[LINK] Cloud computing and privacy

[Jan Whitaker]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/does-cloud-computing-mean-more-risks-to-privacy/



Does Cloud Computing Mean More Risks to Privacy?

By <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/author/saul-hansell/>Saul Hansell

Last week, we had a 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/technology/internet/19facebook.html>wave 
of panic roll through Facebook users as many 
realized that the site had changed its terms of 
service in a way that implied it might soon 
broadcast their most embarrassing photographs to 
parents, teachers, and prospective employers.

On Monday, the World Privacy Forum released a 
<http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/cloudprivacy.html>report 
that says those fears are just the tip of the 
iceberg. As people and businesses take advantage 
of all sorts of Internet-based services, they may 
well find trade secrets in the hands of 
competitors, private medical records made public, 
and e-mail correspondence in the hands of 
government investigators without any prior notice.


In the United States, information held by a 
company on your behalf ­ be it a bank, an e-mail 
provider or a social network ­ is often not 
protected as much as information a person keeps 
at home or a business stores in computers it 
owns. Sometimes that means that a government 
investigator, or even a lawyer in a civil 
lawsuit, can get access to records by simply 
using a subpoena rather than a search warrant, 
which requires more scrutiny by a court.

In recent years, law enforcement officials and 
lawyers in fields ranging from divorce to 
employment disputes have learned how to subpoena 
e-mail to bolster their cases. The major e-mail 
providers receive dozens of these subpoenas a 
month and often they have no legal obligation to 
notify the account holder before they comply.
[snip/cont.]
But one recommendation seems to stand out as the 
most prudent: “Don’t put anything in the cloud 
you wouldn’t want a competitor, your government or another government to see.”



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
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~Madeline L'Engle, writer

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing 
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