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Death to the Desktop! Long Live the Cloud!
I have a feeling that the desktop operating system as we know it is on its last leg. The reason I make such a bold statement is that cloud computing will replace our fat, bloated, virus-riddled, failure-prone desktop with something far more agile and elegant: A lightweight browser-based system. This sounds like good news to me. I've waited for a server-centric world for several years now and the time is almost upon us. In this brave new cloud world, you'll have access to all of your documents, music, data, pictures and applications regardless of the device in your hands. |
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Comments (13)
I don't prefer public transportation. I prefer to have my own machine, to feel the road, twist and twine through the hills and valleys, choose 4 wheels and a heater or 2 wheels and the wind in my face.
Oh, computers? Same thing.
Go ahead, Ken, take the bus. I choose instead to _enjoy_ my computing journey.
Oh, computers? Same thing.
Go ahead, Ken, take the bus. I choose instead to _enjoy_ my computing journey.
Heh. That'd be a bus where you hand all your clothes in for the duration of the ride.
Eric Schmidt and Scott McNealy, who both have or had a vested interest in the success of The Cloud, have both spoken out about how 'you don't have privacy, get over it'; what fool wants to trust somebody like that with all their confidential stuff? I, for one, have no faith that nobody out there would want to selectively lift quotes from my stuff in order to spuriously incriminate me (legally or in the court of public opinion) on whatever would give them the most control over my life, just because they could. In this context, anybody who's got something of value (even if only a reputation) has something to hide.
Just remember: you can't take back a secret from the Internet. Cloud computing is putting your private stuff out there on the Internet, however much they might dissemble to avoid acknowledging it. It's fiscal or social suicide whenever somebody out there across the whole globe figures it's worth their while to pull the trigger.
Eric Schmidt and Scott McNealy, who both have or had a vested interest in the success of The Cloud, have both spoken out about how 'you don't have privacy, get over it'; what fool wants to trust somebody like that with all their confidential stuff? I, for one, have no faith that nobody out there would want to selectively lift quotes from my stuff in order to spuriously incriminate me (legally or in the court of public opinion) on whatever would give them the most control over my life, just because they could. In this context, anybody who's got something of value (even if only a reputation) has something to hide.
Just remember: you can't take back a secret from the Internet. Cloud computing is putting your private stuff out there on the Internet, however much they might dissemble to avoid acknowledging it. It's fiscal or social suicide whenever somebody out there across the whole globe figures it's worth their while to pull the trigger.
As I've said before, as long as there are gamers, there will be "fat" desktops.
And yeah, some of us like to actually control and enjoy our computing experience.
The internet's stability is annoying enough at times without having to worry about being able to access your data...or even use your computer...if your connection is having issues.
And yeah, some of us like to actually control and enjoy our computing experience.
The internet's stability is annoying enough at times without having to worry about being able to access your data...or even use your computer...if your connection is having issues.
Quoting: The internet's stability is annoying enough at times without having to worry about being able to access your data...or even use your computer...if your connection is having issues.
Yeah, Microsoft recently gave us all a demonstation of how that works, with the Danger fiasco. I wonder how many of those Sidekick users actually ever got all their data back?
After the web2.0-suicide-tool
http://suicidemachine.org/ (which received a 'seize and desist' from Facebook), now we wait for a cloud-suicide service I guess.
http://suicidemachine.org/ (which received a 'seize and desist' from Facebook), now we wait for a cloud-suicide service I guess.
Much of the data we use in our daily computing efforts would probably be fine in a 'cloud'.
We do this now.
Many people do not run their own DNS server. They use data shared and stored on servers somewhere else.
For data that is not mine and needs to be shared with millions of others shared server based sources make good sense. There is probably a lot of stuff we could remove from hard drives and share without loss of privacy.
Conversely, many people prefer hosting their own shared key servers feeling the centralized authentication model may be untrustworthy. developing your own ring of trust means not having to trust a large corporate authentication system.
For my own precious data, I agree completely. I want it at home on my PC and on my backups.
The nice thing about Linux is I can choose.
We do this now.
Many people do not run their own DNS server. They use data shared and stored on servers somewhere else.
For data that is not mine and needs to be shared with millions of others shared server based sources make good sense. There is probably a lot of stuff we could remove from hard drives and share without loss of privacy.
Conversely, many people prefer hosting their own shared key servers feeling the centralized authentication model may be untrustworthy. developing your own ring of trust means not having to trust a large corporate authentication system.
For my own precious data, I agree completely. I want it at home on my PC and on my backups.
The nice thing about Linux is I can choose.
I'm one of those paranoid types, my laptop is fully encrypted with the exception of /boot. My portable hard drives are all encrypted. My desktop while not as encrypted as my desktop takes a different direction, you have to manually mount the encrypted partitions and there is a cron job to unmount and lock them at the top of every hour that you have to know how to turn off if you want them for any length of time.
