Google is to launch a service that would enable users to access their personal computer from any internet connection, according to industry reports. But campaigners warn that it would give the online behemoth unprecedented control over individuals’ personal data.
The Google Drive, or “GDrive”, could kill off the desktop computer, which relies on a powerful hard drive. Instead a user’s personal files and operating system could be stored on Google’s own servers and accessed via the internet. The long-rumoured GDrive is expected to be launched this year, according to the technology news website TG Daily, which described it as “the most anticipated Google product so far”. It is seen as a paradigm shift away from Microsoft’s Windows operating system, which runs inside most of the world’s computers, in favour of “cloud computing”, where the processing and storage is done thousands of miles away in remote data centres.
The loss of a laptop or crash of a hard drive does not jeopardise the data because it is regularly saved in “the cloud” and can be accessed via the web from any machine. The GDrive would follow this logic to its conclusion by shifting the contents of a user’s hard drive to the Google servers. The PC would be a simpler, cheaper device acting as a portal to the web, perhaps via an adaptation of Google’s operating system for mobile phones, Android. Users would think of their computer as software rather than hardware.
It is this prospect that alarms critics of Google’s ambitions. Peter Brown, executive director of the Free Software Foundation, a charity defending computer users’ liberties, did not dispute the convenience offered, but said: “It’s a little bit like saying, ‘we’re in a dictatorship, the trains are running on time.’ But does it matter to you that someone can see everything on your computer? Does it matter that Google can be subpoenaed at any time to hand over all your data to the American government?”
You should be advised to get your head examined if you were to use this service. Unless, of course you don’t have anything to hide, and who doesn’t have at least something on their computer they would like to keep private?
Yeah…and when the cloud disappears? Where will you be? I don’t think I am going to trust my stuff to the googlers.
# 1 TVAddict said, “Yeah…and when the cloud disappears?”
CLOUD = Complete Loss Of User Data
“Does it matter that Google can be subpoenaed at any time to hand over all your data to the American government?”
No because I use my patented GDrive encryption wrapper. It looks like a drive but it encrypts my data and splits it among different accounts.
Why would Google think I would want to keep my personal data on their search servers? I’ll keep that info on a local hard disk or thumb drive, thank you very much.
No thank you…
This is a solution without a problem… HD storage prices are low already and lower all the time.
It’s also no doubt an inadequate solution in at least 2 ways – I have over 1.5 TB of various kinds of data. Will I be allowed 1.5 TB of Gdrive space? No. I doubt it. And how long will it take my 1.5 TB to transfer into the cloud? Well, I have about 40GB of family photos stored with Amazon via Jungledisk and that took the better part of a month. You do the math.
I have friends and coworkers who have waaaaaay more stuff stored on their PCs. Even if I had 1/3 what I do have this would not interest me much.
Might steal my business from Amazon if it’s free, fast, and otherwise good, I suppose. Big deal – hardly the death of the PC.
@#3: Will Google allow such encryption? What is in for Google in this scheme? – Ability to parse annotate and file your data, gleaning info about you and related issues which is to be used to deliver appropriate ads and earn them money. That’s the end game. I’d bet they’ll require you work with their tools on your files and have Chrome-like keyloger as a “essential” part of the software.
@#4: They already suckered up highly technically literate audience to use their keyloger (ahm, browser) because it is uh- and ah- of fast new technology and looks different than other browsers. Same strategy here…
Can’t wait to see the corruption that ensues with all that personal/professional data. Can you imagine all the insider information that would be available to Google if people used G-mail to bitch to their friends about problems at work? Yikes.
You paranoid Geeks have no connection to MOST PEOPLE who in fact actually don’t have anything to hide and desperately want a secure system against viruses and hardware failure.
Add that to the fact that any illusion of privacy is a pipe dream and Cloud makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.
In the end, it all comes down to $$$$ and ease of interface.
It does set up an interesting conflict==as Cloud computing becomes the norm, when will private pc’s become ipso facto devices of organized and petty crime.
oddly enough i guess i am not like the rest of the people here. i have nothing on my computer that i care about anyone seeing.
I think bobbo’s right.
“Most” people aren’t PC geeks. They’re just Joe Six-Packs that want to turn on a terminal and find out sports scores or eBay auctions. They want something simple, they don’t want to futz with computer parts, or even Windows, for that matter.
Face it. The average consumer doesn’t give a crap about “privacy”. They figure they have nothing to hide. They assume no one will want their credit card info or social security info or résumé. It’s always someone else’s info!
#9 – Bobo
>>You paranoid Geeks have no connection to MOST PEOPLE
>>who in fact actually don’t have anything to hide
OK, jefe, here’s your chance to be a real leader, and show us paranoid geeks the way.
You be the first to post your Social Security number, real name, address, telephone number (inlcluding cell phones), credit card numbers (including security codes), your mother’s maiden name, your first pet’s name, and the answers to any other commonly-used security “secret” questions.
I eagerly await your debut into full-bore cloud computing.
I propose a new law of inevitability for all computer companies…
Computer companies grow until they discover thin clients, at which point their growth is finished.
This is the end of new and interesting ideas from google….
@12
am i weird, cause i don’t have any of that stuff on my pc?
do you really have all that stuff on your hard drive?
i am not trying to be cute or prove a point or anything like that i really want to know.
its NOT what the data IS’. ITS the LOSS of your data.
This is like DRM, that checks the makers site, and the DRM maker QUITS, and you cant play your music.
Lets store ALL your pictures on the net. THEn lets have a major SHUT DOWN, VIRUS, infect the servers…What do you get? NOTHING, its ALL GONE.
