For a large group of people, their current personal computer may be the last one they ever buy. For people using smart phones or iPads, those devices do most of what most people need. The main remaining reason people need a PC or Mac is because you need one to activate your iDevice and to backup the data.
But keeping data in a device contains risks of loss or theft. What if all you really had was “the cloud”? – an abstract place “somewhere out there” where your data is kept safe and backed up and available to any device you own, or wish to share your data with?
Welcome your new data vault – iCloud.com. iOS 5 is getting close to its final form, and includes the ability to “sync to the cloud” – to backup your iDevice in the cloud with no need for a computer with a physical hard drive.
Should you wish to keep using a PC or Mac, if you have WiFi, the iPhone/pad/pod will sync to iTunes without having to plug the device in using a USB cable – it will just sync over WiFi
Resistance is futile – you will be iSsimilated.
“We are the Borg.”
The whole ‘cloud’ concept is anathema to personal data security, in my opinion… and I also question all the ‘conservative’ radio hosts shilling for ‘Carbonite online backup’.
There has already been a request by DHS (et al) to ‘sniff’ online data backups; the reasoning is similar to travel on public roads: “no reasonable expectation of privacy”.
For example: if you use encryption on data backup, you are automatically ‘suspect’.
It seems the younger crowd is more than willing to comply, and unlikely to question the true agenda or why their data (i.e. ‘lives’) are being aggregated into the aether.
If you try to enlighten them, you get a soviet/nazi “deer in the headlights” stare… as if you are the anti-social(ist) oddity their liberal teachers warned them to avoid.
I tried Carbonite partly for the reason you are raising – okay, I upload my data to their servers – does its “encryption” actually make my data on their servers encrypted in a way that neither Carbonite or law enforcement could decrypt my data.
The default is to let Carbonite handle your encryption key, which means that they absolutely have the ability to decrypt the backup and say as much. They offer the ability for you to choose your own key, but say if you do that and lose the key, they have no ability to recover your data – and strongly discourage it.
As you point out, people who are aware enough of what is going on to generate their own encryption key are technically advanced, and as a result are suspect of being a risk.
This Wikileaks thing is spiraling out of control – it’s turning into all out war. The “Powers that Be” think by grabbing the low hanging fruit – a few clueless 17 year olds that they can stop what is going on – all it is doing is accellerating the breakins. I would not be shocked if in the end these groups of hackers are being supported by foreign governments.
An important point in the time line was when the EU forced Microsoft’s hand to release large quantities of its source code for Windows. That makes finding the holes infinitely easier.
http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-china–microsoft-source-hack-google-2010-12