I don't like cloud computing. It's 'My Data" on "Not My Machine"

Before Local Cloud:
I have a bunch of machines
and a nerd who herds them.
I am his boss,
I control him.
I own my data.
I have to pay to replace broken machines.

After Local Cloud Computing:
I have a bunch of machine
and a nerd to herd them
but he doesn't report to me-
I can't control him.
He owns my data
Part of the Fee is insurance to fix machines that Might break.

Another Thought on Cloud computing.

Andie's Company outsources to Clyde's Clouds. Andi has medical information.
Bob's Company outsources to Clyde's Clouds. Bob runs a marketing company.
Edward the Evil Haxorz hacks Clyde's clouds and steals Andie's medical information.
HIPAA burys Clyde's Clouds in fines. Clyde flees the country.

Where is Bob's Data?

A bill of rights.

Article 1
As an ISP you may carry packets or provide content/services not both.

To avoid the temptation to throttle your competitor's service

Article 2
You may not inspect the packets in any way. Not for content. Not for type. Not for Address.

All packets are equal, It does not matter where they go, or what they are for.

Article 3
You may charge according to bandwidth but you must provide the promised bandwidth for the price.

This allows for competition.

The best solution, I think, would be to charge for packets per minute. each minute the ISP would handle the number of packets promised for you then drop the rest. At the end of the minute your account is charged the current fee. If you pay a low fee and only get 1000 packets a minute (344 mb/sec divided between up and down).

In fact the ISP could have a preference setting that lets you change the number of packets/price as you desire. Need to download that Linux ISO? Kick up your "packets per minute" to a higher rate.

With this sort of plan there are no "ohoh used up my bandwidth for the month on the 15th" or "Oh oh look at the bill - I must have went over my bandwidth limit." moments to deal with.

Article 4
This will be the extent of any law regarding Net Neutrality.

No giving government that nose under the tent to start it's own censorship. Remember no inspecting of packets at all. Not for content. Not for address.

Perhaps we don't need article 1 if article 2 is rigorously enforced.

A poster CKWop gets the privacy point just right!

"People often retort by saying "I have nothing to hide, so I don't care if they collect the data". Yes, I'm sure the Jews had nothing to hide from the government in 1920s. Only ten years later, their census data was being used to round them up and murder them."

1) Trusted Computing - BAD

Trusted computing will destroy the ability of the "little guy" to enter the software market. It will remove the ability from the rest of us to write and enjoy our own software, or gift software from others.

Some of the implications of trusted computing and email and documents are chilling, including a 1984 type ability to "dissapear" other people's documents.

Unfortunatly Trusted computing may be a reaction to copyright violation, or copyright violation may be a convenient excuse. Either way Its comming and it will ruin computers for those of us who program.

Copyright Violation

I think it's ok to move music to new media for your own personal use. Where the trouble begins is where music is shared.

I belive one should abide by the restrictions one agrees to when one obtains a performance. If one agrees not to copy then one should not copy.

Some artists don't mind if you give away thier work, the Greatful Dead for instance, others do.

I also think the use of the labels "Pirate" and "Thief" don't help the discussion, unfortunatly "Copyright Violator" is too long and cumbersome.

Pop Up Adds (and pop behind adds and...)

Ok we asked for these when we insisted on blocking banner adds. I for one would rather have the banner adds. (Well not the blinking flashing ones)

SPAM

I think spam should not be illegal, but it should be more highly regulated. Spam should be easily filtered and should be marked as to subject. After all at some time I may want to re-finance my home, sometimes not. I wouldn't mind spam at all if I could filter for things I am looking for and filter out uninteresting things.

Each spam should, by law have the following things: and actuall actionable address for the sender, and for the business advertised, and a correct filterable subject.

People reciving Spam missing any of these thing should be able to sue both the sender and the business for a very large sum. A print out of the offending spam-mail should be all that's needed.
And the right to sue should be transferable, If I get a spam that's actionable I should be able to donate the spam to EFF who would then sue in my behalf.

Thanks.

Comments are enabled.

To send an email I have to have money in my stamp box. I get that money by paying the post office for e-postage. They give me a code which I enter into my email program.

When I send email each item takes a few cents from the stamp box, calls the post office computer to get a "stamp", they agree on the ammount and the stamp is put in the header of my mail.

I fire up my email client, it gets my mail, extracts the "stamps" verifies them with the computer at the post office which "cancels" them. Any mail with no stamp goes in a bucket for a few days (User preference) and is then either trashed or sent back to the sender with "NO STAMP -Not Read by recipient", The email would explain how to get a client for the new system. If the email is sent back it may be reflected by the recieving system- this is detected and the returned email is just trashed to avoid loops

Mail sent with a fake stamp would be fraud, counterfieting but would be treated as mail with no stamp by the mail client

If an email does have a stamp - half the value goes into my stamp box, the other half goes to the post office for the use of their computer. (yes the post office makes a bit to sell the stamp and makes a bit when I read the mail)

I could also have a whitelist - when email is recieved from someone on my whitelist it is placed in my inbox and the post office is not bothered. The whole value of the stamp is (A- returned to sender or B- retained in my stamp box which do you think would be safer for fraud?)

For the tinfoil chapeu crowd - If the sender is on my white list the Post office is not notified at all and the email is as secure as email is today. If not well I suppose the post office could figgure out from canceled stamps who is sending email to whom.