But this is a myth, or at least a biased, unscientific stance. It’s is what I call “The myth of the persistent connection” and one of my pet peeves that many developers ignore. No application should assume persistent connectivity. Not everyone is, or wants to be on the grid.
And “high speed” is still a pipe dream in many ways. Think about this… If there were 1000 Users on the Internet and you increased the bandwidth by doubling it, then you’d have something. But if you double the bandwidth and quadruple the Users sharing the bandwidth… you get the picture.
Lastly, people “want access to their data all the time” but often have no good reason why. Do you really need your 2009 tax returns accessible on your iPhone right now? Unless you’re in deep tax trouble, you most likely don’t. I could go on and on, but I won’t.
(Note: People can do what they want (or are allowed) with their data. My opinions don’t matter to whether you want to fill your devices with all your data, or store your private records in someone else’s hands, etc. But remember, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.)
Absoluteky! You have a very good point when you speak about having all of your data on-hand all the time, the trick is to recognise what you need at any given time ad what is surplus to requirements. By the way, it has been pointed out to me that my earlier posting may have been construed as acriticism of fellow subscribers to this board, that certainly was and is not my intention and I apologise for any unintentional offence I may have caused.
It’s all good. We can all speak a little passionately at times, or use a phrase that my be misunderstood. Though I don’t formally moderate here, the general rule is that unless there is a personal attack on someone, all is fair.
Benignly happened to me the other day when first reading “I wish the clouds would go away” as “cloud computing services, please go away” in email from my brother before a quick internal “huh?” and realizing he was talking about the weather.
I can accept someone telling me “That’s a stupid idea!” but saying “You’re stupid!” to anyone is unacceptable. Of course there can be tongue-in-cheekish exceptions, like “Are you an idiot?” , though best saved for times with lesser risk of offended and fewer apologies.
It is not that I need all my file available at all times for the reason I want them all in the Cloud. It is an issue of finding my files by keeping them all in one location. For example; I have many in Dropbox, some on the Mac at home, and some on my computer at work, and maybe a few on my iPad. So where do I go to look for a file? If they are all in Dropbox then it is simple. If they are scattered across multiple computers and devices then it is a mess.
Quote (June 2013):
Dropbox is on the government’s wishlist for other servers in its sights. Presentation slides describing the PRISM program indicate that surveillance of Dropbox is “coming soon,” according to the Post, which says the companies have been given immunity from lawsuits through a directive signed by the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.
As if news of the National Security Agency collecting phone records on millions of Americans wasn’t enough, a new report reveals that the NSA and FBI are directly tapped into central servers at nine U.S. internet firms, in order to provide constant monitoring of audio, video, photos, emails and documents as well as connection logs.
Another great software application (for Mac), 1Password, uses DB for syncing between devices. And they have taken extra steps to secure that critical and private data. help.agilebits.com/1Password3/cl … urity.html
Partial Quote:
The Dropbox security FAQ states that “dropbox employees aren’t able to access user files, and when troubleshooting an account they only have access to file metadata (filenames, file sizes, etc., not the file contents).”
However, we know that Dropbox as a whole can undo their own encryption from this statement in their privacy policy: “If we provide your Dropbox files to a law enforcement agency as set forth above, we will remove Dropbox’s encryption from the files before providing them to law enforcement. However, Dropbox will not be able to decrypt any files that you encrypted prior to storing them on Dropbox.”
So, while Dropbox may limit what individual employees can get at, thus dramatically reducing the scope for an insider attack, we do need to keep in mind that user data files stored on Dropbox are in principle easily accessible.
Note.
Unfortunately, despite their creativity and technical sophistication in other areas, DT does not enable the encryption of data files transmitted via Dropbox for sync. Thus rendering all the user data “easily accessible”.
Sync was not designed with end-to-end encryption (or any other kind in mind). Unfortunately, going back and making existing software secure is like repairing foundations in Venice. This will be fixed, not immediately, but eventually.
DevonTech Quote (16th October 2013).
“We have just released DEVONthink 2.7 and it now encrypts all metadata and all contents stored in remote sync locations such as Dropbox, WebDAV, or AFP.”
Forgot to thank you guys for this security enhancement /update.
Much appreciated.
, though best saved for times with lesser risk of offended and fewer apologies.