Two Concerns About "Cloud Computing"

The term “cloud computing" has now been with us for two years or so.  The metaphor - and marketing campaigns by proponents - suggest that this new technological phenomenon is rather like gravity.  We are encouraged to link our computing habits to ‘the cloud” irrevocably.  Soon, we are told, there will be no need for computer hard drives, installed software, frequent backups, portable external hard drives and the like.  “The Cloud” will supplant them all.

My personal experience, related to this appealing vision,  raises two concerns. The labels reliability and integrity capture them simply.

Reliability comes first.  I am a frequent international traveler, with a second home in a rural area.  In principle, internet coverage is available - at a price - in all of the venues where my peripatetic life takes me.  In fact, despite high priced service provider contractual obligations (of course hedged by pages of opaque legalese) to the contrary, service at my home and various hotels where I may be staying is, at most 50 per-cent.  Even in tech-savvy Singapore there were problems. Those who provide reasonable service and moderate prices with excellent back-up support, demonstrate what is possible.  My Washington DC provider, RCN,  is a great example.  At the other end of the service and reliability spectrum (in my experience at least)  is the rural area provider, a collaboration between satellite provider Direct-way and router provider Lynksys (Cisco Systems).  

On my recent travels, promised service was available at two hotels in Greece, but, surprisingly, not in Switzerland.  When service (promised or not) is unavailable in Sri Lanka or Malaysia, I am not surprised.  When I occasionally encounter similar problems in Singapore, that is surprising.  Even in the developed world, a very wide gap in availability and reliability (not to mention cost) between God-provided phenomena such as gravity and “The Cloud” remains.

Then there is the matter of integrity.  To me, Integrity means meaning what one says - or commits to in a contract/service agreement - and then keeping your word.  It means not cheating or dissembling.  In the world of “could computing” it means business dealings that take into account the well being of those being served.  It means fundamental honesty  and fairness.  I can’t speak for other countries, but in my own country, America, the idea that integrity - strong guidance from an internal moral compass - is part of doing business has clearly gone out of style.  This became grievously clear in Congressional testimony and news reports describing machinations of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase senior executives - these being only the tip of a much larger iceberg.  Earlier, there was the collapse of Enron, Lehman Brothers and many mortgage providers.   

In the more arcane world of “Cloud Computing” one must assume that violations of honesty/integrity, in particular the secret use of personal information for private financial gain coupled with dissembling about it, are pervasive.   Else why would there be megaworded license agreements and  “privacy standards”  drafted by and backed-up by phalanxes of attorneys, who earn their livings by protecting the perpetrators.    

Thus , the bottom line, regarding my concerns about “The cloud”,  is simple and seems unambiguous.  The cloud is not yet a reliable resource.  Those responsible for designing and making its services available do not necessarily do so with altruistic intentions.

Is there a distinction between what is legal and what is moral?

In the past several days there have been a number of radio interviews discussing the role of the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs in the recent financial crisis. A particularly theme has been the manner in which Goldman partners not only survived the crisis, but profited by simultaneously selling securities to clients and “taking bets” that those same securities would become valueless. In Congressional testimony, Goldman executives defended this as a practice that was legal and therefore perfectly acceptable. They seemed puzzled that questioners believed their could be a distinction. I was reminded of a question that Senator Sam Ervine often posed during Senate hearings on the Watergate scandal that lead to the resignation of President Nixon.

“I understand that you believed what you did was legal,” the Senator would ask, “but did you believe it was proper.” At the time, I remember querying a much-respected older friend and mentor, an attorney, about this. To my surprise his view was that there was, at least in the matters related to business and public policy, no distinction between what was legal and what was moral.

It seemed clear that the views of the Goldman Sachs Executives were similar. The adverse impact of their actions on clients might have given the executives their trust as well as their savings was not a matter of concern. A question comes to mind: In the domain of morality is there any real distinction between these executives and the much-maligned Bernard Madoff, except that the executives were far more clever?

The following is a May 31 excerpt from my “Insight from the Dalai Lama” calendar on the topic of greed.

When it comes to dealing with greed, one thing which is quite characteristic is that although it arises from the desire to obtain something, it is not satisfied by obtaining it. Therefore, it becomes limitless or boundless, and that leads to trouble. The interesting thing about greed is that although the underlying motive is to seek satisfaction… even after obtaining the object of one’s desire one is still not satisfied. On the other hand, of one has a strong sense of contentment, it doesn’t matter whether one obtains the object or not, either way, one is still content.