Patch Lady – 31 days of Paranoia – Day 15

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We’re on the 15th day of our travels through paranoia and on the day that Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft passed away, I’m touching on th
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – 31 days of Paranoia – Day 15]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Elly, SueW, Nibbled To Death By Ducks, GreatAndPowerfulTech, Fred, WildBill

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Thank you for this overview, Patch Lady… especially about security on the cloud. When I bought my Windows 8 laptop over 5 years ago & added Office 2013 to it, I noticed (thanks to Woody’s All-In-One for Dummies) that Save to Computer was not the default in Options. Originally, SkyDrive (now OneDrive) was the default. I trusted myself & my new machine more than some nebulous “cloud storage” for my original documents & data. Using OneDrive for backups? No problem… even though now I have a cheap 1 TB USB drive attached & mainly use File History. Cloud storage to help recovery? Fine. Using it as my Primary storage option? No Way!

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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Fred

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“Paul Allen and Bill Gates took mainframe computers from locked away in a freezing room only accessible by the few to where nearly everyone has more power in their desktop and laptop than the old mainframes used to have.”

Yet, with cloud computing, we’re going right back to what is essentially a mainframe locked away in a freezing room only accessible by the few. It feels like such a step backwards to me. For offsite backup with a certified provider, absolutely; but for anything else I don’t like it one bit.

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Ascaris, Nibbled To Death By Ducks, columbia2011

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I agree with you.

You regularly hear people say with relish/satisfaction … “and I store it in the Cloud” as if the Cloud is some single entity with exclusive access for them. I always say to them  – ok, say the same sentence with these different (but still entirely accurate words)…… “I take my private information and store it on somebody else’s computer” …. still feeling so secure/happy?

The unthinking, insecure use of “the cloud” that is proliferating is going to have some very unfortunate consequences for some people I think. As others have said in other places in this thread it has some very good applications and can be a tremendous resource used correctly but…

UKBrianC

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People are blinded everyday single by what is new or the next big thing.  Every single day, there is news of another cloud service that is compromised.  The purpose of the cloud is to own your data.  If cloud services have your data, you are at their mercy.

Young people may not remember the last Internet collapse where many companies lost their content.  This is no different.

As the world consolidates to the Big Three of data theft, what is easier to attack?  Three giant targets or zillions of little targets?

Cloud technology is great.  Cloud services will eventually become storms and rain your data to the evil internet players.

 

 

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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What bothers me about cloud data storage, as noted in other comments here, is the lack of control over your own data. I remember when Megaupload had its servers seized. There were people who actually did use the service for legitimate reasons instead of piracy, who lost their data. I will freely admit ever since then that even if I use cloud storage legally, I can’t trust it, since between that and the knowledge that a provider can always decide to close the service, it isn’t safe to do so.

(Semi-related: and then we learned we just lost the final captain of the Yamato as well – Paul’s team found the wreck of Yamato’s younger sister, Musashi, who also sank as part of the overall Battle of Leyte Gulf…)

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Cloud service: it means that on top of having trouble with one’s own equipment, one can also have trouble with someone else’s.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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GoneToPlaid, Nibbled To Death By Ducks, Microfix

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While it was going, Networking Magazine years ago pointed these out:

For those brave souls who DO use the cloud for anything, questions always should be asked:

1. Is my data co-located in widely spaced geographic areas?

2. Are they mirrored, and how frequently is this done?

All in all, I’d rather avoid The Cloud if at all possible. For small pieces of info that’s non-personal, maybe.

But the whole thing besmacks of what an anonymous comment said above…full circle. We’re going back to dumb terminals and the mainframe in the Office Of The Central Scrutinizer.

Not good.

In the meantime, someone’s cloud got busted for bad security:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/15/donald_trump_dating_app_insecure/

“…the application’s makers had poorly secured an internet-facing cloud-hosted backend database containing information including all user names, private conversations via the app, and authentication tokens needed to log into their accounts.”

Ow.

Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
--
"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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Steve, GoneToPlaid

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You so hit the nail on the head with your Scotty quote from Star Trek. Presently, I see “the cloud” as an ever growing taller house of cards which at some point will come crashing down when hackers eventually find a really nice chink in its armor.

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And we’ll suddenly see a news byte about a “massive data breach” which “commenced approximately two years ago” with “more than 250 million accounts compromised”. “MicroSoft apologizes to the affected users and is still conducting an investigation into the problem”.

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