Final Week

As our group completed our final project, I've been thinking a lot about internet privacy and the issues that will continue to worsen as technology develops and we are forced to place more trust in outside "hosts" in order to achieve the ease and speed of instant, anywhere access to our information. Users are increasingly relying on wireless or mobile devices and applications. While this allows unprecedented freedom and flexibility by not being tied to a desktop computer plugged into the wall, it brings about new problems with storing information at a remote location. Experts agree that cloud computing will become much more prevalent in the next decade, either exclusively or in combination with desktop PC use, and the legal aspects of protection and privacy are still lagging behind. There is little protocol in place for how information storage companies are supposed to protect sensitive information. Many users are enticed by the ability to access their information from anywhere and fail to read or understand the user agreements that offer them little privacy or protection. What happens when a host company hires an untrustworthy employee? What happens if the company goes out of business without notifying its users? What about mechanical malfunctions that could erase volumes of data? I see two avenues to take:
1. Best case scenario-- a person is aware of the risks of remote data storage and backs up every piece of important information locally (safe, but removes the ease and convenience that cloud computing is supposed to provide)
2. Worse case scenario-- a person relies on the "cloud" for everything at the risk of losing important data and privacy (convenient, but not as safe)
There will always be a trade off as we continue to develop new technology and applications. This is supported by the experts who say that we will not be "living in the cloud" entirely any time soon. They present a more realistic hybrid where we store the most important and private information locally (where we maintain control), while using the cloud for easier access to other data and applications. We will never have it all--we have to choose between convenience and control.