7 ms·

Steve Wozniak: "I worry about everything going to the cloud"

93 points by esolyt 14y ago

spins4u2 14y ago
Well I've been hacked and cloned and I'm positive it happened from blackberry, do take your best shot, this guy has taken over my computer, phone, and my identity, so how do you like them apples. I'm scared to death of what he's doing on my computer. I doubt if its leagle.
spins4u2 14y ago
I got snipits of info on my phone and google would put in his phone numbers for me, so I did a little detective work and found out that my hacker worked for rim. I think he's since quit, as he has a lucritative business on my computer in my name. Blackberry refuses to help me at all, so I'm thinking of taking action.
unimpressive 14y ago
Terrible article, veers way off subject from the headline. So I'm going to forget the article exists and talk about the headline. I'm personally more interested in personal cloud type services. Little plug computers that you hook to your wall and run services such as FTP off of. You pay for brain dead easy DNS service at whatever rate and all of your data belongs to you. If your DNS provider gives you the finger you switch and give it right back. Right now these devices are expensive. In time though they'll be cheap. So I'm just waiting on it until I can build my own or buy one for <$50.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  I'm working on that particular project right now(1). Its much closer than you think. (1) Like code windows open next to this one, right now.
  - unimpressive 14y ago
    >Its much closer than you think. I'm not exactly a patient man. If I suspected I'd be waiting long I'd start my own project.
  - pyre 14y ago
    Your own project, or are you working on the 'freedom box'?
olalonde 14y ago
Please don't editorialize the headline. The original title is fine: "Apple co-founder Wozniak sees trouble in the cloud".
Bjoern 14y ago
There is a huge privacy issue in the Cloud. Some progress has been made with Homomorpohic encryption, but its still some time away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2010/03/18/38566/ http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2010/03/18/38566/
- ams6110 14y ago
  Privacy is the big reason I don't put anything really private in "the cloud." I don't care how good the security is, ultimately humans run these services, and humans are corruptible.
  - anusinha 14y ago
    One possible answer is to use encryption of some sort when uploading/downloading files. This is annoying to implement though.
    - seagreen 14y ago
      I highly recommend EncFS. It's easy to set up and simple to use. The main downside I know of is that is doesn't keep the number of files or their sizes private but, really, who cares?
      - qu4z-2 14y ago
        I've recently stumbled across tarsnap. It's command-line, but if you're not afraid of that, it's very nice.
gadders 14y ago
I worry about people reeling Woz out to comment on stuff every time something Apple related happens. Is he not a bit past his sell by date?
- brudgers 14y ago
  It's Woz or Wayne if you want a comment from an Apple founder...and who quotes Wayne?
coob 14y ago
Woz has no need for the cloud, he has one in his backpack: http://gizmodo.com/5926598/the-amazing-contents-of-steve-wozniaks-travel-backpack http://gizmodo.com/5926598/the-amazing-contents-of-steve-woz...
stroboskop 14y ago
Most people are complaining about the headline, but it is in line with what Woz is saying: "I really worry about everything going to the cloud," he said. "I think it's going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years." He added: "With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away" through the legalistic terms of service with a cloud provider that computer users must agree to. "I want to feel that I own things," Wozniak said. "A lot of people feel, 'Oh, everything is really on my computer,' but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it." I wouldn't be surprised if many people around HN do not agree with Woz. After all the cloud is how many here earn their living. That said, Woz is absolutely right. I wish more people of his standing would speak up.
- DanBC 14y ago
  > I wouldn't be surprised if many people around HN do not agree with Woz. After all the cloud is how many here earn their living. That said, Woz is absolutely right. There's a weird split. People running a service do not want to have to depend on a 3rd party service; but they do want to encourage other people to depend on the service that they are providing.
  - maayank 14y ago
    If I put my thesis paper and vacation photos on a service that uses EC2 as a backend, I'm not a competitor to either the service or Amazon. If I'm the provider of said service, Amazon are a potential competitor.
    - simonbrown 14y ago
      Which is why you make sure that you can easily switch to something else if you need to.
- ap22213 14y ago
  What he says may be true, but convenience + cheap wins out (almost) every time.
alan_cx 14y ago
Well, Im still trying to work out why people are trusting storage clouds at all. Personally, and that means for me, I see no practical use and only danger. Outages, ownership, authority snooping, seizures, hacking, etc, etc. And then I read something here about a cloud hack being used to wipe computers, tablets and phones. (And don't give me crap about misunderstanding it, I don't need to understand it to be freaked out by the general plot as it were) All I'm told is that some how a cloud is convenient. Leaving my front door open is convenient, but also stupid. If I were to use a cloud to store files, I would treat it like my hard drive, ie, I would want to back it up. Nothing vital to me would ever sit in or on a cloud. I've seen too much go wrong to ever trust them. Overall, I just don't understand why people who have decent, cheap local storage and back up ability already, while retaining complete control, would suddenly hand all their vital data over to somewhere where you lose all control. Even if I want to get my data from elsewhere on the net, I have a cheapo Iomega drive that allows that easily. This cloud lark simply makes no sense to me at all. It just looks like another corporate data grab, which added snooping. Cloud = Kings New Clothes. I feel like the little boy.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- rimantas 14y ago
