You got no rights when crossing US border

[silentg]

The authorities may seize laptops, cameras and other digital devices at the U.S. border without a warrant, and scour through them for days hundreds of miles away, a federal appeals court ruled.

http://wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/border-search/

[Maxwell]

Don't they realize that if all your files are stored on the cloud, a search, no matter how thorough, will not turn up anything?

[ksinclair]

Don't they realize that if all your files are stored on the cloud, a search, no matter how thorough, will not turn up anything?

Dude you live in a fantasy land, that is for sure. You have no guarantee of anonymity in the cloud.

Strong encryption gives you a small measure of protection but even then, its not absolute.

[Maxwell]

Dude you live in a fantasy land, that is for sure. You have no guarantee of anonymity in the cloud.

Strong encryption gives you a small measure of protection but even then, its not absolute.

Privacy is dead. All I'm saying is that seizing the computer will not do them any good. They're barking up the wrong tree, because there are no files on the computer to be found in the first place. At most, they might find records which might perhaps suggest just where the sought files are domiciled, but until those files are located and conclusively linked to the accused, they have no case, whereas if they were on the hard drive, a guy trying to cross the border with guides on how to assemble an atomic bomb would have a much more difficult time explaining it.

[Gerry]

Well, the fee to enter the US was not making enough money.

Now we are after personal property of value or children of working age.

Next up...fees to get back into Canada.

[jdk]

I still don't understand the whole premise between a cloud and regular Hosting. Say I have a reseller account, I can access those files from anywhere. I see with a cloud I can pay per GB of disk space and bandwidth sort of as a "pay as you use." Anyone care to give me a simplified version. (I have been living under a rock for the past 6 months)

Why would I want to host my sites on a cloud when I can only have x amount of CPU speed, etc. vs a reseller account when I can utilize the full server or even a dedicated server. Then you can get into load balancing, etc. It seems like it is a hosting account on a cluster of servers. What am I missing?

[Maxwell]

I still don't understand the whole premise between a cloud and regular Hosting. Say I have a reseller account, I can access those files from anywhere. I see with a cloud I can pay per GB of disk space and bandwidth sort of as a "pay as you use." Anyone care to give me a simplified version. (I have been living under a rock for the past 6 months)

Cloud computing and hosting are used for two different purposes.

Hosting is the storage of files to be accessed through the hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP), accessible at a particular IP address, typically masked by a domain name. People use hosting to maintain websites.

Storing files on the cloud is done in place of storing the file on a computer's hard drive. So, if I was writing a document in Google Docs, and I were to save it, it would be saved on Google's servers, not my hard drive.

The way that cloud computing is supposed to evolve, is so that documents, pictures, and the like, when "uploaded", get sent to a remote location, rather than stored locally. This way, if your computer is stolen, broken, corrupted, etc., your files are safe, and accessible to the layperson, because all it would take upon purchase of a new computer is to enter their cloud storage credentials and all of a sudden they have access to their files again.

Microsoft loves to advertise this technology, but it will take at least another 3 years, IMO before the technology has even come close to catching on.

In the case of searches, this leaves police without evidence, as no files are stored locally. So, as an example, a child pornographer, on today's average technology, would have the pictures stored on his computer. When the police get a search warrant and bust his door open, the computer is there, and the data forensics guys pull up the images, and boom, they've got just about enough to convict the guy.

If they were stored on the cloud, the police would have no evidence on the seized computer to so much as charge him, never mind land a conviction. Their only source of possible evidence would be the cloud, which would require proof of connection between the cloud storage account and the user of that computer. And since nothing is stored on the computer itself, with a savvy enough criminal, the cloud storage would be virtually impossible to match to an owner.

[jdk]

@grcorp - You have clarified the purpose of a cloud for me. My understanding was that you hosted full websites (including PHP, MySQL) on the cloud. This appears to not be the case. There are two issues I see relating to cloud Hosting.
1. Security - I have no issue storing photos and general documents on a cloud, but I do not feel comfortable storing sensitive data on a cloud where others can access it. I know Microsoft wants to have our computers run off of a cloud where you can login to any computer and your whole desktop and files load up in front of you. This is the same idea of storing everything on a thumb drive with windows on your thumb drive. Plug it in and away you go. Unplug it and take your data with you.

2. Speed - Files hosted on a cloud and accessed via a website is going to be much slower than if the files were stored on that particular server. I read an article today stating it would be faster if the images and files were stored on the cloud vs on your server, however, I can not see it being faster.

3. Cost - (ok I said two but here is a third) - Instead of paying for a given amount of space and bandwidth, you can store your images and files on the cloud and only pay for the bandwidth and storage space you currently use instead of paying for a full dedicated server, vps, or shared hosting plan.

With that said, is cloud hosting really worth it in its early stages? I understand Google Docs, as I have used it, but how am I going to access files stored on a cloud hosting account if I decide to login to a computer say at work, school, or public place? Wouldn't this be the same as if I had a shared hosting account that I have all my files uploaded to?

I was reading Rackspace today, and for 10GB it seems like they wanted $5/mo. This seemed a bit low. Amazon offered cloud hosting for 5GB free, 20GB for $20/yr, on up. Any suggestions on a reliable cloud hosting service to start out with just to see how it works? I think it may be a good way to backup my wife's pictures instead of relying on an external hard drive that we have already had one fail on us in the past.

