At least he left out my 'car air-bag' metaphor

[major_clanger]

From ZDNet: Cloud providers shrug off liability for security. Ego-boosting bit starts about half-way down.

Actually, I would say on the basis of my research that providers less 'shrug it off' than 'deny it forcefully and repeatedly', but this may change as the market matures - there are already providers such as Salesforce.com that make a virtue out of maintaining good business relationships with their customers.

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

One of the biggest drawbacks to using the Cloud seems to be lack of security.

I am not sure it is the Cloud provider's responsibility - but there aren't (yet) the technical tools to do without the provider's help.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

When your data can be anywhere in the world, so can your legal headache.

... which doesn't exactly fit well with the latest moves from the European Commission (and the Information Commissioner's Office) to promote "privacy by design". Let alone normal commercial confidentiality obligations. And if your data happens to be potentially subject to export controls, you're probably in deep trouble before you even start, and well advised to stay clear of any form of "data hosting", however commercially attractive. It is unlikely that "technical measures" (no, not the Mandy ones) form any sort of defence.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Some providers are beginning to address EU data protection issues; for instance, Amazon Web Services offer a choice of 'US Zone' or 'European Zone' for hosting your data, with assurances that your data will not be rehosted outside the zone of your choice. But yes, there are major privacy and DP concerns - one of my main bits of work over the next few months is co-authoring a paper on this.