Showing posts with label Andy Nelson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andy Nelson. Show all posts
Friday, 1 March 2013
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Cloud computing – how to lose control of your data #94
It's Sunday. Give us a break
Cloud computing is supposed to be cheaper than the alternatives. How many times have we heard that some new management fashion will save us money? How many times can we fall for it? How many times has it turned out to be true? Exactly.
Cloud computing is meant to be more efficient, more reliable, more trusted, more flexible, more scalable, more resilient, more modern, more transformative, ... In each case, the claim is either false or, at best, unproven.
No need to keep banging on about it, the point has been made.
Sign up for cloud computing, like what Her Majesty's Government has in the UK, and you lose control of your data. You want to go out of business? Go ahead. Up to you. Stick your data in the cloud.
We know that. It's all a bit relentless. It's Sunday. Give us a break.
The gift that keeps on giving
Actually, there's another reason to avoid cloud computing, one that hasn't been mentioned so far on DMossEsq, a new answer to the question why is it foolish to store your data in the cloud.
Kim Dotcom, mega
6'6" tall and weighing 290lb, the only reason Kim Dotcom (né Schmitz) didn't go to prison after being found guilty on 11 counts of fraud was that ... he was under age at the time of the offences and the judge put it all down to youthful foolishness.
Like most teenagers, he had hacked into NASA. And Citibank. He had also found out how to make international phone calls for free and, unlike most teenagers, had a nice little sideline selling access to these free telecommunications facilities.
He got off the 11 fraud charges with a suspended sentence. And the 10 data espionage charges. But when the insider trading charges started to look a bit serious, he decamped to Thailand. The Thais extradited him back to Germany and he finally served a stretch there. Five months on remand. Quite right, too.
Mr Dotcom loves playing computer games, particularly Modern Warfare 3.
That is not a recognised sign of intellectual achievement, you say.
As you wish. But some people are better at problem-solving than others. How good are you? There are over 15 million players of Modern Warfare 3 worldwide and Mr D was ranked #1, only falling to #2 after a sojourn in a New Zealand prison, about which, more anon.
He also loves cars. Driving in Morocco one day, he became impatient with the car in front and rammed it off the road. These things happen. How was he to know it was being driven by the chief of police?
Kim next set up shop in Hong Kong, picked up a few fines for false declarations to the stock exchange and for marketing a hedge fund that had many fine qualities, like artificial intelligence, but didn't happen to exist and the good ship Dotcom next struck land in New Zealand.
Megaupload
But before that, while in Hong Kong, he had set up a real company, Megaupload. A cloud services company, with 150 staff and and revenues of $175 million p.a., Megaupload had 60 million users, or 180 million according to some reports, it was ranked #13 among all the websites in the world and accounted for 4% of web traffic. Worldwide.
If New Zealand had any qualms about Kim Dotcom's application for residence, the thought of uploading some his money into New Zealand seems to have allayed them. He rented the most expensive house in the country, he laid on a $600,000 fireworks display in Auckland and he donated $50,000 to the mayor's re-election campaign.
Mr Dotcom was rich.
There was a problem when the mayor later had trouble remembering this donation. What would you do, you who have never played Modern Warfare 3? Kim recorded a song called Amnesia. See? Problem-solving. Some people are good at it.
Megaupload was so big that it rented no less than 1,100 servers from another cloud services company, Carpathia, to store all the data people kept handing over.
Got it. You're going to lecture us about contracts. Users may have a contract with one cloud services supplier (e.g. Megaupload) but, if that company hands the users' data over to another cloud services supplier (e.g. Carpathia) with whom the users have no contract, then they have lost control of their data. Ha!
Wrong. Everyone knows that already. That's not a new reason to beware the perils of cloud computing. Think again ...
Hollywood loves a swashbuckler
Not this one they don't.
According to Hollywood, Megaupload has cost them $500 million. It was a seat of piracy, Hollywood's intellectual property rights were being stolen by felons illegally uploading films and TV programs to Megaupload.
