[LINK] Cloud Computing Definition

[Jan Whitaker]

At 11:40 AM 28/07/2013, Frank O'Connor wrote:
>It MAY impact corporate IT strategies, but in these days of multiple 
>high capacity devices all with routinely (comparatively speaking) 
>massive storage and little numbers like BYOD it's more likely that 
>pervasive privately owned storage and facilities will become the 
>story for individuals.
>
>And the privacy, security and other implications that the Cloud 
>raises with respect to user and customer data may be far more 
>trouble than its worth for organisations currently using more 
>conventional back up strategies anyway. I mean, any breach of said 
>security or privacy can effectively destroy an enterprise ... and 
>with governments around the world admitting they are tapped into all 
>our networked data, a backlash by consumers is ever more likely ... 
>especially if a really public breach occurs.

I think it was on the Privacy discussion list where I raised this 
issue of corporate response, or lack thereof at least publicly, after 
this degree of data capture was exposed. Yes, we all "knew" that 
something was happening - Echelon, etc. - but to have it be so 
widespread in the US involving US citizens and being that corporation 
information is transmitted by human beings, I can't understand why 
corp. security isn't raising holy hell over this. Just the 
relationship information in itself would be telling. The NSA has 
acknowledged third order relationship determination as a minimum. 
Degrees of separation such as it is probably puts us all within reach 
of characters we really wouldn't want to have anything to do with 
personally, as well as some we would. Even without twitter or 
LinkedIn, I could claim 3 degrees between me and Bill Clinton  back 
in the 80s and I wasn't anyone special.

But I'm with you, Frank. If I were looking at the overall picture, it 
wouldn't just be considering the financial benefit of the risk, but 
the reputation, legal compliance, and customer/market risks. If you 
blow those, despite the strategic and financial benefits, the whole 
company can be blown out of existence over time because board look 
stupid, trust in decision-making and implementation are reduced, and 
share price can drop overnight if the problem is bad enough.

And of course there are always those unscrupulous contractors who get 
access to this data. Snowden could have done some much worse things 
with the privileges he had. I reckon the US got off lightly, although 
they of course don't see it that way. Let's assume a scenario where 
he grabbed all the relevant Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook 
addressed email metadata. My oh my. Tsk tsk. Would have been worth a 
whole lot more than just telling the world that all this stuff is 
being sucked up in the first place. Who is to say there isn't a 
'dark-side' 'Snowden' out there right now? And who is to say he 
hasn't done just that? PRISM et al are nearly the perfect honeypots 
for those who have access.

Jan



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

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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