

Steve Wozniak: "I worry about everything going to the cloud" - esolyt
http://www.france24.com/en/20120805-apple-co-founder-wozniak-sees-trouble-cloud

======
stroboskop
Most people are complaining about the headline, but it is in line with what
Woz is saying:

 _"I really worry about everything going to the cloud," he said. "I think it's
going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible
problems in the next five years."

He added: "With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away"
through the legalistic terms of service with a cloud provider that computer
users must agree to.

"I want to feel that I own things," Wozniak said. "A lot of people feel, 'Oh,
everything is really on my computer,' but I say the more we transfer
everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control
over it."_

I wouldn't be surprised if many people around HN do not agree with Woz. After
all the cloud is how many here earn their living.

That said, Woz is absolutely right. I wish more people of his standing would
speak up.

~~~
ap22213
What he says may be true, but convenience + cheap wins out (almost) every
time.

------
alan_cx
Well, Im still trying to work out why people are trusting storage clouds at
all. Personally, and that means for me, I see no practical use and only
danger. Outages, ownership, authority snooping, seizures, hacking, etc, etc.
And then I read something here about a cloud hack being used to wipe
computers, tablets and phones. (And don't give me crap about misunderstanding
it, I don't need to understand it to be freaked out by the general plot as it
were) All I'm told is that some how a cloud is convenient. Leaving my front
door open is convenient, but also stupid.

If I were to use a cloud to store files, I would treat it like my hard drive,
ie, I would want to back it up. Nothing vital to me would ever sit in or on a
cloud. I've seen too much go wrong to ever trust them.

Overall, I just don't understand why people who have decent, cheap local
storage and back up ability already, while retaining complete control, would
suddenly hand all their vital data over to somewhere where you lose all
control. Even if I want to get my data from elsewhere on the net, I have a
cheapo Iomega drive that allows that easily. This cloud lark simply makes no
sense to me at all. It just looks like another corporate data grab, which
added snooping.

Cloud = Kings New Clothes. I feel like the little boy.

~~~
rimantas

      >  I see no practical use and only danger. Outages,
      > ownership, authority snooping, seizures, hacking,
      > etc, etc.
    

Yep, selection bias. Cloud is not used for anything else, just snooping and
hacking. I see a practical use: I dont' care what device I am on, I always
have my contacts in sync, I can now see the same tabs open, I can access my
presentation which I started yesterday on MBP on my iPhone.

    
    
      > Nothing vital to me would ever sit in or on a cloud.
    

Well my kidneys are not on the cloud. Neither my lungs. My contacts? Not vital
at all. My presentations? Not vital at all. My music? Not vital at all. But
damn is this convenient to have that stuff up there.

    
    
      > I've seen too much go wrong to ever trust them.
    

Then don't.

    
    
      > Overall, I just don't understand why people who have decent, cheap local
      > storage and back up ability already,
    

Because when I figure in my time needed to configure and maintain this decent,
cheap and local storage it is not that cheap anymore. And local does not
really cut it.

    
    
      > while retaining complete control, would suddenly hand all their vital data
      > over to somewhere where you lose all control.
    

Maybe some are not control freaks? And maybe some just have some data what is
not "vital", but can be kept in the cloud? Like music collection?

~~~
jimbobimbo
Speaking of music collection - for the past week I'm trying to download two
albums that I _bought_ , off of Amazon's Cloud Player. Apparently, their own
MP3 Downloaded is horribly broken on Windows 7 (given that screenshots on
their support page show Windows XP in 2012, I'm not that surprised). Makes me
wonder if I ever want to keep anything up there, if I can't get it out.

Woz is right on the money - anything we put in the cloud make us be on the
mercy of provider's business plan, reliability and plain quality of QA
processes.

~~~
tjr
Store fluffy cloud-like stuff in the cloud.

I couldn't care any less if my Facebook posts or Twitter updates were wiped
off the face of the earth.

I would care if my email archives, photographs, music collection, etc., were
destroyed, but with varying degrees of concern. For example, I'll often buy
individual music tracks from iTunes, but if I know I want a whole album, I buy
a physical CD. I might only use the CD once to rip it to my computer, but I
have an automatic backup that, so far, seems pretty robust, as I still have
working CDs that I bought in the mid-1990's... which is more than I can say
for my email archives!

~~~
jimbobimbo
Re CDs - that's precisely why I'm trying to download albums that I bought from
Amazon. I feel much safer when I have access to my media locally, on my terms,
with software I choose.

------
unimpressive
Terrible article, veers way off subject from the headline. So I'm going to
forget the article exists and talk about the headline.

I'm personally more interested in personal cloud type services. Little plug
computers that you hook to your wall and run services such as FTP off of. You
pay for brain dead easy DNS service at whatever rate and all of your data
belongs to you. If your DNS provider gives you the finger you switch and give
it right back.

Right now these devices are expensive. In time though they'll be cheap. So I'm
just waiting on it until I can build my own or buy one for <$50.

~~~
noonespecial
I'm working on that particular project right now _(1)_. Its much closer than
you think.

 _(1) Like code windows open next to this one, right now._

~~~
unimpressive
>Its much closer than you think.

I'm not exactly a patient man. If I suspected I'd be waiting long I'd start my
own project.

------
Bjoern
There is a huge privacy issue in the Cloud. Some progress has been made with
Homomorpohic encryption, but its still some time away.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption>
<http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2010/03/18/38566/>

~~~
ams6110
Privacy is the big reason I don't put anything really private in "the cloud."
I don't care how good the security is, ultimately humans run these services,
and humans are corruptible.

~~~
anusinha
One possible answer is to use encryption of some sort when
uploading/downloading files. This is annoying to implement though.