That's just my point, you say, you shouldn't be making light of the activities of a seedy criminal.
No-one is making light of anything, least of all Mr Dotcom, who may be a criminal but he is entertaining as well, both, the one doesn't exclude the other.
And not so fast with the "criminal". His Megaupload crimes are alleged. He hasn't been found guilty of them. There's a law. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects the suppliers of a website from the illegal activities of the users of that website. Without that, Sergey Brin of Google would spend his whole time in prison because of all the porn on YouTube. So stick that in your pipe, Roundhead, smoke it and inhale.
DMCA and the evidence against Kim Dotcom were presumably considered by a grand jury and on 5 January 2012 he was indicted on charges of online piracy, racketeering, copyright infringement, and money laundering. That was in Virginia. In the US.
But Mr Dotcom was in New Zealand.
I know. You're going to hold forth on RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the law they said would only ever be used against suspected gangsters, when opponents of its introduction suggested that its powers were so useful that prosecutors would be unable to resist the temptation to charge everyone with offences under RICO. No, no, said the legislators, that will never happen. But of course it has.
You mean like the surveillance laws here in the UK? The ones they said would only ever be used against suspected terrorists and now local councils use them for fly-tipping offences and dogs fouling the pavement and parents lying about living in the catchment area for desirable schools? No. Completely wrong. Everyone already knows about that. The question is what new reason is there to believe that it's foolish to store your data in the cloud? If all else fails, as teachers used to tell their students, try reading the question.
Due process
The indictments are in Virginia and Dotcom's in Auckland. What would ClariceSparrow Starling do?
She would probably have a quiet word with her opposite numbers in New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). Point out how much appreciated it would be if they could help in this matter. She might maybe exert a bit of pressure. US tariffs on New Zealand lamb imports could be lifted. Or they could be increased. Extraordinary rendition? That kind of thing.
Whatever the FBI said, GCSB went into action immediately. They put Dotcom under surveillance and two weeks later, on 19 January 2012, they got the assault rifles out, started up the helicopter and armed police invaded the Dotcom manor, impounded his possessions right, left and centre, arrested Kim, locked him in prison and froze his assets worldwide.
Which made it hard for him to pay his rent. Or his lawyers. When he was finally allowed access to a bit of his money, the lawyers argued successfully that it was against the law for GCSB to put New Zealand citizens under surveillance, including Kim Dotcom, and that the arrest warrant had been wrongly drafted – too non-specific.
The Prime Minister of New Zealand has subsequently apologised for these mistakes to Mr Dotcom personally and to New Zealanders in general and he has confirmed that GCSB officers mistakenly allowed FBI officers, who happened coincidentally to be present, to take copies of Mega Kim's impounded disk drives.
Prime Minister Key's re-election prospects are in doubt. So are President Obama's. Kim Dotcom blames him personally for his enforced stay in Mt Eden prison, Auckland.
At some point, Mrs Dotcom gave birth to their fourth and fifth children, girl twins, and Kim toyed with the idea of sending the placenta to the FBI to check for pirated DNA, another solution that would never have occurred to you, would it, but let's leave him there, he's clearly quite big enough to look after himself, and turn our attention instead to Kyle Goodwin.
OhioSportsNet
Back in January, the FBI took control of all Megaupload's domain names and their computers and they told Carpathia to keep the 1,100 servers Megaupload rented from them untouched.
The FBI also managed to freeze Megaupload's bank accounts.
Given that Megaupload is a Hong Kong company, how?
Bloomberg think it's something to do with one of Mr Dotcom's fellow defendants having a US address and being an "alter-ego" of the company. Any port in a storm.
