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Darthdingo

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 11, 2010
602
0
http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-cloud-trojan-horse-for-internet-takeover.html

Despite the corporate-driven hubbub surrounding the inevitability of “the cloud” replacing personal hard drives as the pre-eminent storage center for all web content, this system represents another dangerous trojan horse for the establishment to complete their agenda to regulate and shut down the free Internet.

Apple, Google and Amazon amongst other tech giants have all jumped on board with “the cloud,” a remote server network that allows users to store their data without using hard drives. However, despite the convenience of having all your files easily accessible in one place wherever you go, the drawbacks are ominous.

The FBI, Homeland Security, IRS, etc will have unlimited access to the iCloud with (or without) a warrant.
 

Frenchjay

macrumors 68000
Jul 6, 2010
1,840
28
This is the reason i did not fill out my uk government census form just recently.
The contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin (Defence contractor).

We were told it was completely safe and the information gathered would not be used by any third party. Well Lockheed Martin was hacked, although i don't think any personal info was stolen it highlights the potential for it being stolen.

The icloud is a double edge sword. It's very useful for the consumer but it is also very useful to collect data from third party's that may be totally unjustified. I know that it could be used for nefarious purposes and i reject the idea that we should have our whole lives in the cloud, getting rid of local storage all together.
 

alangrehan

macrumors regular
Jan 15, 2008
172
12
This is the reason i did not fill out my uk government census form just recently....

How did you get away with that? As far as I know, filling out the census is a legal obligation and refusal will land you with a £1000 fine??

Or are you just talking about doing it online?
 

srf4real

macrumors 68040
Jul 25, 2006
3,001
26
paradise beach FL
Let's just say that anyone who chooses store their private documents or other data in the cloud should have no expectation of privacy.. for a start. A user who buys into "secured cloud storage" is giving away their money to the very culprits who will probably allow his data to be stolen or misused.

I've been storing images on Photobucket for years, but only the images that I ultimately have no expectation of keeping secure from public prying eyes, even if it is a "professional" account that is password protected. The stuff that I have no intentions of releasing ownership on, that's the stuff that remains on my hdd in my house locked up with security constraints that I have control over...;)

If the www wants to keep it all in a cloud, good for them. Ain't getting their grubby five fingers on my private stuff, ever.:cool:

I believe the days of regulated internet are right around the corner.. at least in the US.. just as soon as I read today that US gov. and Google are 'protecting our privacy' in relations to location data. Just a hint of things to come that the gov. wants to 'protect' us from in the interwebs.
 

BlindMellon

macrumors 65816
Apr 4, 2011
1,022
0
Let's just say that anyone who chooses store their private documents or other data in the cloud should have no expectation of privacy.. for a start. A user who buys into "secured cloud storage" is giving away their money to the very culprits who will probably allow his data to be stolen or misused.

I've been storing images on Photobucket for years, but only the images that I ultimately have no expectation of keeping secure from public prying eyes, even if it is a "professional" account that is password protected. The stuff that I have no intentions of releasing ownership on, that's the stuff that remains on my hdd in my house locked up with security constraints that I have control over...;)

If the www wants to keep it all in a cloud, good for them. Ain't getting their grubby five fingers on my private stuff, ever.:cool:

I believe the days of regulated internet are right around the corner.. at least in the US.. just as soon as I read today that US gov. and Google are 'protecting our privacy' in relations to location data. Just a hint of things to come that the gov. wants to 'protect' us from in the interwebs.
I'm with you brother. These people that just can't wait to hand over all their private data to "the cloud".... Not me.
 

Frenchjay

macrumors 68000
Jul 6, 2010
1,840
28
How did you get away with that? As far as I know, filling out the census is a legal obligation and refusal will land you with a £1000 fine??

Or are you just talking about doing it online?

No I did not fill it out online or via the actual form. There is a difference between legal and lawful and lawful trumps legal. It says you are legally required to fill out the form or face a fine. There is no law that says I must do so I just made the office on national statistics aware that I am not required to fill out the form and they left me alone.

There is no LAW either in the us or the uk to pay tax. If you know what your doing you can represent yourself in court and under law you can stop paying it.


