Can Google be trusted?

[Cachook]

Thinking long and hard about a Chromebook, I began to ponder how Google can be trusted, and know they do care somewhat about users' privacy, but have gotten into some tussles over privacy issues and bouts with the FCC.

I wonder also how secure this whole cloud computing idea can be. How easy is it to bypass the security on this? Can it do any serious work, like video editing? Thanks.

[felicia]

All of the big internet companies Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo & Facebutt make a large amount of money from the Goooberment charging for the processing of sepenionas (SP).

I would not trust anyone of them.

[madcritter]

bad opsec............

[speedofl33t]

Run fast and run far.

But yea, from the point of privacy, this "computer" is a bad idea. I mean, who came up with this? Why would it be good? Good for whom?

I am old fashioned, but I think I need my data right here. It's my data. It needs to exist in my room. (Says I while my calendar is online and all my emails are as well.... and you guessed it, on Gmail.) But still, I think rather than to be a user friendly idea, it's one of those things to tell us sharing is good, sharing is safe, sharing is NORMAL.

Just the idea of stripping you of a normal harddrive with your own stuff, it's not a matter of cost for you these days, it's a matter of THEY wanting YOUR data and they came up with a bright way getting it!

What word is cloud really? Even the word in itself causes me paranoia. It's like they want us to believe our data is an abstraction, when in fact it is on THEIR servers, and to which they have full access.

Caught me on a bad day here.

[escape]

The cloud is another form of dependence on big infrastructure. If the grid is down, you will not have access to cloud data and applications. In my opinion it's best to keep your computing as localized as possible.

If you are looking at an alternative OS to Windows and OSX have a look at open sourced Debian linux.

[escape]

Meet Skynet.

[munik]

A while back there was an article on the merger/cooperation of google and like 17 other companies. I place zero faith and trust in them all. As for cloud, it just sounds like keeping your money in someone else's bank account. It may be fine for contact info and some general documents but on the whole I wouldn't put anything out there I would want to keep the world from seeing...

[voland]

About a year ago I gave google the boot. Changed my default search engine to duckduckgo.com (they dont track your searches) and moved all my email to mail.com. Is it as convenient as google? No. Is it more private than google? Maybe. But I do think that the search engine and mail provider I use are smaller and are not as much in bed with the .gov.

The funny thing is that I am as squeaky clean as they come and have nothing to hide. I guess I really just dont trust google.


V.

[Cachook]

Originally Posted by escape

The cloud is another form of dependence on big infrastructure. If the grid is down, you will not have access to cloud data and applications. In my opinion it's best to keep your computing as localized as possible.

If you are looking at an alternative OS to Windows and OSX have a look at open sourced Debian linux.

Been thinking about ditching this Mac and getting an ultrabook with no OS and putting Fedora on it....

[Cachook]

Originally Posted by voland

About a year ago I gave google the boot. Changed my default search engine to duckduckgo.com (they dont track your searches) and moved all my email to mail.com. Is it as convenient as google? No. Is it more private than google? Maybe. But I do think that the search engine and mail provider I use are smaller and are not as much in bed with the .gov.

The funny thing is that I am as squeaky clean as they come and have nothing to hide. I guess I really just dont trust google.


V.

Startpage over here.

[escape]

Originally Posted by Cachook

Been thinking about ditching this Mac and getting an ultrabook with no OS and putting Fedora on it....

Yes pretty much what I plan on doing when it's time to upgrade. I want to be done with Apple unless work requires it.

[Cachook]

Originally Posted by Cachook

Been thinking about ditching this Mac and getting an ultrabook with no OS and putting Fedora on it....

Originally Posted by escape

Yes pretty much what I plan on doing when it's time to upgrade. I want to be done with Apple unless work requires it.

This was a gift, but after the Samsung debacle, same here. Why Debian?

[escape]

Originally Posted by Cachook

This was a gift, but after the Samsung debacle, same here. Why Debian?

It's what I've been exposed to, I will certainly check out Fedora.

[speedrrracer]

Originally Posted by Cachook

Thinking long and hard about a Chromebook, I began to ponder how Google can be trusted, and know they do care somewhat about users' privacy, but have gotten into some tussles over privacy issues and bouts with the FCC.

I wonder also how secure this whole cloud computing idea can be. How easy is it to bypass the security on this? Can it do any serious work, like video editing? Thanks.

No giant corporation can be completely trusted.

There's no problem with the hardware in a Chromebook, but I would not use any operating system that wasn't completely open source. So, I might own a Chromebook, but I would quickly put a Linux or BSD operating system on it.

Cloud storage is as secure as you make it. Cloud just means a computer somewhere else. If you encrypt your stuff on your machine before uploading it to the cloud, then anyone else who grabs it will have a pile of useless garbage, because they can't decrypt it.

Chromebooks are not powerful enough for most intensive video editing tasks, but I don't know exactly what you have in mind.

[Cachook]

Originally Posted by escape

It's what I've been exposed to, I will certainly check out Fedora.

The latest one is real slick and the GUI is gorgeous.

[Cachook]

Originally Posted by voland

About a year ago I gave google the boot. Changed my default search engine to duckduckgo.com (they dont track your searches) and moved all my email to mail.com. Is it as convenient as google? No. Is it more private than google? Maybe. But I do think that the search engine and mail provider I use are smaller and are not as much in bed with the .gov.

The funny thing is that I am as squeaky clean as they come and have nothing to hide. I guess I really just dont trust google.


V.

http://www.mail.com/US-en/company/terms/

[CPL_BS_88]

I'm convinced all store bought parts are corrupt...as far as i'm concerned, they are all pre-configed from the factory to route info for questionable uses...be it government spying civvies or gathering intel on businesses.

[Cachook]

Originally Posted by CPL_BS_88

I'm convinced all store bought parts are corrupt...as far as i'm concerned, they are all pre-configed from the factory to route info for questionable uses...be it government spying civvies or gathering intel on businesses.

Always wondered if they did....... IBM was once caught offering to fund a company operation.

[sdg]

If you need any help being turned off of Google, these will help. Ironically, they are hosted on a Google's own youtube... HA!

Privacy A Postmortem Part 1 - YouTube

Privacy A Postmortem Part 2 - YouTube

[namespace]

If you don't want to keep data locally on a portable computer because it might be stolen a "private cloud" via a VPN (Virtual Private Network) would be best the only weak link being the ISP (Internet service provider).
Granted VPN routers are expensive & you'd need a server or NAS device.
Not sure what type of video editing you're doing but the more advanced stuff usually requires more powerful hardware.
If you can process data locally the response time will be better, even you have really fast Internet.