The Cloud is great, isn't it? But isn't it
"somebody else's computer"?
And not your neighbour's computer, on whose hard disk you can keep
an encrypted copy of your files with a service like Storj.
No, the cloud is somebody else's computer – for example former
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's, who is on Dropbox's board –
on which you keep all your files.
Unencrypted.
In California.
Which may remind us of
California Dreaming or
Surfin' USA, but which is not a place where they care too
much about your privacy.
The Cloud is much more. Nicholas Carr says it's the
World Wide Computer. [1]
It's the infrastructure thanks to which Big Data corporations can
register on their servers your every move: where you are, what you
search on Google, what you read, what you share on social media,
and soon what is in your fridge, how you drive your car or where
you ask a self-driving car to take you.
Is this the future we want?