~~~
seagreen
I highly recommend EncFS. It's easy to set up and simple to use. The main
downside I know of is that is doesn't keep the number of files or their sizes
private but, really, who cares?

~~~
qu4z-2
I've recently stumbled across tarsnap. It's command-line, but if you're not
afraid of that, it's very nice.

------
jiggy2011
It all depends on what you define as the "cloud" and where your data actually
lives.

Would I worry about all my data living in one enormous datacenter in the USA
right next to everybody elses, all owned by one gigantic corporation? Sure.

Would I worry less if it was hosted locally by a company in my home town with
a datacenter that I can actually go and visit and some agreement in place so
that I can have take a copy of the raw data myself and have their copy
deleted? Certainly, not to mention that the latency would be better.

I think fast upload is the answer to this and I believe that google fiber
plans on providing this. In that case you can simply have a home server which
is basically a NAS+Router on steroids with a static internet IP (thanks to
IPV6) , this server could provide a pretty web interface for "normal" users
and a unix shell for l33t h4x0rs. Since upstream is fast enough the service is
going to be indistinguishable from something like dropbox in terms of speed
and I will have full control.

The issues here are data and power reliability , what happens if the disk in
my home server dies? There is only so much redundancy you can cram into a
small low cost box. I guess the solution would be third party backup services
that take advantage of fast upstream to sync the contents of your local box
and perhaps can also perform as a "failover" box if your local node fails. The
difference here is that you would get a choice of third party backup
suppliers, though I imagine most ISPs would provide this as part of the
broadband service.

One thing that does concern me somewhat on HN and other development oriented
websites is that people do a lot of talking about stuff like APIs and Web
services rather than protocols and standards. Web APIs provide the illusion of
data portability since you have some way of interacting with it, but the
reality is that you need a way to dump _all_ of your data and you also need
100% compatible software to move it to.

I guess it's difficult to make a business case for designing Email 2.0 unless
you know that you can monetise users through some kind of lock-in. Otherwise
you could design a fantastic open service only to have someone copy it ,
undercut you on price and steal all of your users. For example if you could
set up your own third party "facebook server" that allows users to interact
with FB users without agreeing to facebook TOS or seeing facebook ads.

------
Jun8
Before you agree or disagree with Woz try this simple experiment: Try to view
or download your old (e.g. two year-old) status updates from Facebook and see
what happened to the longer ones.

~~~
thereallurch
As someone without facebook, care to enlighten me as to what happens?

------
coob
Woz has no need for the cloud, he has one in his backpack:

[http://gizmodo.com/5926598/the-amazing-contents-of-steve-
woz...](http://gizmodo.com/5926598/the-amazing-contents-of-steve-wozniaks-
travel-backpack)

------
spins4u2
I got snipits of info on my phone and google would put in his phone numbers
for me, so I did a little detective work and found out that my hacker worked
for rim. I think he's since quit, as he has a lucritative business on my
computer in my name. Blackberry refuses to help me at all, so I'm thinking of
taking action.

------
olalonde
Please don't editorialize the headline. The original title is fine: "Apple co-
founder Wozniak sees trouble in the cloud".

------
spins4u2
Well I've been hacked and cloned and I'm positive it happened from blackberry,
do take your best shot, this guy has taken over my computer, phone, and my
identity, so how do you like them apples. I'm scared to death of what he's
doing on my computer. I doubt if its leagle.

------
gadders
I worry about people reeling Woz out to comment on stuff every time something
Apple related happens.

Is he not a bit past his sell by date?

~~~
brudgers
It's Woz or Wayne if you want a comment from an Apple founder...and who quotes
Wayne?

------
woobles
Encryption encryption encryption.

------
minm
Woz is absolutely right. The real problem with cloud is stewardship.
Hypothetically, let us assume the advertisement model fails for Google, what
will i need to pay for my cloud apps ($20/month or $200/month). What if
Facebook changes hand and run by Kuwait Oil Barons? What if the cloud service
provider sold to my arch competitor?

After seeing the TWiT.TV show about Roll your Personal Cloud
(<http://twit.tv/show/know-how/1>) I have started using Tonido
(<http://www.tonido.com>) for my remote access and sync needs. It can be run
completely local and authentication is between my browser and the Tonido
device. I am happy sofar and completely own my data.

~~~
EvanAnderson
At least where I am, in the US, hosting your own services at home is all well
and good until you become frustrated with the piddly upload bandwidth you get
from your ISP and the potential of running afoul of transfer caps. Consumer
acceptance of "personal clouds" isn't going to happen if using traditional
"cloud services" is cheaper, faster, and more reliable. I don't see that story
getting better anytime soon.

~~~
minm
It works out for me. Because 70% of my access happens within my home from
different devices and i get to use my gigabit connection in the LAN. I think
for many users it is the right setup (Unless otherwise you are a traveling
salesperson).

~~~
EvanAnderson
My personal situation is much the same as yours and it works well for me, too.
I question how well, however, it would work for someone who is more into
creating media with their mobile phone than I am, or someone who wants to
share data from their personal network with friends / family.

~~~
minm
I agree. Sharing can be a pain if you have crappy upload bandwidth. I use
timewarner extreme internet. That works out very well.

