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Cloud Atlas

January 09, 2009

Once, your computer was a box you loaded with stuff that you had to buy and maintain. Increasingly, your computer is a doorway that simply gives you access to a wealth of free services, software and storage on the web – what’s known as ‘cloud computing.’ Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World From Edison To Google explains what the new paradigm means for convenience, privacy and the future online.

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[1]
Posted by: Chris Gray January 15, 2009 - 11:47AM
New Haven

Wow! No one had a comment on this before today?

On our local on-line newspaper site, the New Haven Independent, there has been a raging debate about city-funded traffic and streetscape cameras, that a feckless local pol has likened to "Big Brother" (shades of a recent OTM episode). My contribution suggested that it was a bit late for that debate, considering the wide use of commercial security cameras in forensics as illustrated weekly on television police procedural dramas. A few more won't make any difference and these don't even feed directly to the police.

Cloud computing takes Eric Blair's (again, Orwell's true identity) paranoia to a whole new level. This really could form the basis for the "thought police" and, if all your photos are out there, too, they can identify all your friends and family with a few subpoenas, if they still bother with those after W and Cheney.

So, a few cameras freak people out but cloud computing elicits no comment? It is already too late, again!

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