The Cloud

Terrysdelight

Hi

This cloud thing is all new to me. This is what I think it is:

An area 'somewhere' not a clue where - that keeps your data safe and then you can log into it from anywhere?

If the above is correct - does this mean that if I back my work up to the cloud and then my pc crashes - I don't ever have to worry about losing my data?

Just got Microsoft Office Professional 2013 and it is offering me to sign up for free and get 7GB of space. Do companies generally charge for this?

Do people feel this is 'safe'. The thought worries me that anyone could get hold of my login ID and then that's it - totally compromised?

Grateful for others thoughts.
Terrysdelight

stevemcol

Time will tell whether it's safe I guess. I use it for backup, mainly photos, and never as the only copy.
I wouldn't ever trust none encrypted sensitive data to it, so do encrypt prior to storage.

InsideInsurance

The Cloud is a bit of marketing spin and really shouldnt be "The"

It can cover a multitude of sins from a very basic remote server somewhere somewhat incorrectly calling itself the cloud to what is normally meant by it which is a large remote cluster of servers, potentially disperse, that all act together.

Most companies give a moderate amount of space away for free and then charge if you want to have more space. Some you can sign up for multiple free accounts and so get extra space that way but then you have to remember which account you put what in. There is even some software that you can use that will connect across multiple providers (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Dropbox etc) and accounts and give you a "seamless" interface so you see just one and it manages spliting thing between the different providers.

What do you mean safe? I think its safe, with the big providers at least, that anything put there will still be there in a few months time. Its in many ways only as secure as the difficulty of guessing your username and password and so may not be suitable for storing sensitive data.

Personally, I use it to back up non'sentitive things like important photos, CVs etc so (1) if our house burnt down not everything is lost and (2) for ease of sharing with others


All of this relates to "cloud storage". The Cloud can do many more things which is where it becomes a little more clever but probably business focused.

Terrysdelight

Many thanks for the feedback.

I think I will give it a go - I do like the thought of accessing my documents when I'm out.

How do you encrypt a document before saving it?
I know how to password protect but I'm guessing it is not the same thing?

Many thanks
Terrysdelight

stevemcol

Terrysdelight I believe that as long as you aren't expecting to come under state resourced cyber attack, winzip, when used with a strong password, provides a useful and quick way to enrypt documents for cloud storage.
Cloud passwords are fine providing you completely trust the cloud providers own security. I'm not 100% happy to do that personally.

anotheruser

Terrysdelight wrote: »

An area 'somewhere' not a clue where - that keeps your data safe and then you can log into it from anywhere?

In a nutshell, yes this is it.
Your data is stored on "the internet" so you can access it from everywhere.

patman99

There have been concerns raised that even Microsoft cannot confirm. These relate to the possibility of your data (in part or whole) ending-up on foreign servers. The problem with this is that under current UK data protection legislation, businesses must make sure to keep their data on UK servers.

Kernel_Sanders

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The Cloud is a bit of marketing spin and really shouldnt be "The"

Especially seeing there is a wi-fi provider of that name.

securityguy

patman99 wrote: »

There have been concerns raised that even Microsoft cannot confirm. These relate to the possibility of your data (in part or whole) ending-up on foreign servers. The problem with this is that under current UK data protection legislation, businesses must make sure to keep their data on UK servers.

That isn't true, in the vast majority of cases.

It is true for protectively marked data at IL3 and above, although for reasons of CESG policy rather than ICO, but if you're running services for classified data you're not getting your IT advice off MSE.

Data which is subject to data protection legislation (which a lot business data isn't, of course) cannot be held in places which do not meet EU standards of data protection. EU, not UK. So it's absolutely fine to have your data in Ireland, where Microsoft's Office 365 and Amazon's "EU" data centres are. Do you seriously think that every UK company that has bought 365 or uses AWS/EC2 is breaching the DPA?

Additionally, there is an agreement between the EU and the US Department of Commerce called the "US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement" which permits EU companies to hold data on US servers where documented processes exist to extend the EU data protection regime into the US. The vast majority of major cloud services are registered with that scheme including Microsoft's offerings. So assuming the company is Safe Harbour registered, it's fine to use their EU and US data centres (again, do you seriously think that all the companies that have bought Google Apps are breaching the DPA?)

It's a reasonable bet that if you're told "you can't do that, Data Protection innit" that the person saying it doesn't understand Data Protection legislation. This sort of stuff is yet another example.