Group: Information Security

Data and mobile communications giants are growing. This systemic risk - too big to fail, bail me out - may result in another financial crisis - this time in the digital realm.

http://commetrics.com/articles/market-dominance-and-cloud-co...

What is your opinion about this? What is your experience storing social network data in a cloud... Please provide feedback here and on the blog, of course.

Prof. Dr. Urs E. Gattiker schrieb:
Data and mobile communications giants are growing. This systemic risk - too big to fail, bail me out - may result in another financial crisis - this time in the digital realm.
your question/conclusion is:

"When it comes to data services, social networks, cloud computing, mobile and music, market concentration is constantly on the rise. Could this mean the burst of another bubble, once again requiring taxpayers to foot the bill?"

How do you get to this conclusion? A bubble emerges if something is traded in a high volume and much above its real value, e.g. dutch tulip mania, U.S. / spain real estate bubble, new market bubble.

Where do you see this peril in the mentioned area of data services and social networks? I don' t see that those services and/or goods are beeing traded for an overly high and rising price.

Yours sincerely
Kurt Knochner
This article was modified on 06 Nov 2009 at 12:15 am.

Well, allow me to be controversial, but where's the beef?

Data and mobile communications giants are growing. This systemic risk - too big to fail, bail me out - may result in another financial crisis - this time in the digital realm.
Basically, who cares if google goes chapter 11? Who cares if Amazon flops? There is a plethora of other search engine, mail, GIS, whatever providers out there; as well as lots of other book stores.
And - face it - our society will not crash and burn if Google goes broke. Some products that use Google Earth overlays will need to be rewritten, a lot of people will find out that bing or yahoo are usable after all, at least better than nothing, and advertisements will go elsewhere.

What is your opinion about this? What is your experience storing social network data in a cloud... Please provide feedback here and on the blog, of course.
Pardon my french, but I find the FUD on the blog annoying. Yes, there are security and privacy issues in cloud computing, obviously. Social networks are among the least important applications there, as most have not (and may never) reached the computing and storage requirements that necessitate a cloud. Those that are going cloud anyway without understanding the technology (like Sidekick :-)) will sooner or later learn, one way or the other.

But what is YOUR specific point besides shouting for regulation, what is your analysis, what are your answers?

Companies and Organizations that chose to lose their data in a cloud crash and have no backups will learn the hard way that backups are a good idea (TM). New technology, old problem, old solution.

Companies and Organizations that chose to lose their data in a cloud crash because they suddenly find out that their competitor owns part of the cloud will learn the hard way that encryption is a good idea (TM). New technology, old problem, old solution.

Countries that base national infrastructure on international cloud platforms are plain stupid, and at least people I know are aware of that. Countries, counties and municipalities of course tend to do stupid things, as the US outsourcing spree to Indian and Chinese call centers shows us, but again, same old, same old....

What is new are the international privacy issues, but placing these in the hand of regulators is weird (Bock zum Gaertner machen, as the Germans say).

-Martin