I disagree. Methinks the general public is capable of running their own server. Also, I predict a backlash against the hosted-at-X paradigm. Open source doesn'

I disagree. Methinks the general public is capable of running their own server. Also, I predict a backlash against the hosted-at-X paradigm. Open source doesn't know it, but the battle for freedom "in the cloud" is just about to begin. Option 1: Use fb, dbox, and gmail for all your shit. Option 2: Start the "blog", "sshd" and "mail" daeemon-apps on your own server, which in turn could be hosted anywhere. The big selling(freeing?) point of an FOSS and self-administered facebook is privacy. Right now, people don’t seem to care about privacy all that much, and I can't blame them. Every time the privacy debate comes up in relation to google or facebook the conversation is steered towards the following assumptions: - The attacker is another member of the website or an anonymous web user. - The platform (gmail or facebook) is a trusted third party. This is not the debate I want to be having. I don't agree with the second assumption. Any “privacy policy” I can fill out for my data will not prevent the company from accessing my data. They own the database and the file servers and even have authority over my login credentials for that website. What about the privacy in the following paradigm: - The attacker can be any person or company on the internet. - Your server is a VM in a distributed platform of hosts. - You have a special credential (id-rsa), which is used to change settings on the VM. - Host can be trusted most of the time, but sometimes (prob=0.2) they are malicious. If we ensure there is a big ecosystem of hosting companies with a compatible API, then individual users could constantly migrate their hosting plans and change companies every month, or even every week. Thus in the worst case, a "cloud host" could eavesdrop on you just for one week. If you constantly change hosts, you will get a guaranteed 80% privacy, which is much better than 0% privacy. Anyone who has lots of servers on their hands and wants to start a hosting company -- I say you get the whole "my home in the cloud" app hosting business started: http://ivan.unixdaemons.com/blog/?p=513 http://ivan.unixdaemons.com/blog/?p=513 Eben Moglen talks to the troops: http://isoc-ny.org/?p=1338 http://isoc-ny.org/?p=1338