A Concerning Look At Privacy In Cloud Computing

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

300px-Rolling-thunder-cloudThere is an interesting video on Slashdot of an interview with Tom Henderson, principle researcher at Extreme Labs, Inc. He provides a primer into his well founded concerns on privacy in the world of cloud computing. His research has led him to the position of distrust of companies hired to store data on behalf of users as opposed to the advantages of these users self-storing and archiving. It is reminiscent of the convenience placed above privacy that is coming to a greater magnification today and likely to be more so into the future.

Tom Henderson
Tom Henderson

Mr. Henderson wrote several articles in his Thumping the Clouds blog relating to the rise in cloud technology and its encroachment into private lives. The link can afford readers with good information on the topic.

The video interview may be watched here.

 

Source:

Slashdot
Thumping the Clouds blog

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36 thoughts on “A Concerning Look At Privacy In Cloud Computing”

  1. Question: why has no one (that I know of) not questioned why she printed out 58,000 pages of emails? That permits easy redacting and editing versus just forwarding the original digital versions electronically.

  2. When Darren and Aridog start talking computers it’s like they’re speaking in tongues to me.

  3. Darren said…

    To address this problem, it is often best to bridge to a separate RAID 1 array and physically disconnect it from the parent computer system when not in use for backup purposes.

    I agree, that is a higher next step, and easily done by most PC or Mac users. Once backed up by any means it is best to disconnect from the back up..thus denying a Trojan/virus access in real time. That is precisely why my photographer friend does his main back ups on separate HDD’s via an IDE & SATA modem and then disconnects and places the HDD’s in a safe deposit box at his bank.

    As for what Judi and I do here, the next step for us is a separate system to run back ups on a monthly basis, that disconnects completely when not in use…in additiopn to our redundant separate HDD’s otherwise. Will probably be a “Hillary style” server in another room from each of us….e.g., our house is hard wired with Cat 5 or Cat 6 cabling (wi-fi doesn’t work here except for the “N” band series due to plaster wall lathing grids) …and we have a spare outlet for the purpose….in our dining room, on a bookshelf…e.g., can sit between Rudyard Kipling books and those of others we own, like St Francis of Assisi . Pretty sure neither will mind. ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Aridog – I just paid $300 to have nasty malware removed from my computer. Luckily, I have 4 drives so they were able to move stuff around while the cleaned the C drive and I didn’t lose anything except money.

      BTW, I was going through some old articles and notices that the State Dept was hacked while Hillary had her emails at Bill’s house/office (still am unclear what the setup is).

      1. Paul C. Schulte

        Do you know what it was? Just curious because I just removed some more Iobit from mine. Do not use Advance Systems Care. It is Bad Malware Remover.

        1. happypappies – I made the mistake of putting Couch Tuner on my computer and it downloaded tons of legal software, which of course my anti-virus did not recognize.

          1. Paul C. Schulte

            So they didn’t like each other huh? And you had a bad attack on your hands. That can happen. Aridog and I use Avast. It has a feature on it called a Boot Scan that cleans out all the crap you can set automatically daily. I have never had a problem since then and I got the Russian hack job in 2013. That was something – you could see their “handles” in the boot scan while it was running. It made my hair stand on end. Remember when they stole 1.2 billion peoples identities around the world? I had to change my bank account and everything. I trashed my computer and got a new used one. No kidding. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  4. Aridog:

    Your description of a RAID 1 backup architecture is well placed thought I would recommend one caveat.

    The RAID 1 system is engineered for a hard drive or other hardware specific fault through the use of mirroring, which this flavor does well. But it should be noted that the RAID 1 system will not protect from a software based fault directed to the computer’s hard drive that is in a mirror state to the array. If data is compromised either by a virus or by accidental deletion caused by a misdirected script or user error the problem will be instantly cascaded to the drive array, wiping out the data without a backup. Moreover, encrypted hard drives (and their mirrors) might become useless bricks if the operating system on the parent hard drive is fuxored and the security keys are unique to that computer recovery might be impossible.

    To address this problem, it is often best to bridge to a separate RAID 1 array and physically disconnect it from the parent computer system when not in use for backup purposes.

    A middle ground between the two would be to write a script that periodically establishes a link to the array, copies the data, then unmounts the link to the array upon completion. One way I accomplished this was I set the BIOS on my machine to wake up at 03:00 AM then perform the backup automatically via scripts. When it is done the script shuts down the system.

    1. Darren Smith

      Thank you for that information and will forward to my computer software analyst. Mirroring huh? Is that like the Observer effect we were talking about earlier? ๐Ÿ˜‰

  5. Almost on topic…you can bet your precious heiny that Ms Clinton printed all her emails that she handed over, two years late, so she & her staff could edit them by simple email features, available to anyone anywhere, then print out after deleting the editing info….you cannot detect the editing on a printed copy. Nothing beats 116 reams of paper when an ordinary DVD or two would do, let alone just opening up peer to peer access. She’s only cleaver by half…who does she think she is really fooling?

    1. Ari

      Still not many people are savvy. I was out with my women friends to sing with that gospel choir I have been telling you about and I told them about Obama’s “transformative” mandatory voting and they looked at me – and these are conservatives – and said – “Well, that would be good if everyone voted.”

      I was so shocked I exploded on the spot and said,”No, it wouldn’t I don’t want uneducated people voting.” Well, You would have thought I sprouted a horn. I was told that these people were promised things. I said those people never went out to vote and the Voting machines were compromised in that case and don’t the realize you vote for your representative anyway?

      I am going to be doing a lot less talking for a while because it is not worth it.

  6. Harry – love the black hole lolol

    Darren. There is no way I would use a cloud…………ever after the Russian malware I got in 2013. ๐Ÿ˜‰ Thanks for the recording

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