[MP-Ryan]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/governments-attack-cloud-computing

This should terrify pretty much anyone who uses cloud storage.

[Luis Dias]

Dystopia ahead?

[The E]

We've been living in something that closely resembles a mid-80s cyberpunk dystopia for some time now.

[JCDNWarrior]

I've discussed this subject with several people over the past year at my job in digital distribution that were developing and pushing cloud storage and cloud services to customers, looks like this is another article that turns out my suspicions were not ungrounded. Your data no longer belonging to you, merely rented space seems like a trend that we've also seen with games and software licenses.

It's not only the US government but also other criminals such as hackers, scammers and data miners that could, given the chance have a field day in accessing your stored data and using it against you in one way or another, something I don't think most of the usual users won't think about but that I see growing in size and risk the more popular and commonplace it becomes.

I'll be happy with just a hard disk to store my data, though encryption and other ways to secure your electronic belongings could become more and more prudent in time.

[Nuke]

this is why im anal about backing up my ****. i dont put anything up that isnt disposable, and certainly not without at least 3 backups on storage devices that i own.

I've discussed this subject with several people over the past year at my job in digital distribution that were developing and pushing cloud storage and cloud services to customers, looks like this is another article that turns out my suspicions were not ungrounded. Your data no longer belonging to you, merely rented space seems like a trend that we've also seen with games and software licenses.

It's not only the US government but also other criminals such as hackers, scammers and data miners that could, given the chance have a field day in accessing your stored data and using it against you in one way or another, something I don't think most of the usual users won't think about but that I see growing in size and risk the more popular and commonplace it becomes.

I'll be happy with just a hard disk to store my data, though encryption and other ways to secure your electronic belongings could become more and more prudent in time.

heres the thing. home computers arent really juicy targets, they are everywhere. most hackers would just deploy a couple trojans and see how many machines the payload could eventually control. these are likely befalling inexperienced users with piss poor security configurations (no firewall, no virus scanners, and running ancient versions of internet explorer on a windows me machine) who download and install useless bull**** because they think it will make their machines faster (its a lot like putting a spoiler on a car, thinking parasitic drag would increase performance). hackers dont really care about data theft unless its from some nameless corporation.

cloud computing farms on the other hand serve many users and serve multiple high-value targets using them at any given time. they also store password hashes and links to users other accounts on other servers. the trend in connecting everything to everything else sets users up for security cascade failure (this includes bs like two factor and logging in with another website's system). your more secure just using a long as **** password that even you cant remember, and not informing the websites you visit about what other websites you visit. so if i loose my photobucket or my battlenet account, whoever did it wont have a handle on my paypal or my email address.

[Dragon]

The only thing government could get from my Cloud storage (on Mediafire) are a few (horribly outdated) FS mods, a couple of ancient works for my school (some of this is even published, so it's not like they couldn't get if from the school newspaper archive, if there's one, that is) and a few bits of unimportant junk somebody once needed uploaded. And I never intend to put anything important in there, and certainly not without backup.

[Polpolion]

this is why im anal about backing up my ****. i dont put anything up that isnt disposable, and certainly not without at least 3 backups on storage devices that i own.

****, I don't do triple redundancy for things that aren't disposable.

[Nuke]

and i just had a hard drive failure a week ago. i didnt loos a thing but a couple days of sleep. im still kinda paranoid about having only 3 backups of important stuff and 2 backups of things that i could just re-download, but dont want to because bandwidth caps. i even stash files on my sisters unused hard drives, not that thy have a life span of more than six months.

[Flipside]

Thing is, I'm not so certain that the Government will actually win this case. Courts are pretty strict on privacy and Rights of the individual in the US, and most other countries are realizing that all this running round screaming 'The Sky is falling! We must invade everyones' privacy to stop a few people pirating stuff!' is not only not working, but is actually causing a rift between them and their voters.

The thing is, the US are very much on a back-foot regarding the Megaupload debacle, they've been caught breaking laws and not following procedures all over the place by various courts. Each time they've tried to argue their way out of it using legalese, and so far they've had very little success.

