Into the Cloud (was RE: Missing Windows right-click key)

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

 I'd be interested to know how many people in the list 
(OK, how many who have 'voices', and aren't in perma-lurk) 
are in situations/companies where they would even be 
_allowed_ to engage cloud services and resources. 

My own employers, as well as the brighter of our competitors, 
are working feverishly to create products, services, "solutions" 
to secure the cloud and people's access to it. 
A lot of that effort still revolves around educating 
the customer.  Or perhaps educating the customer's 
customers (the using public) to demand data security.

You won't see me switching soon from desktop apps and 
local server to SaaS and cloud storage of my resource 
materials and source files. 

You really won't see our engineering departments and 
product managers storing and sharing market requirements 
docs, statements of work, design papers, test plans, etc. 
on publicly provided spaces. 

The reason is privacy and control. When Google or some 
other provider is providing the servers and the tools, 
they have our data - some of it sensitive and proprietary - 
in their possession. They could poke and dissect it at 
their leisure, sell to competitors, etc. 

Actually, Google and other big providers would not do 
so. Their continued success rests on unsullied reputations. 
However, they have employees - lots and lots of employees. 
Many of those employees have great, big, swingin'... er...
technical chops.  The point being that the organization 
doesn't necessarily know that they've been infiltrated 
or that people inside the organization have been subverted. 

Thus their customers (you?) can't know that the provider 
has not been compromised and [your] data up for sale to 
the highest bidder.

Is your employer ready to trust the integrity and privacy 
of company data to the cloud? Prudence dictates assuming the worst.

How about HR and payroll? 

For that matter - since many companies outsource payroll 
and other clerical functions - do you [does your employer] 
_know_ that your big payroll-handling service doesn't 
use labor from half a world away, and apps and storage 
in somebody else's server farm? What might be the regulatory 
concerns?   How about securities-related info (like SEC's 
purview in the USA)?

As the concern becomes a bottleneck to further expansion 
of cloud services, the big players will buy and implement 
solutions to encrypt, authenticate, validate, at every 
step in the process, so that a client can finally know 
that their data and activities and conversations are 
protected through the full cycle. 

Earliest adopters must tend to be the public, who have 
a carefree attitude to their own personal data, or who 
imagine that the anonymity of huge numbers protects them. 

Corporations with sensitive data will follow along when 
there's evidence that the cloud infrastructure has been 
secured end-to-end.

Thoughts?  Observations?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: 
> techwr-l-bounces+kevin -dot- mclauchlan=safenet-inc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr
-l.com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+kevin.mclauchlan=safenet-> inc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Bill Swallow
> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 1:41 PM
> To: Jimmy Breck-McKye
> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Missing Windows right-click key
> 
> Of course it might have absolutely nothing to do with the consumer
> computing market moving more toward cloud computing. ;-)
> 
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 1:37 PM, Jimmy Breck-McKye 
> <jb527 -at- hotmail -dot- co -dot- uk> wrote:
> > Laptop size; reasonable keyboard; economical.
> >
> > Pick two.
> 

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