Time for Linux Customers to Choose Cloud, Virtualization Partners

After the horror stories of various sites (think Sony) why does anyone in their right mind think we will commit our most private information to the cloud? I have a Gmail account because it is convenient, but I never put important information in emails unless it is encrypted. Other than that it stays on my trusted servers. There may come a time that will change but not until the user controls access to the data and not the cloud site. That means the user has to control cryptographic access to the data. If the NSA wants to break it I don't much care. They are the only ones that can break robust encryption and they are not after my private data.

At the risk of repeating myself, I think the only end users that will embrace the cloud are those who already refuse to take responsibility for their data, and ultimately, their machines. The same people that consistently open emails with whack-a-mole.exe then hire you or I to clean up the mess. They will consider "the cloud" as just another feature to their computer "appliance".

In the Enterprise, I am guessing that the recent mass failures of well-known cloud providers have set the spidy-senses tingling enough to forestall any measurable deployment to cloud services.

That being said...I have been a staunch Gmail user since 2005 and am a subscriber to spideroak. I also use Humyo on occasion as well. There are times when I am in the field and I need access to that data and both provide me that access at an extremely reasonable rate, especially spideroak. However, I do have a machine sitting comfortably under my desk with two one TB drives that I use to back up that data and email. The "normal" end user won't do this as they feel the cloud softly caresses their data in a safe cocoon of security.

Rude awakenings stand with clue bats right around the corner for them I am afraid. As Linux users tend to be a bit more tech-aware, I think the title alone to this piece is amusing if nothing else.

I totally agree with you, I'll never migrate to the cloud. For this reason I have set up my own mail/web/file server, so that I don't depend on those huge companies. Its allot more fun having your stuff at home, and knowing that its safe there.

Using the cloud just makes that you depend on the owners of the complex. If there is for example a server failure, and the 'cloud' is temporarily offline, how will you get to your data that is in some data center on the other side of the world? What if some hacker finds a flaw in the system, and has access to millions of users their files?

Sorry Google/Apple/IBM/Amazon/Canonical/etc, you will never be able to migrate me!

Edit: And well said Helios!

I use drop box, but only as a means of making stuff available to others, after the issues I had with Ubuntu One, I'm not about to trust anything sensitive or important data to a cloud service. As a consequence, while I do have a gmail account, I have it only because that was a requirement of registering my Android phone, which incidentally I don't use any longer, I don't use it for anything. This, also is why I'm getting a tablet with Ubuntu as the operating system rather than Android.