[148751] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Megaupload.com seized
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (George Bonser)
Sat Jan 21 15:20:15 2012
From: George Bonser <gbonser@seven.com>
To: Michael Thomas <mike@mtcc.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:19:05 +0000
In-Reply-To: <4F1B16CE.3050000@mtcc.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
>=20
> Sure, but balance that with podunk.usa's possibly incompetent IT staff?
> It costs a lot of money to run a state of the art shop, but only
> incrementally more as you add more and more instances of essentially
> identical shops. I guess I have more trust that Google is going to get
> the redundancy, etc right than your average IT operation.
>=20
> Now whether you should *trust* Google with all of that information from
> a security standpoint is another kettle of fish.
>=20
> Mike
I agree, Mike. Problem is that the communications infrastructure that enab=
les these sorts of options is generally so reliable people don't think abou=
t what will happen if something happens between them and their data that ta=
kes out their access to those services. Imagine a situation where several =
municipal governments in, say, Santa Cruz County, California are using such=
services and there is a repeat of the Loma Prieta quake. Their data survi=
ves in Santa Clara county, their city offices survive but there is consider=
able damage to infrastructure and structures in their jurisdiction. But th=
e communications is cut off between them and their data and time to repair =
is unknown. The city is now without email service. Employees in one depar=
tment can't communicate with other departments. Access to their files is g=
one. They can't get the maps that show where those gas lines are. The loc=
al file server that had all that information was retired after the document=
s were transferred to "the cloud" and the same happened to the local mail s=
erver. At this point they are "flying blind" or relying on people's memori=
es or maybe a scattering of documents people had printed out or saved local=
copies of. It's going to be a mess.
The point is that "the cloud" seems like a great option but it relies on be=
ing able to reach that "cloud". Your data may be safe and sound and your o=
ffice may have survived without much wear, but if something happens in betw=
een, you might be sunk. And out in "Podunk", there aren't often multiple p=
aths. You are stuck with what you get.
Or your cloud provider might announce they are going out of that business n=
ext week.
