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Re: [LUG] OT: Chrome Books - opinions...?

 

On 12/05/11 11:51, Roland Tarver wrote:
>
> It all sounds lovely, but - everything in "the cloud" :-s ??? Really?
> Although I have no evidence or experience to prove it (except the
> recent amazon outage) I just don't have a good gut "feeling" about all
> my data (or mums, etc) in "the cloud"? Do you? Do others?

The recent Amazon outage didn't lose data (or at least only very recent
or volatile data) as far as I am aware.

Gut feelings are the wrong approach, but the answer is likely to be
provider dependent.

There is a reasonable question of whether you can back-up your data, and
if you can, whether that data is useful should the current provider fail
in some way (including refusing future business from yourself).

For the average user the question is "is the reliability good enough",
and in most cases I suspect the answer is "yes". Many users don't
back-up data regularly and those that do often do it poorly or
infrequently so outsourcing is a win for them.

I think part of this is irrational fear of loss of control, I think of
this as the "illusion of control", but there is a rather more specific
concept in psychology with that name already. We much prefer things to
be in our control, such as driving cars, even when the evidence suggests
this is not the safest approach.

There are new risks with outsourcing data storage, it is easier for law
enforcement to get their hands on it for example. But our fear of these
risks are probably disproportionate (unless there is good reason law
enforcement at likely to care about you - but if you aren't Assange, and
you aren't a habitual criminal...).

Sure the set of risks change somewhat, but some risks are reduced; for
example data centres are often located in geologically stable areas with
low flood risk - not a big issue in Devon and Cornwall, but there are
probably plenty of folks in the world whose houses are at much more risk
than these strategically located data centres. Strangely not all data
centres are so located - but as I said the answer may well be provider
dependent. Similarly data centres are probably safer from a whole range
of other issues like theft, toddlers etc.

Because the back-up schedule is in our control we are happier, even if
our own habits in the area are erratic and unpredictable, where as if
the cloud owner has some boring methodical procedure carried out by
robots each day it is probably best to leave it to them.

To an extent this is a swing back to the dumb terminal, thinner client
model, of computing.

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