  > I see no practical use and only danger. Outages, > ownership, authority snooping, seizures, hacking, > etc, etc. Yep, selection bias. Cloud is not used for anything else, just snooping and hacking. I see a practical use: I dont' care what device I am on, I always have my contacts in sync, I can now see the same tabs open, I can access my presentation which I started yesterday on MBP on my iPhone. > Nothing vital to me would ever sit in or on a cloud. Well my kidneys are not on the cloud. Neither my lungs. My contacts? Not vital at all. My presentations? Not vital at all. My music? Not vital at all. But damn is this convenient to have that stuff up there. > I've seen too much go wrong to ever trust them. Then don't. > Overall, I just don't understand why people who have decent, cheap local > storage and back up ability already, Because when I figure in my time needed to configure and maintain this decent, cheap and local storage it is not that cheap anymore. And local does not really cut it. > while retaining complete control, would suddenly hand all their vital data > over to somewhere where you lose all control. Maybe some are not control freaks? And maybe some just have some data what is not "vital", but can be kept in the cloud? Like music collection?
minm 14y ago
Woz is absolutely right. The real problem with cloud is stewardship. Hypothetically, let us assume the advertisement model fails for Google, what will i need to pay for my cloud apps ($20/month or $200/month). What if Facebook changes hand and run by Kuwait Oil Barons? What if the cloud service provider sold to my arch competitor? After seeing the TWiT.TV show about Roll your Personal Cloud (http://twit.tv/show/know-how/1 http://twit.tv/show/know-how/1) I have started using Tonido (http://www.tonido.com http://www.tonido.com) for my remote access and sync needs. It can be run completely local and authentication is between my browser and the Tonido device. I am happy sofar and completely own my data.
- EvanAnderson 14y ago
  At least where I am, in the US, hosting your own services at home is all well and good until you become frustrated with the piddly upload bandwidth you get from your ISP and the potential of running afoul of transfer caps. Consumer acceptance of "personal clouds" isn't going to happen if using traditional "cloud services" is cheaper, faster, and more reliable. I don't see that story getting better anytime soon.
  - minm 14y ago
    It works out for me. Because 70% of my access happens within my home from different devices and i get to use my gigabit connection in the LAN. I think for many users it is the right setup (Unless otherwise you are a traveling salesperson).
    - EvanAnderson 14y ago
      My personal situation is much the same as yours and it works well for me, too. I question how well, however, it would work for someone who is more into creating media with their mobile phone than I am, or someone who wants to share data from their personal network with friends / family.
      - minm 14y ago
jiggy2011 14y ago
It all depends on what you define as the "cloud" and where your data actually lives. Would I worry about all my data living in one enormous datacenter in the USA right next to everybody elses, all owned by one gigantic corporation? Sure. Would I worry less if it was hosted locally by a company in my home town with a datacenter that I can actually go and visit and some agreement in place so that I can have take a copy of the raw data myself and have their copy deleted? Certainly, not to mention that the latency would be better. I think fast upload is the answer to this and I believe that google fiber plans on providing this. In that case you can simply have a home server which is basically a NAS+Router on steroids with a static internet IP (thanks to IPV6) , this server could provide a pretty web interface for "normal" users and a unix shell for l33t h4x0rs. Since upstream is fast enough the service is going to be indistinguishable from something like dropbox in terms of speed and I will have full control. The issues here are data and power reliability , what happens if the disk in my home server dies? There is only so much redundancy you can cram into a small low cost box. I guess the solution would be third party backup services that take advantage of fast upstream to sync the contents of your local box and perhaps can also perform as a "failover" box if your local node fails. The difference here is that you would get a choice of third party backup suppliers, though I imagine most ISPs would provide this as part of the broadband service. One thing that does concern me somewhat on HN and other development oriented websites is that people do a lot of talking about stuff like APIs and Web services rather than protocols and standards. Web APIs provide the illusion of data portability since you have some way of interacting with it, but the reality is that you need a way to dump all of your data and you also need 100% compatible software to move it to. I guess it's difficult to make a business case for designing Email 2.0 unless you know that you can monetise users through some kind of lock-in. Otherwise you could design a fantastic open service only to have someone copy it , undercut you on price and steal all of your users. For example if you could set up your own third party "facebook server" that allows users to interact with FB users without agreeing to facebook TOS or seeing facebook ads.
Jun8 14y ago
Before you agree or disagree with Woz try this simple experiment: Try to view or download your old (e.g. two year-old) status updates from Facebook and see what happened to the longer ones.
- thereallurch 14y ago
  As someone without facebook, care to enlighten me as to what happens?
woobles 14y ago
Encryption encryption encryption.