[Maxwell]

@grcorp - You have clarified the purpose of a cloud for me. My understanding was that you hosted full websites (including PHP, MySQL) on the cloud. This appears to not be the case. There are two issues I see relating to cloud Hosting.
1. Security - I have no issue storing photos and general documents on a cloud, but I do not feel comfortable storing sensitive data on a cloud where others can access it. I know Microsoft wants to have our computers run off of a cloud where you can login to any computer and your whole desktop and files load up in front of you. This is the same idea of storing everything on a thumb drive with windows on your thumb drive. Plug it in and away you go. Unplug it and take your data with you.

2. Speed - Files hosted on a cloud and accessed via a website is going to be much slower than if the files were stored on that particular server. I read an article today stating it would be faster if the images and files were stored on the cloud vs on your server, however, I can not see it being faster.

3. Cost - (ok I said two but here is a third) - Instead of paying for a given amount of space and bandwidth, you can store your images and files on the cloud and only pay for the bandwidth and storage space you currently use instead of paying for a full dedicated server, vps, or shared hosting plan.

With that said, is cloud hosting really worth it in its early stages? I understand Google Docs, as I have used it, but how am I going to access files stored on a cloud hosting account if I decide to login to a computer say at work, school, or public place? Wouldn't this be the same as if I had a shared hosting account that I have all my files uploaded to?

I was reading Rackspace today, and for 10GB it seems like they wanted $5/mo. This seemed a bit low. Amazon offered cloud hosting for 5GB free, 20GB for $20/yr, on up. Any suggestions on a reliable cloud hosting service to start out with just to see how it works? I think it may be a good way to backup my wife's pictures instead of relying on an external hard drive that we have already had one fail on us in the past.

1. I'm the same way. If you want my honest opinion, they're doing this so they can command recurring revenue. With the cost of computers dropping, the amount that Microsoft can justify manufacturers for licenses of the Windows OS is getting lower and lower. Countered by a demand for more and more advanced technology, this kills their profitability. Worst of all, once they get their money for the license, it's a one-off. They have no residual earning potential. By requiring a user to pay $39.95 a year, it puts money in their pocket continuously, which is necessary, or they'll go bankrupt.

Staying on the topic of security, I'm not at the point where I have any very sensitive documents. I do have a few book ideas I'm planning on putting into action, and you can make a sure bet that when I start writing those, I'm going to be doing it on an old computer with no ability to connect to the internet whatsoever, thus making it impossible for the documents to become accessible.

2. I have not noticed it to be terribly slow. For larger files such as music and high-resolution images (I have headshots that are ~4000x3000 which take about 10 seconds to load from my hard drive), I would imagine this to be the case. The technology definitely needs work so that it has little effective difference from regular desktop computing.

3. The variable plan could be a good idea, but we'd be talking about a difference between $5 and $7 for the average user if billed on, say, a per GB basis. This would hurt sales because then users would get conscious about how much data they're using. Trust me, I noticed a significant change in my behavior when I went from a 150 minutes per month cell phone plan to an unlimited plan.

As for accessing them, I believe it would be a simple login, as though you were going to facebook or gmail. It's kind of the same as going to cPanel in your hosting, but cPanel is not simple enough for the layperson. It needs to be no more complicated than an email interface for it to be user friendly.

As for who I recommend - Mozy (www.mozy.com) is my recommended backup software. It does everyday backups by default, only transferring new files. It does one big one when you get started, which might get your ISP to charge you a couple bucks extra.

If you're looking to access your files remotely, including on your mobile, try Dropbox (www.dropbox.com). I live my life off of my laptop, so I have little need for this right now. But if you're looking to access your files at work, this could be a good option for you.

[jdk]

@gscorp - Thanks for the info. It has certainly helped grasp the basic idea of how it works. I will have to read some more as I am starting to try new ways of managing my data to save time and accessibility via my phone, etc. I like the dropbox and mozy links you posted. Mozy is nice, but there are is other software out there that doesn't have a monthly fee. Dropbox is nice as I have a few files I access routinely and find it hard to access the latest version of the file when I am away with my phone or laptop and didn't copy it over to my thumb drive.

[Maxwell]

@gscorp - Thanks for the info. It has certainly helped grasp the basic idea of how it works. I will have to read some more as I am starting to try new ways of managing my data to save time and accessibility via my phone, etc. I like the dropbox and mozy links you posted. Mozy is nice, but there are is other software out there that doesn't have a monthly fee. Dropbox is nice as I have a few files I access routinely and find it hard to access the latest version of the file when I am away with my phone or laptop and didn't copy it over to my thumb drive.

The software might exist, but remember, the files have to be backed up somewhere. Mozy provides just that, along with cutting-edge software to ensure that the backup is done promptly, routinely, and correctly.

Given your circumstances, though, dropbox is definitely the way to go.

[Gerry]

I still don't understand the whole premise between a cloud and regular Hosting.

There are gigantic benefits for large enterprises in scaling the cloud to meet their needs without overbuying and not having to constant updating. Yes, it is another form of outsourcing but many large enterprises can see the cost savings in the long run.

A downside to this is layoff and terminating inhouse IT people. Through mergers and acquisitions and cloud sourcing, a hospital my wife works at (over 16,000 employees) just laid off 110 people in the IT department.


In time, rather than purchasing software for our computers or updates, we will have a subscription service instead. Very little resources will actually reside on the computer. Linux maker Red Hat has been exploring (and using) this model for a few years now.


One advantage I can see from a consumer point of view is no matter where I am in the world, I will have access to all my files, music, pics, etc.

Everyone is concerned with security. Well, we all know that a system is only as secure as can be until someone from within decides to breach that security. Usually when there is a major breach, it is not so much hackers as it is coming from someone on the inside that has access to that information or someone who is careless and loses a laptop or something like that.