Despite raging privacy concerns, Microsoft is continuing their campaign to get in ahead of competitors and lock in their grip on cloud computing. Cloud computing has multiple benefits, including allowing people to share and back up data safely. The biggest problem is privacy.
By choosing which cloud you use, you are putting your full trust in the provider to protect your data and your privacy. Those pesky terms and conditions in many instances tell you that data is backed up and saved. What if you were to remove your data, but the backup could still be used against you? Hackers are not the only real concern here, I am far more worried that the Obama administration, in its epic failure to protect our privacy, will sign off and allow our shared information to be shared beyond our control. And if you do not continue to store data online, then what you have already shared may still be out there... floating in the cloud.
For most people, this is of trivial concern. But for the people who store serious work online (no offense to the cute grandkid pics), this is a potential problem. The cloud premise itself is brilliant. It allows multiple users to share, collaborate and revise work. But the old saying "if you don't have something to hide you have nothing to worry about" doesn't apply here. Information mining and social engineering means any detail about you, however small, could help someone earn your trust or access your data. We all know the password rules, but still "password" and "123456" are the most common ones in use. Are we ready for the cloud? And if so, are we really going to hand the scepter to the company that has stuck it to us for a solid 20 years?
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