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 by Dr. Rita Louise
Have you heard about the latest and greatest innovation that affects the way we interact with computers? It is called the Cloud. Now please understand I am not a hard-core teckie, but instead, a typical computer user like most of you. I am hoping that I can explain the concept of cloud based technology and its overreaching implications on our privacy and us.
The Cloud was designed to provide you, the user with software programs and the ability to store your data files on a computer network as opposed to on your computer's hard drive or SIM card. Big businesses for instance, have had problems when dealing with commonly used software programs. For example, take a company with 500 employees. Each of the employees needs to have access to a program such as Microsoft Word. The way things have worked in the past, Microsoft Word would be installed on each of the 500 computers in the company. Then when an upgrade came out, the upgrade would have to be installed on each of the computers individually.
I am sure the majority of home computer users have installed and upgraded software on their system at one point in time. It can be challenging and time consuming. Now think about doing this task 500 times, once on every computer in the company. Cloud technology allows companies to "roll out" new software or software updates from a centralized location. Once updated, all of the end users would have access to the latest and greatest version of the software program.
Cloud technology is not only for big business. Whether you know it or not, you have probably already encountered Cloud technology. If you have an email account with a web-based service like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo, your information is already flying high in the clouds. The same is true for FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, Google or any other web-based internet experience. Anything that you access that is outside your own personal computer or your companies in house servers is part of the Cloud.
Places where Cloud technology could be an asset in is our ability to access certain programs or large amounts of data on our mobile devices such as our smart phones, netbooks or touchpads. Many of these devices have limited storage abilities. Proponents of Cloud technology want to you to imagine being able to access hundreds of hours of music and videos that you have uploaded to the cloud. For the business minded, perhaps you can envision yourself working on a spreadsheet while lying on the beach or drinking a latte at your local Starbucks.
Microsoft, in October of 2010 announced its Cloud version of Microsoft Office. Called Office 365, it is the cloud-based version of programs such as Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook. According to Microsoft, " You now have the power to enable your people to work from virtually anywhere, anytime, and on any device". What they do not tell you is that for a single user, like you and me, there is a $6.00/month usage fee. Oh, and this does not included your internet access. If you are using Office 365 on a 3G network, such as on your smart phone, do not forget - data charges may be applied.
In my opinion, that is the least of it. When we use online programs, we are lead to believe that we, or the individuals we choose, are the only ones who can view our information. Apparently, this is not the case. In May of this year, a 13-year-old boy in Washington State posted an innocuous comment on FaceBook after the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy Seals. He suggested that President Obama be cautious because there might be repercussions and " to be careful because there could be suicide bombers" .
A week later, the boy was called down to the principal's office and was questioned by the Secret Service. The boy tells reporters that the Secret Service indicated that he was making a threat towards the President. The boy did not get into any trouble for what he wrote, but it leads us to a bigger question. How did the Secret Service gain access to the child's post?
Similarly, in August of 2010 a Florida man received a visit by the Secret Service because of the photo he put on his FaceBook page. The man had apparently changed his profile picture and replaced it with an image that had come from a 2008 magazine cover, which showed Barack Obama, prior to the election with a crosshair over his face.
FaceBook is not the only internet experience that is being monitored. Did you know that if you use a copy written song as the background to a YouTube video it will be flagged as potentially illegal content. In fact, just this past year a coalition of copyright holders including r ecord labels, movie studios have joined forces with ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner and have created the Copyright Alert System. This industry-led warning system will notify users when they are suspected of illegally downloading music, TV shows, or movies.
What does this mean? Let us say you download the latest episode of House or Warehouse 13 from an online site. In the past, organizations such as the Motion Picture Association of America have tried to sue individuals for the use of copy written materials. This method of monitoring and controlling the usage of their content has failed miserable.
The system that is being put into place is a bit unnerving. Somehow, somewhere, somebody with advanced technology discovers that you have downloaded the copy written content, yes the season finally of House that you missed last week. This unnamed group will then contact your ISP and provide them with the IP address of the offending party. An IP address is a unique number that is assigned to each device on a computer network. Your service provider then will warn you that suspicious activity has been detected coming from your IP address. Users are granted up to 6 warnings before actions are taken against them. Actions can include temporary reduction of Internet speeds, the redirection of your web services until you contact your web provider to discuss the matter, up to and including termination of your web services.
The coalition does point out that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act already requires ISPs to have a termination policy in effect if they want to take advantage of the law's "safe harbor" clauses. This means that if a copyright holder sues you for illegally downloading material, the ISP can say it took measures to stop the activity and cannot be held liable.
I saw one post online from a person who uses a fee based cloud program for music storage. " This is a fantastic service. I can't imagine having to store music on a device now-swapping songs in and out of a SD card because all my music won't fit on it anyway, or syncing to a computer. What a hassle! I can manage playlists on the device, download any track to it if I need to, and others in my household can stream all this to their devices by simply logging into the CloudPlayer-there is no need to authorize the device."
My hope is that this individual did not get a bootleg copy of Iron Butterfly's In A Gadda Da Vida from a friend of a friend, who's cousin's brother gave it to his girlfriend as a gift. If "they" are monitoring programs such as FaceBook, YouTube and who knows what else, will they start monitoring the songs that you have loaded into a cloud storage device? Perhaps you signed up for an automatic online back-up system like Carbonite or are saving your documents online in the new Microsoft Office cloud storage. Are your personal files safe from external scrutiny? Will the Secret Service be coming to your door? What may seem like an opportunity on the surface could really be a legal nightmare waiting to happen.
If you believe in privacy and your first amendment right to freedom of speech, this new technology should scare you. Is Big Brother finally and fully here watching our every move? I guess we can only look to the sky for answers.
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