The Untrustworthy Cloud

Wow, this turned out to be a really long one. I guess I had a few points to make.

Once there was a concept called 'The Cloud.' It was such an ephemeral thing that you had to use quotation marks whenever you talked about it. 'The Cloud.' Companies pushed it, and pushed it hard. 'The Cloud.' It was super-premium ice cream and Jesus put together in a cone made of hundred-dollar-bills. You'd be a moron if you didn't get behind 'The Cloud.' And you believed them. Until you thought about it for a moment.
   I'm getting pretty damned tired of 'The Cloud.' Imagine me making my own finger quotes whenever I say it. 'The Cloud' (finger quote). It's been marketed like a puppy that makes you grilled cheese sandwiches, who could ever not like 'The Cloud?'
   Me. And I'll tell you why.
   I'll start with a few personal reasons, then get to a global reason. First, 'The Cloud' is not a thing. It's not a product, it's not a service, it's not anything at all. It's a concept, a computational construct. 'The Cloud' is not something you can point at like you can a real cloud. 'The Cloud' is online storage, just like a web page. 'The Cloud' is hard drive space on servers spread around the world, connected by the Internet.
   Does that scare you? It should. 'The Cloud' is just a term for putting your stuff on a set of servers out there... somewhere... Where? Who knows? Is 'The Cloud' in the United States? Could be, but it could also be in Europe. Or Japan. Or Guatemala. Or the Ukraine. Or China. You could be putting your documents - literally - anywhere. 'The Cloud' is in more places that are NOT the US than are, and those places don't have to abide by US laws; some of those places pride themselves on the fact that they don't.
   So when you put your documents on 'The Cloud' you are trusting in the discretion and honor of people you don't know, and who are, frankly, not worthy. Any system administrator of each server your documents are stored on has unrestricted access to those documents. They can read them, download them somewhere else, share them, giggle at the pictures, whatever they want to do. That's what being a SysAdmin means, you have complete access to all parts of the system. How many sysadmins are there on 'The Cloud?' No telling, but it's way more people than you'd be comfortable with, I know that.
   'But Don, my documents are encrypted,' you say. To which I reply 'Are they? Really? Are you sure?' Like I said, you're trusting in people who don't deserve it. When a Ukrainian identity thief tells you he's encrypted your files chances are pretty good he's just lying. 'What? Anonymous, criminal Internet trolls would lie?' you say. And I reply 'Duh.'
   But let's assume the files really are encrypted. So what? Like I said, every sysadmin has unrestricted access to your documents. They can do whatever they want with them, which includes running any number of encryption breakers on them. When the documents are out of your control there's no way to get that control back. Ever.
   Think of it this way. You keep your important papers in a safe, in a safety deposit box, a coffee can buried in the back yard, whatever. In those cases, only a very few people a) know where those papers are, and b) know how to get to them. Your SSA card, your passport, your birth certificate, all are under pretty secure lock and key (let's hope). Imagine if you just posted those things on a web site. That's what you're doing when you put things on 'The Cloud.' People will tell you there's a difference, but that difference is only cosmetic, the structure underneath is exactly the same.

Well, those are my personal reasons. Now for the global reason.
   When documents are stored out of your control on 'The Cloud' they can be changed.
   So what? Well, the push behind 'The Cloud' design is ultimately to store one (1) copy of any document or file. So if you bought an mp4 of 'Love On The Rocks' by Neil 'Awesome' Diamond, there would - ideally - be only one copy that everyone who loved overproduced 70's music would share. You and I would listen not just to the same song but to the same file when we hit play.
   BFD, right? Again, so what? Well, that one file would be under the control of someone - an anonymous* someone - who might just not appreciate the genius of The Diamond. They could delete the file, making it gone forever, or, more insidiously, change the file. 'Just pour me a drink and I'll tell you some lies' could easily become 'Just pour me a drink and I'll bake you some pies.'
   So I'll ask yet again... so what? What's the big deal?
   Imagine if the Constitution weren't on multiple fragile, priceless paper copies. Imagine if it were a single copy online. Or even multiple copies. Some nutjob sysadmin on 'The Cloud' decides (s)he doesn't like the Third Amendment, changes the document so there are now only 9 Amendments in the Bill of Rights, and BOOM! all of a sudden you're forced to quarter troops in your home, and you have nothing to point to that says the law of the land used to say otherwise.
   Think that kind of document tampering can't happen? Think it won't happen? Think it hasn't already happened many, many, many times over? You'd better think again.

The fight for liberty in the future is going to be the fight for control of information. The fight for freedom of information. 'The Cloud' is not actually a way to distribute that information. It's designed to be a way to control information and suppress it. I don't trust it, and neither should you.
   Don't say I didn't warn you.


*anonymous uncapitalized, meaning unknown, not Anonymous the hacker group. I think Anonymous is probably with me on this topic, at least as much as a loose confederation of unknown individuals can be.

** hey, guess what? Just to prove my point, since I first posted this publicly, I've changed it four times. Do any of you have a record of the original? Of the four changes? Not unless you printed out the first one two hours ago. And if you did print it, please, go outside and get some fresh air.