Thing is, among the 60 million users of Megaupload, just a couple of them may not be copyright pirates or pornographers. Some of them, like Kyle Goodwin, may run their own legitimate business in Ohio, filming sports events for local high schools, and streaming the footage to sports coaches and the doting parents of the athletes. And Mr Goodwin would kind of like his footage back, please, he's got a business to run, Megaupload have no objection to the return of his data and neither have Carpathia but the courts have:
Mr Goodwin is being represented by lawyers from the Electonic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and they say that "the [US] government maintains that Mr. Goodwin lost his property rights in his data by storing it on a cloud computing service ... both the contract between Megaupload and Mr. Goodwin ... and the contract between Megaupload and the server host, Carpathia ..., likely limit any property interest he may have in his data".
Sign a cloud computing contract and you lose the rights to your property.
The question was, what new reason is there to believe that storing your data in the cloud is a mistake?
And the answer is that you're going to have the devil of a job getting your solicitor to nip over to Quantico to prove that it's yours at all. And as for actually getting it back, forget it. The courts don't have time for all that nonsense. Easier just to delete it.
They wouldn't do that to HMRC and all our tax data stored on Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd's servers. Would they? There are 60 million of us for goodness sake. That could never happen. Could it? And then there's GDS and all our state benefits data stored on ditto ...
Don't you worry about that. Whitehall aren't worried. Don't you worry.
----------
Updated 5.11.12
Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph, 'Whitehall has its head stuck in the cloud'
Updated 21.2.17
Andrew Orlowski, ElReg, 'NZ High Court rules US can extradite Kim Dotcom after all'
Cloud computing is supposed to be cheaper than the alternatives. How many times have we heard that some new management fashion will save us money? How many times can we fall for it? How many times has it turned out to be true? Exactly.
Cloud computing is meant to be more efficient, more reliable, more trusted, more flexible, more scalable, more resilient, more modern, more transformative, ... In each case, the claim is either false or, at best, unproven.
No need to keep banging on about it, the point has been made.
Sign up for cloud computing, like what Her Majesty's Government has in the UK, and you lose control of your data. You want to go out of business? Go ahead. Up to you. Stick your data in the cloud.
We know that. It's all a bit relentless. It's Sunday. Give us a break.
The gift that keeps on giving
Actually, there's another reason to avoid cloud computing, one that hasn't been mentioned so far on DMossEsq, a new answer to the question why is it foolish to store your data in the cloud.
Kim Dotcom, mega
 |
Still very young, Mr Schmitz or Dotcom or Kimble (c.f. The Fugitive) will be all of 39 years old on 21 January 2013 |
Like most teenagers, he had hacked into NASA. And Citibank. He had also found out how to make international phone calls for free and, unlike most teenagers, had a nice little sideline selling access to these free telecommunications facilities.
He got off the 11 fraud charges with a suspended sentence. And the 10 data espionage charges. But when the insider trading charges started to look a bit serious, he decamped to Thailand. The Thais extradited him back to Germany and he finally served a stretch there. Five months on remand. Quite right, too.
Mr Dotcom loves playing computer games, particularly Modern Warfare 3.
That is not a recognised sign of intellectual achievement, you say.
As you wish. But some people are better at problem-solving than others. How good are you? There are over 15 million players of Modern Warfare 3 worldwide and Mr D was ranked #1, only falling to #2 after a sojourn in a New Zealand prison, about which, more anon.
He also loves cars. Driving in Morocco one day, he became impatient with the car in front and rammed it off the road. These things happen. How was he to know it was being driven by the chief of police?
Kim next set up shop in Hong Kong, picked up a few fines for false declarations to the stock exchange and for marketing a hedge fund that had many fine qualities, like artificial intelligence, but didn't happen to exist and the good ship Dotcom next struck land in New Zealand.
Megaupload
But before that, while in Hong Kong, he had set up a real company, Megaupload. A cloud services company, with 150 staff and and revenues of $175 million p.a., Megaupload had 60 million users, or 180 million according to some reports, it was ranked #13 among all the websites in the world and accounted for 4% of web traffic. Worldwide.