Here is a gentlemen in court making the court stand down on the order for hi to pay tax because he knows it is unlawful.
Part1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caQcx0H17fo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Part2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwIAYQVgQms&feature=youtube_gdata_player
 
Last edited:

goMac

macrumors 604
Apr 15, 2004
7,663
1,694
Rabble rabble rabble.

I find it ironic that this post was posted on an internet forum. With a database. That stores information about you.

As long as you're online, either the sites you visit, or your computer itself are at risk. Sure, the risk may not be very big, but I'd be willing to bet that iCloud is at least more secure than your average computer.

Local storage isn't going away, though. Don't like iCloud? Don't use it.
 

Jagardn

macrumors 6502a
Apr 18, 2011
668
2
Disable your iCloud and slap on your tinfoil hat.:rolleyes:

thumbnail.aspx
 

ahdickter

macrumors 6502
Jun 12, 2011
293
0
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

captain kaos

macrumors 65816
Jan 16, 2008
1,156
28
UK
It is scary if you completely buy into the icloud. I won't be, as mentioned earlier i think you have to restrict what you have in the cloud, and don't walk blindly into the next "big thing" a corporation sells you.
 

srf4real

macrumors 68040
Jul 25, 2006
3,001
26
paradise beach FL
Especially considering how handily the hackers are exploiting any network database they choose this year just to show how easily the most top secret data can be compromised. I personally feel that Apple's iCloud is poorly timed and only the sheep will follow blindly.:cool:

Of course, I am also toying with the idea of deleting my Facebook and having my wife do the same now that facial recognition is in full effect. I know you can "opt out" but can you, really?:/
 

b166er

macrumors 68020
Apr 17, 2010
2,062
18
Philly
All this cloud paranoia just kicked in to gear when Apple announced iCloud.

Let's get a few things straight here...

1. "Cloud" storage has been around for a long time. Photobucket is a prime example. If you uploaded your spring break pics to a public photobucket album, that's your fault.

2. We will always be able to buy hard drives. Whatever you want to call them it doesn't matter. Memory cards, thumb drives, external hard drives, etc. Those things aren't going anywhere. They are cheap, they have huge capacity, and they are extremely portable. Most of them can be "secured" from prying eyes without a lot of trouble.

3. We all knew this was coming. Most people wanted it. Now that's it's starting to arrive everyone is getting paranoid.

4. This whole "post PC" thing Apple mentioned- that's actually happening. Of course PC's aren't going to disappear or anything so drastic. But it is certainly true that average people are using computers less and smartphones more. You have what is more or less a computer in your pocket and it's always hooked up to the internet either on wifi or 3G, etc. You use it to take pictures, schedule events, check facebook, etc. People who are truly worried about privacy probably aren't power-using an iPhone in the first place.

I said it once and I'll say it again- people complain about the government having "control" over them, but once something goes wrong the first words are usually "why isn't the government doing anything to stop this"?

I wonder if there was a similar air of paranoia back in the early/mid 90's when AOL was dominating home internet access.
 

srf4real

macrumors 68040
Jul 25, 2006
3,001
26
paradise beach FL
I wonder if there was a similar air of paranoia back in the early/mid 90's when AOL was dominating home internet access.

Yep, and rightly so. Due to AOL proliferation and domination without regulations of internet access, nor restrictions concerning who should or should not be qualified to surf such internet.. a zillion twelve year old geeks with computers were enabled to destroy any Windows machine they chose or machines by the thousands with virus and malware. Hence the rise of Apple, the anti-virus machine. Now Apple is bending over for the soap..
 

Alchematron

macrumors 65816
Jan 22, 2007
1,012
24
Maui Hawaii
The Cloud: Trojan Horse For Internet Takeover

The Cloud: Trojan Horse For Internet Takeover

http://www.infowars.com/the-cloud-trojan-horse-for-internet-takeover

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 15, 2011

Despite the corporate-driven hubbub surrounding the inevitability of “the cloud” replacing personal hard drives as the pre-eminent storage center for all web content, this system represents another dangerous trojan horse for the establishment to complete their agenda to regulate and shut down the free Internet.