It is indeed worrying that the lawyers for organisations such as the MPAA think that if stuff hits the cloud, it's no longer anyone's property, but I think that argument is actually shooting themselves in the foot, because they are by proxy arguing that any of their material that hits the cloud is now no longer subject to ownership laws.

[BengalTiger]

It is indeed worrying that the lawyers for organisations such as the MPAA think that if stuff hits the cloud, it's no longer anyone's property, but I think that argument is actually shooting themselves in the foot, because they are by proxy arguing that any of their material that hits the cloud is now no longer subject to ownership laws.

Now let's just prove that in court.

[FlamingCobra]

All your data are belong to us.

[Ghostavo]

Like Flipside, I'm waiting for this to bite them in the arse.

"Oh those files? Yeah, I don't own them, they're on the cloud..."

[karajorma]

More importantly, those files, I don't own them, they're on the cloud. Can't say I'm a pirate.

Basically following their logic, they encourage the development of a cloud-based P2P network that simply serves files from the cloud. Where of course the files belong to no one.

[Dragon]

Suddenly, I'm starting to like this.

[el_magnifico]

Hmmm... As far as I know you can't renounce ownership over somebody's else property on their behalf. How can you take the copyright out of something just because you upload it to the cloud without the owner's authorization? I'm not sure that is the same as uploading information you created yourself (your pictures, documents, etc.) Nor am I sure that I actually want things to be that way.

(Yes, I AM aware that there's an ongoing discussion about how copyright shouldn't be considered the same as ownership of a material thing and copying information shouldn't necessarily be the same as stealing something but AFAIK in the current legislation it is. Please correct me if I'm wrong because I feel like I'm missing something important in this reasoning and I'm not a lawyer, much less an American one).

[Mikes]

Suddenly, I'm starting to like this.

Well I wouldn't get too excited, because while it may sure be looking good, it really is rather simple - and not so good.

Let me explain: As far as your ownership rights are concerned it is not your property, but as far as the content industry's copyright is concerned it sure is your property, because they are filthy rich and have a lobby.

Wanna bet?

lol.

[Ghostavo]

Hmmm... As far as I know you can't renounce ownership over somebody's else property on their behalf. How can you take the copyright out of something just because you upload it to the cloud without the owner's authorization? I'm not sure that is the same as uploading information you created yourself (your pictures, documents, etc.) Nor am I sure that I actually want things to be that way.

The issue is, according to their bizarre logic, what's on the cloud is not considered your possession, so that means that if you maintain pirated (or other equally illegal) material on the cloud, you aren't breaking any laws because you are not in possession of that material.

The fact that this works both ways is something that will inevitably haunt them in the future.

[Aardwolf]

The side effects would be... amusing. But the direct effects would be bad.

[el_magnifico]

Hmmm... As far as I know you can't renounce ownership over somebody's else property on their behalf. How can you take the copyright out of something just because you upload it to the cloud without the owner's authorization? I'm not sure that is the same as uploading information you created yourself (your pictures, documents, etc.) Nor am I sure that I actually want things to be that way.

The issue is, according to their bizarre logic, what's on the cloud is not considered your possession, so that means that if you maintain pirated (or other equally illegal) material on the cloud, you aren't breaking any laws because you are not in possession of that material.

The fact that this works both ways is something that will inevitably haunt them in the future.

Oh! Now I get it. It's not about copyright being voided, but about you not being the one who is committing a violation of it. This keeps licenses like the GPL and the various Creative Commons licences still on the safe side then, since copyright still applies to them regardless of whether or not they are "in the cloud". And a good thing that is, since I was getting a bit worried.

Going back on topic: As Mikes said, it's not going to work in our benefit. They are the ones with money and lobbying power.

[Aardwolf]

Interesting fact, relevant as far as "if you put it on the cloud, you must not care about it" ...

As the law stands now, the authorities may obtain cloud e-mail without a warrant if it is older than 180 days, thanks to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act adopted in 1986. At that time, e-mail left on a third-party server for six months was considered to be abandoned, and thus enjoyed less privacy protection. However, the law demands warrants for the authorities to seize e-mail from a person’s hard drive.

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