If New Zealand had any qualms about Kim Dotcom's application for residence, the thought of uploading some his money into New Zealand seems to have allayed them. He rented the most expensive house in the country, he laid on a $600,000 fireworks display in Auckland and he donated $50,000 to the mayor's re-election campaign.
Mr Dotcom was rich.
There was a problem when the mayor later had trouble remembering this donation. What would you do, you who have never played Modern Warfare 3? Kim recorded a song called Amnesia. See? Problem-solving. Some people are good at it.
Megaupload was so big that it rented no less than 1,100 servers from another cloud services company, Carpathia, to store all the data people kept handing over.
Got it. You're going to lecture us about contracts. Users may have a contract with one cloud services supplier (e.g. Megaupload) but, if that company hands the users' data over to another cloud services supplier (e.g. Carpathia) with whom the users have no contract, then they have lost control of their data. Ha!
Wrong. Everyone knows that already. That's not a new reason to beware the perils of cloud computing. Think again ...
Hollywood loves a swashbuckler
Not this one they don't.
According to Hollywood, Megaupload has cost them $500 million. It was a seat of piracy, Hollywood's intellectual property rights were being stolen by felons illegally uploading films and TV programs to Megaupload.
That's just my point, you say, you shouldn't be making light of the activities of a seedy criminal.
No-one is making light of anything, least of all Mr Dotcom, who may be a criminal but he is entertaining as well, both, the one doesn't exclude the other.
And not so fast with the "criminal". His Megaupload crimes are alleged. He hasn't been found guilty of them. There's a law. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects the suppliers of a website from the illegal activities of the users of that website. Without that, Sergey Brin of Google would spend his whole time in prison because of all the porn on YouTube. So stick that in your pipe, Roundhead, smoke it and inhale.
DMCA and the evidence against Kim Dotcom were presumably considered by a grand jury and on 5 January 2012 he was indicted on charges of online piracy, racketeering, copyright infringement, and money laundering. That was in Virginia. In the US.
But Mr Dotcom was in New Zealand.
I know. You're going to hold forth on RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the law they said would only ever be used against suspected gangsters, when opponents of its introduction suggested that its powers were so useful that prosecutors would be unable to resist the temptation to charge everyone with offences under RICO. No, no, said the legislators, that will never happen. But of course it has.
You mean like the surveillance laws here in the UK? The ones they said would only ever be used against suspected terrorists and now local councils use them for fly-tipping offences and dogs fouling the pavement and parents lying about living in the catchment area for desirable schools? No. Completely wrong. Everyone already knows about that. The question is what new reason is there to believe that it's foolish to store your data in the cloud? If all else fails, as teachers used to tell their students, try reading the question.
Due process
The indictments are in Virginia and Dotcom's in Auckland. What would Clarice
She would probably have a quiet word with her opposite numbers in New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). Point out how much appreciated it would be if they could help in this matter. She might maybe exert a bit of pressure. US tariffs on New Zealand lamb imports could be lifted. Or they could be increased. Extraordinary rendition? That kind of thing.
 |
| Kim Dotcom appears in court in Auckland in January. The US wants New Zealand to extradite him to face internet piracy allegations. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images |
Which made it hard for him to pay his rent. Or his lawyers. When he was finally allowed access to a bit of his money, the lawyers argued successfully that it was against the law for GCSB to put New Zealand citizens under surveillance, including Kim Dotcom, and that the arrest warrant had been wrongly drafted – too non-specific.
The Prime Minister of New Zealand has subsequently apologised for these mistakes to Mr Dotcom personally and to New Zealanders in general and he has confirmed that GCSB officers mistakenly allowed FBI officers, who happened coincidentally to be present, to take copies of Mega Kim's impounded disk drives.
Prime Minister Key's re-election prospects are in doubt. So are President Obama's. Kim Dotcom blames him personally for his enforced stay in Mt Eden prison, Auckland.
