The “CLOUD” is a commonly used term for the shared use of processing resources that is enabled by the Internet. Users of the CLOUD are able to store and process data in data-centers, which far from being nebulous, exist as power-hungry behemoths¹ , deliberately obscured from the user by the ‘soft and fluffy’ cloud-metaphor.
The growth and widespread use of Cloud-technology since the early 2000’s has been driven by the development of e-commerce. “Online” is now the way to display products, push brand messages and engage customers via virtual stores, email, Facebook and Twitter feeds. An entirely new business model has emerged based on “Cloud-Marketing”, which provides both media-channels (e.g. Facebook; Twitter; YouTube; Website) and tools (e.g. Google Analytics; Constant Contact; Sales Force; Google Social Reports) for collecting, analyzing and distributing information almost instantaneously and at a fraction of the traditional cost e.g. market research.
Image: By Sam Johnston – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6080417
This new emphasis on CLOUD-marketing is allowing companies such as Google to make substantial profits supporting the efforts of other businesses to build-up an online presence.
However, some small voices are expressing warnings about the security and privacy of the CLOUD. Service providers have open access to the stored information and applications, and could accidentally (or deliberately) modify or delete data content or structures. Also, many cloud providers can share information with third parties (not necessarily openly) and may also be asked to release information to law enforcement agencies².
Meanwhile, back in the reality world, Yahoo (a CLOUD provider) has secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information at the behest of U.S. intelligence agencies (NSA; FBI)³. It is usual for CLOUD providers to give access to already stored messages or allow scanning of a ‘small number’ of accounts. This is the first time (Yeh! right!) that ALL data has been scrutinised.
Beginners Guide to CLOUD-SPOTTING
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Some more CUMULUS news – YAHOO has just admitted that its CLOUD was hacked in 2014 and information affecting up to 3 billion accounts ‘stolen’4. The data, which was scanned (Whoops, I meant stolen!) included email addresses, names, telephone numbers, passwords, and birthdays, all essential CLOUD-MARKETING information.
NIMBUS
There is no connection between this “State-Sponsored Hacking” and the scanning of YAHOO accounts by US intelligence agencies.
¹James Glanz (September 22, 2012). “Power, Pollution and the Internet”. The New York Times.
²M. Haghighat, S. Zonouz, & M. Abdel-Mottaleb (2015). CloudID: Trustworthy Cloud-based and Cross-Enterprise Biometric Identification. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(21), 7905–7916.
³http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-exclusive-idUSKCN1241YT
4http://www.komando.com/happening-now/375189/yahoo-data-breach-could-impact-billions