The Internet: Clouds - servers or oligarchs?

Cloud computing is being touted by cloud vendors as the best way for Internet users to back up their files as well as receive services, such as software support, including automatic updates to their applications. These users are individuals as well as small and large organizations. Some cloud vendors offer to augment, if not replace, a company’s data center with their clouds’ data centers. Typical cloud services include:

• Creation of apps: Tailor-made applications that run on different systems.

• User database and software support: Backup and security features.

• Virtual machines: Obtaining additional computing power from thousands of computers that belong to a cloud vendor.

• Security and privacy: Most commercial clouds offer the Advanced Encryption Standard, and multistep encryption, discussed in Article 3.

• Expertise: A cloud business customer need not hire a full staff of experts, which can be expensive.

Caveat Emptor

Given these attractive features, one might wonder why all users do not close down their data centers and migrate to a commercial cloud? Or why Uyless Black does not turn over his family photographs to a cloud? The most common answer is loss of control of one of the most valuable resources an institution or individual possesses: data and software.

Many companies and individuals do not trust their automated systems to another party, regardless of how competent that party may be. The situation is complicated by legal problems dealing with the potential loss of privacy because of a security breach.

In addition, there is the issue of cost. Referring to Microsoft’s Azure, its Software as a Service (SaaS) feature rents Microsoft software to its cloud customers. I emphasize the word rent, instead of purchase. It is no surprise that software vendors are migrating toward preventing a potential customer from buying a package.

In the past, a purchased package could be used for years without paying any more beyond the purchase price. The vendor stands to make more money by renting its software than by selling it. In the long run, the customer ends up paying more.

In the future, it is safe to state that users will no longer be able to purchase most software packages. The programs will be rented and downloaded from the vendor’s cloud. The future computers and mobile devices will be empty hulls of hardware, with the rented software controlled by the cloud.

While I was writing this series, I received this email from one of my colleagues:

When I logged on this morning, a banner of words crossed my screen, I paraphrase: We are excited to show you new features that you will love. I could not move on. I waited, waited, waited, so I pressed escape—nothing. I became frustrated, as I had not expected this interruption, and I had other time commitments. I did Ctrl alt delete [a Windows method to be released from a session], then went back to my screen. Finally, the sentence disappeared, with the note, new applications have been installed, but no information on what, no request to wait to install, just a takeover of my computer. Then, small notes appeared, sliding out from the right side, giving new things I could expect, which I did not want.

Unless Uncle Sam decrees some kind of control over these sorts of software dictatorships, my friend’s experience will become the tip of the iceberg. I am consistently reluctant to have government’s heavy hand step in. But what could be heavier than the experience my colleague had?

Oligarchs and Government Oversight

As a retired owner of three telecommunications firms, I sometimes grew leery of FCC’s regulatory hand. Nonetheless, I favor the FCC rulings on Net neutrality, discussed in Article 2 of this series. Internet vendors will not police themselves. After all, they are capitalistic enterprises. A recent case in Texas bears examination (this is a partial quote from a news release issued May 12, 2015 (italics are mine)):

AUSTIN - Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that the Texas Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division—along with the Attorneys General of the other 49 States and the District of Columbia, and the federal government—reached settlements with Sprint Corporation (“Sprint”) and Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless (“Verizon”) that resolve charges of “mobile cramming” against the companies. The settlements include $158 million in payments, and resolve allegations that Sprint and Verizon placed charges for third-party services on consumers’ mobile telephone bills that were not authorized by the consumers, a practice known as “cramming.”

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Consumers who have been “crammed” often have charges, typically $9.99 per month, for “premium” text message subscription services that the consumers have never heard of or asked for, covering such topics as horoscopes, trivia, and sports scores.

What to do?

Cloud computing is seen by many as the dominant way the Internet will be used in the future. There is no question commercial clouds offer fine and often extraordinary services to their customers. Nonetheless, the evolution toward end-users losing control of their data and software cannot be taken lightly.

As clouds take over, user competence and expertise diminish as more and more operations are removed from end-user machines and moved to clouds. This situation has the potential to form a risky cycle: As the end-user relinquishes responsibility and knowledge of his/her computing world, the cloud becomes more powerful and knowing, which leads to further degradation of the end-user’s control and knowledge.

I do not intend to come across as a Chicken Little shouting, “The sky is falling.” However, it is possible for the cloud vendors to become Internet oligarchs. I reluctantly concede that the FCC should remain alert to protect the Internet end-user from any large and powerful company abusing its position, such as the example in Texas demonstrated.

As well, I await the likely fervent counter-claims from the commercial cloud vendors. Before they protest, I ask them to re-read the findings of 50 states, the federal government, and my friend, described above. Granted they aren’t Volkswagen, but their behavior does not augur well for giving commercial clouds the license to do as they please.

If an individual user only needs hand-holding and occasional help, an effective alternative to a cloud is to pay a vendor a modest annual fee for near-immediate access to competent technical help. I subscribe to Microsoft and Apple technical support services, as well as Best Buy’s Geek Squad. All are outstanding and reasonable in cost in relation to the amount of time and expertise they spend on my problems.

One last idea: If you use vendor-specific help desks, make certain you instruct them not to install something that favors their system over that of a competitor’s. For example, changing your default Internet browser from, say, Google’s Chrome, to Microsoft’s Bing.

Uyless Black is an award-winning author who has written 40 books on a variety of subjects. His latest book is titled “2084 and Beyond,” a work on the origins and consequences of human aggression. He resides in Coeur d’Alene.