Server farms
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Does anyone else have concerns about these ... concerns like:
natural disasters (Fukushima)
terrorism (9/11)
too big to fail (Lehmann Brothers)
privacy/security (Wikileaks)
plus ... ?
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No.
What are your concerns?
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I think Chris is saying that you could lose your content if an event like those mentioned occurred. Thus destroying the servers.
Personally, I don't see the risk posed by terrorists. A natural disaster is highly improbable is most locations. The only true risk lies with hackers. So to answer your question I'd say no. I'm not overly concerned at the moment. But both Sony and Nintendo have been attacked with success of late. Mainly because they hold credit card info.
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The number one, all important reason I disagree with cloud servers, online software and "leased" software. My data belongs to me, I should be able to use a program whenever I need to, have access to it, the necessary data and not have it dependent on some internet server farm that could go down or if my internet connection does. Yes, they do concern me.
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Thanks for the explanation.
My answer would still be no, because I don't store any of my data in that way, and I doubt I will in the foreseeable future. And if you're of a mind to worry about them losing your data, why would you use them, apart from as a backup?
I don't worry about my credit card details being hacked from a company like PayPal or Amazon. I think that if my CC number was hacked then the credit card company would reimburse any costs anyway.
I've only ever had one issue with a credit card being used fraudulently, and that was partly down to me anyway. I left a credit card in a glovebox and forgot about it. A month or so later my car was broken into and the card stolen and used. So the first I knew of the card being stolen was when I saw around 1,000 pounds on my statement. I called the company, and they said the balance was at around 3,000 pounds. But they said they knew there was an issue with the card being stolen, so they pretty much wiped the debt right away.
I do think that it's far more likely that people lose their info because of something they do, rather than one of these servers being hacked or going down. Most servers will have offsite backups and have numerous sites, rather than putting everything in one building.
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@johnsenior1973 said:
No.
I see.
@johnsenior1973 said:
What are your concerns?
It just seems to me that the idea of server farms is the antithesis of all that many praise in WWW, which is:
not owned by anyone,
not controlled by anyone,
highly resilient, has never stopped working for any reason,
free of patent or copyright restrictions on its enabling software (html/javascript),
...
Another point is that server farm owners have the power to determine what technology is available - ever think about who decided to stop floppy disk drives?
I thought it might be a hot corner bar discussion - benevolence turning into absolute power type thing.
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The stock market's reliance on server farms is perhaps more worrying.
http://finance.bnet.com/bnet/news/read?GUID=16524559&tag=content;col1
Regards,
Bob -
@chrisglasier said:
not owned by anyone,
not controlled by anyone,
highly resilient, has never stopped working for any reason,
free of patent or copyright restrictions on its enabling software (html/javascript),
...
Another point is that server farm owners have the power to determine what technology is available - ever think about who decided to stop floppy disk drives?
Err… what?
Not owned by anyone? The assorted (and not terribly large) group of ISPs, telcos, cable corp.s etc own the entire infrastructure. The hardware underlying the net is incredibly concentrated. The original peer mesh idea has been pretty much subsumed by centralised ownership and control with very little protection from the ravages of corporate malfeasance, greed, corruption or indeed govt. interference. The happy old claim that 'the net interprets censorship as an error and routes around it' doesn't really work too well any more.Free of copyright or patent restrictions on the enabling technology? Unlikely. There's a lot more to the net than html and javascript, most of it with many patents involved. Like, for example the basic ideas of commerce on the net. There was a large case not too long ago that cost a number of big companies a billion or so to settle.
And really? Server farm owners have the power to stop people using floppy drives? Ugg? Now that's a non sequitur if ever I saw one.
The thing to worry about would be companies that rely on a single storage device/location. Important data - including your own - should not be in a single place. The best backup plan possible would be to compress and encrypt your important documents, label them as 'BritneySpearsPorn00001.mpeg' and put it out as a torrent. You could pretty well guarantee that it would still be out there somewhere when the universe grows cold!
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@ Tim
I mean WWW is not owned by a single entity. All those companies you mention are replaceable. And the same is true about those parts that are patented or copyright protected; something Berners-Lee refused for html. I guess something similar happened with JavaScript. These languages are then free just like the spoken ones.
Apple decided not to include floppy disk drives in one of their computers and it seems everyone else followed suit. I'm not saying the decision was wrong just that in pursuit of the cloud other local storage devices might just go the same way, fait accompli.
Yes the net has become terribly concentrated and will become more so as less companies control bigger server farms, just as, in its case because of all the failures, the financial sector has become more concentrated than ever before.
I think the problem is when the general public get mixed up in things corporate, which is true with server farms. If banks were able to add personal mortgages to unrelated instruments in their derivatives, maybe IT can do something similar with access to information. Then if one farm or corporation went down all may be affected like the Japanese national grid after the Fukushima tsunami or any of the other OP concerns.
I think your idea of distributing information is well worth discussing (even though you spelled PRON wrongly).
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