In perhaps one of the biggest buzzwords since “web 2.0,” cloud computing has been gaining a lot of momentum. As noted by Bruce Schneier in his article on security in Cloud Computing:
It’s the modern version of the timesharing model from the 1960s, which was eventually killed by the rise of the personal computer.
In the way that much comes full circle, so does computing for the very trustful. Storing all your data on the web requires a fairly high level of trust. While a hacker, fire, or flood can destroy one’s data at home, adding a new level of security, personnel, and legalities to storing all one’s data online is overshadowed by the hype surround Cloud Computing. In the end it will come down to convenience vs. security. As systems mature perhaps more levels of encryption will exist between the user and the cloud.
One more recent example of the pitfalls of Cloud Computing was created by Danger, Inc. a company owned by Microsoft. It is behind the scenes of T-Mobile’s Sidekick data. On October 1, 2009 there was an outage for all Sidekick users. The problem, all user data wasn’t stored on the phones themselves but on Dangers’ servers. At first it was stated that all user data was lost forever, but to date some user data has been restored with the promise that most will be restored.
