ChromeOS - careless computing - Stallman.

ChromeOS - careless computing

I for one would feel jittery entrusting personal stuff to 'the cloud'.

 

You aint alone there brother.

There may be some benefits for some 'road warriors' with netbooks on the company biz, but,I cant even wade my way through "simple english' TOS documents.
True enough what Schmidt has been saying..."privacy: get over it" : yeah..right.
? Google company policy.

There are many countries with statutory data retention codes/laws now.

Privacy...
Security..
Access..
Monopolist practices.
Savvy biz is even keeping it all onshore/nearby.
I think I will too.

 

It's a simple thing. Your stuff is yours.
So it should be on YOUR computer.
Cloud computing sounds nice, but ...
Mrk

 

I've never liked the concept of Cloud Computing; not for antivirus, not for storage. I simply don't trust it for security reasons.

Hard drives are as inexpensive as they are likely to get right now. Pick up a few, store your data where you wish, as you wish, how you wish and access it as needed.
A good external enclosure or two and/or docking station(s) give rapid access to that data with no fuss.

By the way;
how do you access your data in the cloud if your internet connection is down ?

 

I never liked the idea of Cloud Computing. It is too bad especially for home users (privacy, security, fraud at company). Even currently few companies are found to invade user privacy terms like Facebook was found handing over user details to third parties. In future, when everything will be in their hands, they will be free to do anything with it. I will never keep my data in the cloud.

 

Yeah, not even wizardry will help you there.

 

I have a dual opinion about cloud or thin client computing. Software may be in the cloud, but data I prefer locally. The younger generations do not mind, they put everything in 'shared sources' being face book, twitter, knowing where your friends are when going down town (you can spot your friends on your mobile), etc.

My son's studying interface design/user experience (IT) he calls me an old whimp when it concerns Google, his quotes

You are not using a blackberry for secure short messaging, you do not encrypt all your email nor the attachements, so anything can be tracked and hacked anyway while it is en-route in the digital world

What is the difference of sending unencrypted unsecure emails/text messages through servers around the world and storing the attachements of these emails on servers around the world with Google Apps?

You dinosoures only have a small digital network or digital life footprint. I am caring more about my digital life footprint than privacy. So I prefer the ease of use of which I can retrieve data after my laptop/handheld/smartphone gets stolen or breaks down.

Regards Kees

 

I see two problems:
For one most people don't know a lot about computers. They see shiny new Chrome OS that promises security and ease of use and they don't know any better than to believe Google's promises.
Personally I could see how I could make great use of such a platform - without sacrificing my privacy. For example I could jail break/root the device and install gpg. Or I'd only use it for such tasks that don't require any privacy.

My second issue is how Google missuses the term "open". It used to mean something, now it's as useless as any other buzzword, web 2.0 and cloud computing...
Chromium (OS) is open source and it's nice how you can select your default search engine when you install the browser. But when I want to use the webstore I get presented with a Google account login. Same with Chrome OS, it forces me to use their cloud. No thanks! That's not how I do business. I might even choose Google, but I want to make that choice.

I'd support Chrome OS, buy the first device that comes out, tell everyone how great it is, recommend it over MS and Apple if it actually was an open platform. And it could be.
My vision is that it was designed around open protocols and APIs that allows you to use any cloud provider you want, be that live.com, Amazon, Google or your own private server running an open source software stack.

I still have hopes though, not in Goolge, but in the open source community. A truly "open" Chromium OS could become a great OS.
My other hope is some serious antitrust lawsuits.

 

I agree with this. I guess cloud omputing will be norm in future.