I think we could use a refresher. "Cloud" = machines or networks you can't physically configure yourself, but whose resources you get to use. "Backup" = a stored version of something. "Redundancy" = storing more than one copy of something.
In computing you can mix and match levels of execution on each of these three to have a secure experience. The question comes down to how much you trust someone else to keep the official version of the data (i.e. your bank -- how often do you have your own back up copy of that data for instance?) Or how much you trust someone else to keep a backup of your own data (Carbonite for instance). If you don't trust anyone like a lot of the posters, then yeah - you are "IT-ized". Hope you can do it better than the tech companies.
What we really need is a "guarantee" of data security by the cloud providers (MSFT, GOOG, AAPL, carriers, et al). Say you "accidentally" delete all of your contacts. Then you'd have a way of undoing that. The synch scenario with its nightmare cases of connectivity and currency problems can result in times when things get deleted "on purpose".
Given that all the world's digital data is maintained on spinning hunks of plastic and metal, you can bet parts of your data go poof often. So yeah, lets version our data, obviously. (Since some of us are only zygotes this Sidekick thing is our first lesson.) Sounds like the cloud we techies want lets us have our own copy of the data. The only other option is full trust of the providers. I'd get that gurantee though if you go netbook-only.
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I think we could use a refresher. "Cloud" = machines or networks you can't physically configure yourself, but whose resources you get to use. "Backup" = a stored version of something. "Redundancy" = storing more than one copy of something.
In computing you can mix and match levels of execution on each of these three to have a secure experience. The question comes down to how much you trust someone else to keep the official version of the data (i.e. your bank -- how often do you have your own back up copy of that data for instance?) Or how much you trust someone else to keep a backup of your own data (Carbonite for instance). If you don't trust anyone like a lot of the posters, then yeah - you are "IT-ized". Hope you can do it better than the tech companies.
What we really need is a "guarantee" of data security by the cloud providers (MSFT, GOOG, AAPL, carriers, et al). Say you "accidentally" delete all of your contacts. Then you'd have a way of undoing that. The synch scenario with its nightmare cases of connectivity and currency problems can result in times when things get deleted "on purpose".
Given that all the world's digital data is maintained on spinning hunks of plastic and metal, you can bet parts of your data go poof often. So yeah, lets version our data, obviously. (Since some of us are only zygotes this Sidekick thing is our first lesson.) Sounds like the cloud we techies want lets us have our own copy of the data. The only other option is full trust of the providers. I'd get that gurantee though if you go netbook-only.