I certainly dont want to trust it to a service that may or may not be there past the next patent troll / monopoly conviction / earth quake swallowed servers. Then a few other things come to mind like MS's music, ATi's legacy video cards ... etc etc. There has already been to many examples of how this can fail, even temporarily, for my comfort. Then we can get into privacy issues and just exactly who does have access to your cloud stored information.
No, its not a good idea, and from any view point other than that of a buzz word lemming, common sense shows you inherent unavoidable failure models.
I certainly dont want to trust it to a service that may or may not be there past the next patent troll / monopoly conviction / earth quake swallowed servers. Then a few other things come to mind like MS's music, ATi's legacy video cards ... etc etc. There has already been to many examples of how this can fail, even temporarily, for my comfort. Then we can get into privacy issues and just exactly who does have access to your cloud stored information.
No, its not a good idea, and from any view point other than that of a buzz word lemming, common sense shows you inherent unavoidable failure models.
> For my own precious data, I agree completely. I want it at home on my PC and on my backups.
It's not always easy, but I do my best to keep all of my data to myself. With no intention to pull the conversation off track, I don't like the idea of the government getting its fingers on any information that I'm not forced to give it. I don't even sign the attendance book at church because I don't like someone else keeping track of how I spend my time. Neither do I buy music because I don't want anything to do with the RIAA.
Stick the cloud.
It's not always easy, but I do my best to keep all of my data to myself. With no intention to pull the conversation off track, I don't like the idea of the government getting its fingers on any information that I'm not forced to give it. I don't even sign the attendance book at church because I don't like someone else keeping track of how I spend my time. Neither do I buy music because I don't want anything to do with the RIAA.
Stick the cloud.
As far as I'm concerned this whole cloud thing is to data as Monsanto is to food.
Quoting:I'm one of those paranoid types, my laptop is fully encrypted with the exception of /boot.
Az, I'm doing this, too. The Debian installer makes it so easy. And I really haven't noticed whatever performance penalty I'm getting as a result of the encryption.
I'd like to say I can't imaging going around with unencrypted data on a laptop, but I've done it. I feel a lot better with the encrypted LVM.
The biggest factor in me doing it is that the installer makes it easy. Despite all the encryption and cryptography baked into OpenBSD, the process of encrypting the /home directory seemed to require geek skills that I just don't possess. You'd think that of all the OSes, OpenBSD would be the easiest one on which to encrypt your data. Nope, for me, Debian and Ubuntu make encryption something any user can do during the install.
I don't have the backups encrypted. Too paranoid not to have a clear backup. I just hide 'em (physically, that is).
Steven: But what if Debian breaks for some reason. Is it easy to 'bypass' Debian boot by means of a LiveCD (or something like that) and mount the encrypted partition anyway?
I had encrypted partitions 'back in the days of dmsetup'. Had to type commands such as:
echo 0 `blockdev --getsize /dev/hda5` crypt aes-plain 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef 0 /dev/hda5 0 | dmsetup create volume1 and hen later manually run cryptsetup with six arguments or so. Quite a hassle.
But however, when the system broke, I put in a Gentoo NetinstallCD (can be considered a CLI-LiveCD) and I was able to start LVM1 (needed to be manually started) and manually mount my encrypted partition.
It's OK Debian and Ubuntu (and Microsoft) make it easy to encrypt stuff, but I'm a bit wary what will happen if the OS boot-system breaks (for whatever reason), will the user still be able to access / rescue his / her data?
I had encrypted partitions 'back in the days of dmsetup'. Had to type commands such as:
echo 0 `blockdev --getsize /dev/hda5` crypt aes-plain 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef 0 /dev/hda5 0 | dmsetup create volume1 and hen later manually run cryptsetup with six arguments or so. Quite a hassle.
But however, when the system broke, I put in a Gentoo NetinstallCD (can be considered a CLI-LiveCD) and I was able to start LVM1 (needed to be manually started) and manually mount my encrypted partition.
It's OK Debian and Ubuntu (and Microsoft) make it easy to encrypt stuff, but I'm a bit wary what will happen if the OS boot-system breaks (for whatever reason), will the user still be able to access / rescue his / her data?
@hkwint
I keep double unencrypted backups of /home on USB drives. That way, if the system should fail for any reason, I can restore my data. The USB drives are only connected to the PC to make the backup.
Quoting:But what if Debian breaks for some reason. Is it easy to 'bypass' Debian boot by means of a LiveCD (or something like that) and mount the encrypted partition anyway?
I keep double unencrypted backups of /home on USB drives. That way, if the system should fail for any reason, I can restore my data. The USB drives are only connected to the PC to make the backup.
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FTA: "...cloud computing will replace our fat, bloated, virus-riddled, failure-prone desktop with something far more agile and elegant: A lightweight browser-based system."
Sorry, Ken, but I already replaced my fat, bloated, virus-riddled, failure-prone WINDOWS desktop with a slim, secure, reliable (Debian) LINUX desktop.
You should try Linux. ;)