93 points by esolyt 14y ago

Well I've been hacked and cloned and I'm positive it happened from blackberry, do take your best shot, this guy has taken over my computer, phone, and my identity, so how do you like them apples. I'm scared to death of what he's doing on my computer. I doubt if its leagle.

spins4u2 14y ago

I got snipits of info on my phone and google would put in his phone numbers for me, so I did a little detective work and found out that my hacker worked for rim. I think he's since quit, as he has a lucritative business on my computer in my name. Blackberry refuses to help me at all, so I'm thinking of taking action.

unimpressive 14y ago

Terrible article, veers way off subject from the headline. So I'm going to forget the article exists and talk about the headline. I'm personally more interested in personal cloud type services. Little plug computers that you hook to your wall and run services such as FTP off of. You pay for brain dead easy DNS service at whatever rate and all of your data belongs to you. If your DNS provider gives you the finger you switch and give it right back. Right now these devices are expensive. In time though they'll be cheap. So I'm just waiting on it until I can build my own or buy one for <$50.

noonespecial 14y ago
I'm working on that particular project right now(1). Its much closer than you think. (1) Like code windows open next to this one, right now.
- unimpressive 14y ago
  >Its much closer than you think. I'm not exactly a patient man. If I suspected I'd be waiting long I'd start my own project.
- pyre 14y ago
  Your own project, or are you working on the 'freedom box'?

olalonde 14y ago

Please don't editorialize the headline. The original title is fine: "Apple co-founder Wozniak sees trouble in the cloud".