If you cant MAKE the time to make backups…ITS YOUR FAULT..If you dont carry around a few DVD with the data you need, ITS YOUR FAULT..
ALL this is, is a way to STORE data for TEMPORARY use.. so that you can go from 1 location to another and STILL use the data. WHICh you could PROBABLY carry on a few DVD’s/Flash drives..
BUT that depends on WHERE you are going to USE the data, and if they have ACCESS to equipment that makes it EASY TO USE the stored Internet data..Downloading 4meg pics on a 56k modem SUCKS..
#12–Musty==none of that stuff is on my computer, however I have offered all that stuff up to NewEgg and others and when I order the second time I see that it has all been stored in the Cloud.
So what is the fricken issue?
#14–ECA==why would the Cloud prevent the cognoscenti from making personal hard copies of their important data or in maintain a copy of everything in another cloud?
#14 – Com
>>do you really have all that stuff on your hard drive?
Much of it, yes. And I have entered it in somewhere to another computer when ordering stuff, filing my taxes, doing online banking, etc.
As it is now, it’s here, there, and elsewhere, scattered around.
With the New Google Overlords, it will be all in one place, ripe for the picking when a backup tape falls off a delivery truck like happens to the banks, CIA, IRS, etc. now.
I have been getting stuff in the mail for some time from BNY/ Mellon Bank, telling me how they lost data of mine (and of a million other people), and they’re offering all kinds of anti-identity-theft freebies so I won’t be pissed (or sue them).
What will Google do, once their security is compromised (and you KNOW it will be compromised)?
#14,
I am not a porn addict, so I don’t have the nerd sized OCD porn collection on my computer, which for individual users is really the only reason I see for a hard drive greater than 100 gig, which is a tiny hard drive by todays standards.
On my computer however, I do have my internet browsing history, which does in fact contain work product, which is propritary information even if it is data as simple as… Where do I buy the products that I sell.
If I were a pure information worker, my customer list and all my intelectual property is enough data for someone to start their own company doing exactly what I do.
Sure I could sue them if someone were to steal that, but by the time it worked its way through the courts my business would still be gone. Then there is the whole extracting blood from turnips problem….
This is problematic no matter how you look at it. Also, if you don’t have any data that your are concerned about losing, then why use a servive like this anyhow???
#16 – Bobo
>>however I have offered all that stuff up to NewEgg
>>and others and when I order the second time I see
>>that it has all been stored in the Cloud.
We paranoid geeks call those “cookies”, Bobo. And they’re not stored in the Cloud, they’re stored on your hard drive. You may delete them, if you like.
Once all that stuff is on The Google, your cookies are their cookies, and THEY make the decision on what to keep, what to throw away, and what to turn over to the Government when they go on their next fishing expedition.
#17
so it seems the simple solution is just not to use it for that info?
#20,
If you can’t, for a variety of reasons, use this all the time, then why use it at all???
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!!
Bend over!
There is one word that might just kill “cloud computing”
“Liability”
Are we going to have to sign away are right to seek damages in order to use the system?
#20 – Com
>>so it seems the simple solution is just not to use
>>it for that info?
That’s my plan.
Since I don’t have a 1.5T collection of pornographic videos, I really don’t see what I WOULD use it for. Just about everything on my computer is either personal (bank records, taxes, investments, etc.) or work-related.
I’m not sure what benefit I would derive from using that service, unless they provided me with cool and expensive applications that I don’t want to buy myself. In that case, I’d treat it like a myspace page or something. Other folks can probably get to it even if I try to prevent them, but I don’t care.
Mustard said:
“You be the first to post your Social Security number, real name, address, telephone number (inlcluding cell phones), credit card numbers (including security codes), your mother’s maiden name, your first pet’s name, and the answers to any other commonly-used security “secret” questions.”
Dude! It’s already there, along with all of our stuff too.
#21
i do that that is very good logic. i can’t always use my car or my mc hammer pants. same with my highlander sword and gator skin shoes.
they are tools and they have their appropriate times and uses. just because they can’t always be used doesn’t mean they are worthless.
thinking about this i bet google would like you to put your movies and music on their serves. they can use that to sell you ads.
having your ss number is no use to them.
Yeah I have to agree this is a solution without a problem. And in fact, liable to cause far more problems (you thought file sharing was bad when people *weren’t* essentially sharing the same storage space?)
Also, having stuff to “hide” doesn’t necessarily imply the stuff to hide is bad. Legal documents, for example, are confidential, and lawyers are required to keep many kinds of files as confidential, beyond what an encrypted cloud file could possibly provide. Failure to do so could end in sanctions from the bar, or total disbarment for an egregious failure.
Guess we should get rid of traffic lights, police departments, elected governments at the same time.
Whadda lotta wusses.
OK, so I will need a computer with super high-speed internet, a high-res screen and lots of ram to access my cloud computer.
Sounds like duplicity of everything but a hard drive. I already use Live Mesh and uploads are too slow.
Google apps are crappy too.
#25 – Big Boy
>>Dude! It’s already there, along with all of our
>>stuff too.
Maybe yours is, but mine isn’t. My taxes are with the IRS and state, my banking info is with the bank, my investments are with TDAmeritrade and Schwab, and my personal and work-related stuff is here, behind my firewall.
That’s a far cry from having millions of peoples’ every computer move being stored and tracked by a centralized monolith.
As I said, I don’t really foresee using such a service. I would be disinclined to use it on general principles even if I DID have a space issue, which I don’t.