By Tom Chatfield, BBC
©[Thotsaphorn Sarophap]/123RF.COM
“The cloud” is one of my least favourite internet neologisms. It suggests something fluffy, white and weightless: a global atmosphere within which our email, social network profiles, images and shared files innocently drift. All of which sounds delightful – but the reality is that every cloud is composed of a vast infrastructure of bunker-like rooms, filled with rack upon rack of servers. And the moment you decide to upload something into this global data warehouse – be it photos of your family or precious documents – you give up many of your rights to ownership.
This summer, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak added his voice to the chorus of those alarmed by the implications of the cloud. “I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be horrible problems in the next five years,” he opined on a trip to Washington. “With the cloud, you don’t own anything. You already signed it away… the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we’re going to have control over it.”
Such warnings have a distinguished pedigree – and an equally impressive history of being ignored. Back in 2008, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, called the adoption of cloud-based systems “worse than stupidity… a marketing hype campaign.” So why is the world quite so willing to leap into the arms of these services if they are so dangerous? And is there anything you can do?
Keep reading BBC – Future – Technology – Why pressing ‘upload’ means losing your rights.