Bjoern 14y ago

There is a huge privacy issue in the Cloud. Some progress has been made with Homomorpohic encryption, but its still some time away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2010/03/18/38566/ http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2010/03/18/38566/

ams6110 14y ago
Privacy is the big reason I don't put anything really private in "the cloud." I don't care how good the security is, ultimately humans run these services, and humans are corruptible.
- anusinha 14y ago
  One possible answer is to use encryption of some sort when uploading/downloading files. This is annoying to implement though.
  - seagreen 14y ago
    I highly recommend EncFS. It's easy to set up and simple to use. The main downside I know of is that is doesn't keep the number of files or their sizes private but, really, who cares?
    - qu4z-2 14y ago
      I've recently stumbled across tarsnap. It's command-line, but if you're not afraid of that, it's very nice.

gadders 14y ago

I worry about people reeling Woz out to comment on stuff every time something Apple related happens. Is he not a bit past his sell by date?

brudgers 14y ago
It's Woz or Wayne if you want a comment from an Apple founder...and who quotes Wayne?

coob 14y ago

Woz has no need for the cloud, he has one in his backpack: http://gizmodo.com/5926598/the-amazing-contents-of-steve-wozniaks-travel-backpack http://gizmodo.com/5926598/the-amazing-contents-of-steve-woz...

stroboskop 14y ago

Most people are complaining about the headline, but it is in line with what Woz is saying: "I really worry about everything going to the cloud," he said. "I think it's going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years." He added: "With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away" through the legalistic terms of service with a cloud provider that computer users must agree to. "I want to feel that I own things," Wozniak said. "A lot of people feel, 'Oh, everything is really on my computer,' but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it." I wouldn't be surprised if many people around HN do not agree with Woz. After all the cloud is how many here earn their living. That said, Woz is absolutely right. I wish more people of his standing would speak up.

DanBC 14y ago
> I wouldn't be surprised if many people around HN do not agree with Woz. After all the cloud is how many here earn their living. That said, Woz is absolutely right. There's a weird split. People running a service do not want to have to depend on a 3rd party service; but they do want to encourage other people to depend on the service that they are providing.
- maayank 14y ago
  If I put my thesis paper and vacation photos on a service that uses EC2 as a backend, I'm not a competitor to either the service or Amazon. If I'm the provider of said service, Amazon are a potential competitor.
  - simonbrown 14y ago
    Which is why you make sure that you can easily switch to something else if you need to.
ap22213 14y ago
What he says may be true, but convenience + cheap wins out (almost) every time.

alan_cx 14y ago

Well, Im still trying to work out why people are trusting storage clouds at all. Personally, and that means for me, I see no practical use and only danger. Outages, ownership, authority snooping, seizures, hacking, etc, etc. And then I read something here about a cloud hack being used to wipe computers, tablets and phones. (And don't give me crap about misunderstanding it, I don't need to understand it to be freaked out by the general plot as it were) All I'm told is that some how a cloud is convenient. Leaving my front door open is convenient, but also stupid. If I were to use a cloud to store files, I would treat it like my hard drive, ie, I would want to back it up. Nothing vital to me would ever sit in or on a cloud. I've seen too much go wrong to ever trust them. Overall, I just don't understand why people who have decent, cheap local storage and back up ability already, while retaining complete control, would suddenly hand all their vital data over to somewhere where you lose all control. Even if I want to get my data from elsewhere on the net, I have a cheapo Iomega drive that allows that easily. This cloud lark simply makes no sense to me at all. It just looks like another corporate data grab, which added snooping. Cloud = Kings New Clothes. I feel like the little boy.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rimantas 14y ago
> I see no practical use and only danger. Outages, > ownership, authority snooping, seizures, hacking, > etc, etc. Yep, selection bias. Cloud is not used for anything else, just snooping and hacking. I see a practical use: I dont' care what device I am on, I always have my contacts in sync, I can now see the same tabs open, I can access my presentation which I started yesterday on MBP on my iPhone. > Nothing vital to me would ever sit in or on a cloud. Well my kidneys are not on the cloud. Neither my lungs. My contacts? Not vital at all. My presentations? Not vital at all. My music? Not vital at all. But damn is this convenient to have that stuff up there. > I've seen too much go wrong to ever trust them. Then don't. > Overall, I just don't understand why people who have decent, cheap local > storage and back up ability already, Because when I figure in my time needed to configure and maintain this decent, cheap and local storage it is not that cheap anymore. And local does not really cut it. > while retaining complete control, would suddenly hand all their vital data > over to somewhere where you lose all control. Maybe some are not control freaks? And maybe some just have some data what is not "vital", but can be kept in the cloud? Like music collection?

