lot of the new generation, with the notable exception of PC gamers, grew up never owning a PC and are woefully uneducated about them.
0 rabbits_dig_deep 2016-02-20
I agree obviously that the average person does not think for even 2 seconds what "the cloud" actually is. But how does accessing the net via phone or tablet lead to less understanding of this?
6 monomach 2016-02-20
For the most part, those people don't understand the basics when it comes to computers because they own devices with streamlined, dumbed-down operating systems that make no mention of components, etc. On your PC, Windows will at least mention your hard drive(s) and make you understand the basics of what they do. It makes you decide where to put things when you install/download. It makes you choose portions of programs to leave out or opt into. On a phone, you go to an app store and tap an icon. Every other decision is made for you and you learn nothing about the piece of tech in your hand.
I dated a girl who was a phone-only net user. She was otherwise quite intelligent, but as far as she knew, her iphone might as well be magic. One funny thing in particular I remember is that she had heard the word "processor," but she didn't know what it was, what it did, or that her magical internet phone even had one. I explained to her that her telephone was really a computer and the basics of how it worked. It blew her mind. She really never even made the connection of "smart phone = computer."
A lot of the younger guys at work who have never had any experience with a PC are the same way. They're handed something that does everything for them and the most common explanation you can get from them is "it just works."
1 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
Your question presumes a desire to understand -- an actual interest in knowledge.
But many have found that understanding and knowledge are impediments to very exciting stories. If we want to make up very exciting stories, all your facts and knowledge just get in the way. Now, stop spoiling the fun by trying to "inform" and "educate" people.
5 911bodysnatchers322 2016-02-20
Kind of like when they say someone has their "head in the clouds" it means "to not know what is really happening around you because you are paying too much attention to your own ideas"
L@@k around you!
5 UNPER50N 2016-02-20
And that's why I've disabled the cloud
1 kudoz 2016-02-20
But I was using it...
0 CelineHagbard 2016-02-20
What?
2 UNPER50N 2016-02-20
I disabled my devised from using cloud services
5 GreatEqualist 2016-02-20
That's what encryption is for. It doesn't matter if the data is stored somewhere else if you're the only one who can acess it.
3 howard333 2016-02-20
People want what marketers are paid billions to make them want. They also want things because alternative choices have been eliminated, and they are now dependent.
Internet-facing servers aren't new, and may or may not be shitty.
Making Photoshop server-side just to collect rent is very shitty.
It's about taking general-purpose computing power and data storage out of people's hands (like how people are no longer able to farm to feed themselves), making it technically impossible for them to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.
It's oppression as a service. Humanity is the thin client.
2 monomach 2016-02-20
I always laugh when I hear someone talk about "the cloud" like your information is floating around in the sky, waiting patiently for you to access it.
When you think about the concept for what it is, it sounds stupid. Why on earth would I want my personal information stored on some corporation's hard drive?!
Obviously, I have opted out of the many offers of free cloud service that have been extended to me by the OS of every device I own.
1 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
If you can't answer that, then I guess you wouldn't.
But guess what? A lot of people do. A lot of people have very practical reasons for wanting their information stored in the cloud.
1 verstohlen 2016-02-20
They should call the cloud a "cumulate-ominous" cloud.
2 xsinglespeedx 2016-02-20
Local storage is certainly an option; however, as we amass TB's of photos and videos backups will become unbearable. Using someone else's compute and storage isn't all bad under one condition. Encrypt Everything!!!!!!! GPG, veracrypt, SpiderOak, etc.
2 ragecry 2016-02-20
Yeah we don't need those 10 megapixel photos, it's a lockstep marketing ploy to increase storage capacity needs. Get that 64GB iPhone instead of that useless 16GB one. People don't realize when they post a 10 megapixel photo to Facebook it's scaling it down to like 2 megapixels. MicroSD expansion slots are awesome and smartphone manufacturers are killing them off!!
TrueCrypt went bottom up (I actually think it was compromised), and encryption is not a panacea.
Real physical vaults are the best security you can get.
Store your private/heirloom shit on redundant external hdd/discs, store your public shit in the cloud across multiple free sync services, where it is also mirrored on your local disk.
2 howard333 2016-02-20
It's about spying on people and collecting rent.
That's it.
Enormous sums spent on marketing to trick people into it.
0 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
No, sorry, that's not it at all. It's about making information accessible from any device and any location. It's about features that have real value and which consumers want.
3 howard333 2016-02-20
People want what marketers are paid billions to make them want. They also want things because alternative choices have been eliminated, and they are now dependent.
Internet-facing servers aren't new, and may or may not be shitty.
Making Photoshop server-side just to collect rent is very shitty.
It's about taking general-purpose computing power and data storage out of people's hands (like how people are no longer able to farm to feed themselves), making it technically impossible for them to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.
It's oppression as a service. Humanity is the thin client.