Apple, Google and Amazon amongst other tech giants have all jumped on board with “the cloud,” a remote server network that allows users to store their data without using hard drives.

“It’s all part of a generational trend away from owning physical media content and towards renting media content from the computing universal cloud,” reports Investmentu.com.

However, despite the convenience of having all your files easily accessible in one place wherever you go, the drawbacks are ominous.

The Cloud is basically a You Tube for everything, and the problem with this is that You Tube routinely blocks, censors and deletes content when ordered to by governments. As we reported back in May, You Tube is now following orders from governments to remove videos that show protests, demonstrations and other sensitive information the state doesn’t want others to see.

Indeed, Amazon’s Cloud network notoriously deleted the entire Wikileaks website from its servers following a phone call made by Senator Joe Lieberman’s Senate Homeland Security Committee demanding the website be axed.

Lieberman has been at the forefront of a push to purge the Internet of all dissent by empowering Obama with a figurative Internet kill switch that he would use to shut down parts of the Internet or terminate websites under the guise of national security. Lieberman spilled the beans on the true reason for the move during a CNN interview when he stated “Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too.”

The cloud is therefore the perfect compliment to cybersecurity. The goal is to force everyone to use one of the cloud networks run by a major corporation, first by taxing, regulating, and making the normal Internet prohibitively expensive, and eventually by shutting it down all together. Once the vast majority of data is confined to the cloud network, harsher copyright, free speech and defamation laws will slowly be tightened, which will force the alternative media out of business.

When you agree to have your content hosted on the cloud, you are virtually handing it over to a large corporation which then through “terms of use” has the power to access or delete your information.

For example, Amazon’s Cloud Locker’s “binding agreement” with users mandates that Amazon can exercise, “the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files”.

Handing your data over to the cloud also makes it that bit easier for the government to obtain your private information.

“It’s not like putting your data in a desk drawer,” Chris Calabrese of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Washington Post. “Although the government needs a judge’s order to seize a hard drive, a subpoena is often enough authority to obtain cloud data.”

Security is also virtually non-existent on Amazon’s cloud. Amazon writes that “We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You’re responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of Your Files.”

So if a hacker or Amazon itself deletes your files – tough luck – there’s no recourse.

Technology buffs have also predicted problems for people who later decide to switch between clouds, say moving from Apple to Google.

“Providers of cloud services like Apple, Google and Facebook will have strong profit incentives to hold on to their users to maximize revenue,” writes Tony D’Altorio. “They’ll do their best to limit consumers’ freedom to roam freely from cloud to cloud.”

“So consumers may get stuck in Apple’s iCloud and not be able to get out without a hassle. Mark Little, an analyst at Ovum, remarked, “Switching costs [from cloud to cloud] is likely to be one of the biggest parts of the cloud story.”

The cloud is nothing more than a trojan horse to eviscerate the free Internet. It’s an effort to assimilate the alternative media into a borg hive before destroying it from within. It’s one component of Internet 2 and the move towards a world wide web that resembles something more like cable TV than what we know as the Internet today, a system where a small number of giant corporations will work with governments to decide what can and cannot be published.

The cloud will kill the free Internet unless we get the message out that it is a tool perfectly honed for shutting down free speech on the world wide web.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
 

Fliesen

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2010
761
5
Austria
so how exactly is the optional ability to keep in sync my contacts / mails / calenders / photos / files across multiple devices taking away my personal freedom again? :/

oh the conspiracies!
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
I think the wording is poorly chosen but some of the arguments echoed in the article are valid concerns to some degree.

I mean just look at the recent news about hacking from anonymous, Lulz Security and of course the on going issues with Sony. My point is when you have internet facing servers that have the potential to expose personal data the risks of that data being compromised is there. How high that risk is dependent on the security measures the companies use.

For instance with sony keeping user's passwords unencrypted is just plain foolish. Given apple's secrecy and criticism about not being more transparent about security fixes we have nothing to go on regarding how safe our data will be. If anything just look at the occurrences of the iTunes Store being compromised. It doesn't happen a lot but we see a number of threads here from time to time, where someone's account gets hacked.

Ultimately its our data and being such we need to ensure that its safe.
 
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