minm 14y ago

Woz is absolutely right. The real problem with cloud is stewardship. Hypothetically, let us assume the advertisement model fails for Google, what will i need to pay for my cloud apps ($20/month or $200/month). What if Facebook changes hand and run by Kuwait Oil Barons? What if the cloud service provider sold to my arch competitor? After seeing the TWiT.TV show about Roll your Personal Cloud (http://twit.tv/show/know-how/1 http://twit.tv/show/know-how/1) I have started using Tonido (http://www.tonido.com http://www.tonido.com) for my remote access and sync needs. It can be run completely local and authentication is between my browser and the Tonido device. I am happy sofar and completely own my data.

EvanAnderson 14y ago
At least where I am, in the US, hosting your own services at home is all well and good until you become frustrated with the piddly upload bandwidth you get from your ISP and the potential of running afoul of transfer caps. Consumer acceptance of "personal clouds" isn't going to happen if using traditional "cloud services" is cheaper, faster, and more reliable. I don't see that story getting better anytime soon.
- minm 14y ago
  It works out for me. Because 70% of my access happens within my home from different devices and i get to use my gigabit connection in the LAN. I think for many users it is the right setup (Unless otherwise you are a traveling salesperson).
  - EvanAnderson 14y ago
    My personal situation is much the same as yours and it works well for me, too. I question how well, however, it would work for someone who is more into creating media with their mobile phone than I am, or someone who wants to share data from their personal network with friends / family.
    - minm 14y ago

jiggy2011 14y ago

It all depends on what you define as the "cloud" and where your data actually lives. Would I worry about all my data living in one enormous datacenter in the USA right next to everybody elses, all owned by one gigantic corporation? Sure. Would I worry less if it was hosted locally by a company in my home town with a datacenter that I can actually go and visit and some agreement in place so that I can have take a copy of the raw data myself and have their copy deleted? Certainly, not to mention that the latency would be better. I think fast upload is the answer to this and I believe that google fiber plans on providing this. In that case you can simply have a home server which is basically a NAS+Router on steroids with a static internet IP (thanks to IPV6) , this server could provide a pretty web interface for "normal" users and a unix shell for l33t h4x0rs. Since upstream is fast enough the service is going to be indistinguishable from something like dropbox in terms of speed and I will have full control. The issues here are data and power reliability , what happens if the disk in my home server dies? There is only so much redundancy you can cram into a small low cost box. I guess the solution would be third party backup services that take advantage of fast upstream to sync the contents of your local box and perhaps can also perform as a "failover" box if your local node fails. The difference here is that you would get a choice of third party backup suppliers, though I imagine most ISPs would provide this as part of the broadband service. One thing that does concern me somewhat on HN and other development oriented websites is that people do a lot of talking about stuff like APIs and Web services rather than protocols and standards. Web APIs provide the illusion of data portability since you have some way of interacting with it, but the reality is that you need a way to dump all of your data and you also need 100% compatible software to move it to. I guess it's difficult to make a business case for designing Email 2.0 unless you know that you can monetise users through some kind of lock-in. Otherwise you could design a fantastic open service only to have someone copy it , undercut you on price and steal all of your users. For example if you could set up your own third party "facebook server" that allows users to interact with FB users without agreeing to facebook TOS or seeing facebook ads.

Jun8 14y ago

Before you agree or disagree with Woz try this simple experiment: Try to view or download your old (e.g. two year-old) status updates from Facebook and see what happened to the longer ones.

thereallurch 14y ago
As someone without facebook, care to enlighten me as to what happens?

woobles 14y ago

Encryption encryption encryption.