2 pdxorus 2016-02-20
The Cloud is a term older than the Internet. It was used for the old telephone networks to indicate that it is not known (or relevant) which specific machines do which specific jobs (routing data packets according to dynamic routing tables). Voice has been digitized since the 70s. A cloud was drawn on diagrams to indicate the dynamic, amorphous, and ultimately irrelevant set of specific steps taken to route the conversation. Those who have used Visio for decades have been used to the Cloud icon for many many years.
2 verstohlen 2016-02-20
Exactly. It has always infuriated me they call computer servers a "cloud". Laughably stupid. Einstein is right though. Human stupidity is infinite. Obviously "the cloud" is a term directed to low-information voters, computer users, and the typical clueless news anchor.
"Oooh, a cloud! That sounds so friendly and puffy! I like clouds! I want to store all my personal data on a puffy cloud too!"
(facepalm)
1 ragecry 2016-02-20
https://sandstorm.io/
2 HackQuack 2016-02-20
What's this if you don't mind to explain?
2 ragecry 2016-02-20
It's a secure, hybrid public/private cloud platform designed by an ex-Google engineer who worked on Protobuf.
2 outbackdude 2016-02-20
thanks that's great
1 DronePuppet 2016-02-20
Thats why I created my own cloud network.
https://www.getsync.com/
1 truguy 2016-02-20
The Cloud is an all-encompassing term. Yes, it means the file is stored on another computer. This isn't always a bad thing, but can be if the government tells DropBox to let them see inside your account. However, the real promise of the Cloud is decentralized and distributed, so your one file is stored, partially, on multiple computers in a way that can't be accessed by a central controlling "authority." Examples are Maidsafe and Storj.
1 howard333 2016-02-20
Excellent examples of people doing cloud the right way. Cloud implies some kind of distributed nature, when it's actually about monopoly and centralization in corporate hands.
If corporations wanted to, they could make apps that are both secure and accessible with security audited open-source clients performing end-to-end encryption. They have zero incentive for that, ample incentive not to:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/31/kim-dotcom-mega-3
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email
https://www.rt.com/usa/qwest-ceo-nsa-jail-604/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_BSAFE
1 mapp2000 2016-02-20
So let's say you have half of your evil files saved on your computer and the other half is on a "cloud". If the man wanted to find these files, they could either backdoor into your personal computer or find your files on a cloud. On your personal computer they would just have to have your address to find what IP address is associated with it from your service provider. They they scan that subnet for mac addresses until they find your computer. A ten year old hacker could do it pretty easily. To get to the info on the cloud will take a lot more steps and when they finally find it, it will be encrypted. They would really want to find that info
I feel pretty safe putting my evil cat pictures on the " cloud".
1 Sumner67 2016-02-20
and pretty much all "off site" storage disclaimers include the part about how anything you upload to them is theirs including copyrighted materials.
Also most include a little part about how they can turn over all of that data to the government if requested and they don't have to notify you that it happened.
1 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
They're just telling you what the law is. Don't blame them for informing you of your potential exposure.
1 CrystalJava 2016-02-20
so, don't upload any personal information. no one's forcing you to use cloud storage. it's a service.
1 SgtBrutalisk 2016-02-20
Not really possible. Facebook gathers data about users that don't have a profile by accumulating tidbits from their friends; this is the infamous shadow profile. Even if you stay completely offline and don't upload anything, you will have a fairly accurate trail of information following you wherever you go because the dumb family/friends use social networks and just leave the default privacy options on.
Also, when I bought my Android smartphone, it immediately asked me to log into my Google account. I tapped "Deny" because I thought it would be funny to do that. It turns out my phone couldn't connect to any network and was basically useless until I found the option to force the prompt to reappear and actually logged in with a valid Google account.
2 CrystalJava 2016-02-20
wow, i had never heard of the shadow profile thing before. we're totally screwed. lol and yeah, i can't download any apps on my android phone without my google info. you're totally right. i take back what i said.
1 OctoPussInBoots 2016-02-20
Easy solution, don't store your important or private files in online servers.
0 FreshlyMinted 2016-02-20
Guys, no.
The cloud means your information can and probably will be separated into many parts and stored piecemeal on many different computers (owned by someone else), each specialized to store that kind of data.
This is different from before when your information would be stored on one large computer owned by someone else. That was just called the Internet.
10 IntellisaurDinoAlien 2016-02-20
Nobody listened, as usual.
8 howard333 2016-02-20
IoT = remote control of all the things by .gov and corps. A play for omniscience and omnipotence. Will include the human mind and body through wearables and implants.
4 IPostWithThisAccount 2016-02-20
This is about the only rational comment in this thread.
4 UncriticalEye 2016-02-20
Bingo. The boring truth.
4 DrDougExeter 2016-02-20
That said, go ahead and encrypt anything like normal and put it up there. They might be able to get the file but they still can't decrypt.