“My Cloud and Only My Cloud”

If you’ve browsed through this blog site, you know I write a lot about privacy. Enough so you should know, as I do, that we don’t have a shred of it, thanks to the Internet and “Total Information Awareness” by the government in the name of “fighting terrorism” and “ensuring our safety”. Left with the choice of rolling over and accepting that, or making some effort to claim or reclaim some of the rights, like, yes, privacy, that have been stolen from us, I choose the latter. My views are not universally shared. Translation: a lot of people don’t give a damn because their heads are buried so far up where the sun don’t shine. There are entertainment devices there too, no doubt, along with the concomitant snooping devices.

It with the foregoing backdrop that I took some pleasure today in reading a product review on Amazon. The review was for a product that lets you set up your own “cloud storage” on your existing Internet connection without monthly fees, without relinquishing your data as property you posses, and without service agreements that remind you that “authorities” can swoop in and demand access to your data (without you ever being aware of it) at any time. I quote:

I have yet to make the jump to cloud computing, because I guess that I just don’t trust it. I want control of my personal photos and documents and I don’t want anybody peeping in on them unless I authorize them. Oh I know, those cloud people say that everything is secure, but let big brother come along with their paperwork and watch how fast your personal info is shared with them. Then there is the problem of hackers.

— Island Dreamer

Thank you, Island Dreamer. I wish you knew how you cheered me up a bit with that spontaneous bit of backbone you showed. If only… if only…

  • Dolph Ditherworth

    Thanks for your write-up on this website. I haven’t read this post, but as a spammer on break, I thought I’d comment on it anyway. From my own personal experience, periodically softening upwards a photograph may possibly provide the digital photographer with a little bit of an inventive flare. Sometimes however, that soft cloud isn’t just what exactly you had in your mind and can sometimes spoil an otherwise good photograph, especially if you consider enlarging the item.

  • Armand Hammer

    I particularly like the part about “big brother and their paperwork”. Right on! That’s exactly how the snooping sausage is made. Need I add that the government should take a holiday on snooping until they can do something useful like pass a budget or reduce the deficit?