At some point, Mrs Dotcom gave birth to their fourth and fifth children, girl twins, and Kim toyed with the idea of sending the placenta to the FBI to check for pirated DNA, another solution that would never have occurred to you, would it, but let's leave him there, he's clearly quite big enough to look after himself, and turn our attention instead to Kyle Goodwin.
OhioSportsNet
Back in January, the FBI took control of all Megaupload's domain names and their computers and they told Carpathia to keep the 1,100 servers Megaupload rented from them untouched.
The FBI also managed to freeze Megaupload's bank accounts.
Given that Megaupload is a Hong Kong company, how?
Bloomberg think it's something to do with one of Mr Dotcom's fellow defendants having a US address and being an "alter-ego" of the company. Any port in a storm.
Thing is, among the 60 million users of Megaupload, just a couple of them may not be copyright pirates or pornographers. Some of them, like Kyle Goodwin, may run their own legitimate business in Ohio, filming sports events for local high schools, and streaming the footage to sports coaches and the doting parents of the athletes. And Mr Goodwin would kind of like his footage back, please, he's got a business to run, Megaupload have no objection to the return of his data and neither have Carpathia but the courts have:
- Who says it's his data, the US government asks? Or as their lawyers put it: “Mr. Goodwin has yet to demonstrate whether he has an interest in any property seized by the government ... the mere fact that he may claim, for example, an initial copyright to a version of the files he uploaded is not sufficient to establish that he has an ownership interest in the property that is the subject of this motion”.
- Suppose we look at what is allegedly Mr Goodwin's data and find he's been infringing copyright? Then what? If he doesn't have "clean hands", we just might start doing a bit of indicting in Ohio.
- But look, we can't possibly entertain Mr Goodwin's request. It would take ages.
- And suppose everyone else started asking for their data back, too? Then where would we be?
- And Carpathia are moaning, too, claiming that it's costing them $9,000 a day to keep these pestilential 1,100 servers out of use. Far as we're concerned Carpathia can just delete all the data on them, all 25 petabytes of it (that's 25 million gigabytes), a course of action various fussy defence lawyers have asked Carpathia please to not pursue.
Mr Goodwin is being represented by lawyers from the Electonic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and they say that "the [US] government maintains that Mr. Goodwin lost his property rights in his data by storing it on a cloud computing service ... both the contract between Megaupload and Mr. Goodwin ... and the contract between Megaupload and the server host, Carpathia ..., likely limit any property interest he may have in his data".
Sign a cloud computing contract and you lose the rights to your property.
The question was, what new reason is there to believe that storing your data in the cloud is a mistake?
And the answer is that you're going to have the devil of a job getting your solicitor to nip over to Quantico to prove that it's yours at all. And as for actually getting it back, forget it. The courts don't have time for all that nonsense. Easier just to delete it.
They wouldn't do that to HMRC and all our tax data stored on Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd's servers. Would they? There are 60 million of us for goodness sake. That could never happen. Could it? And then there's GDS and all our state benefits data stored on ditto ...
Don't you worry about that. Whitehall aren't worried. Don't you worry.
----------
Updated 5.11.12
Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph, 'Whitehall has its head stuck in the cloud'
Updated 21.2.17
Andrew Orlowski, ElReg, 'NZ High Court rules US can extradite Kim Dotcom after all'
Cloud computing – how to lose control of your data #94
It's Sunday. Give us a break
Cloud computing is supposed to be cheaper than the alternatives. How many times have we heard that some new management fashion will save us money? How many times can we fall for it? How many times has it turned out to be true? Exactly.
Cloud computing is meant to be more efficient, more reliable, more trusted, more flexible, more scalable, more resilient, more modern, more transformative, ... In each case, the claim is either false or, at best, unproven.
No need to keep banging on about it, the point has been made.
Sign up for cloud computing, like what Her Majesty's Government has in the UK, and you lose control of your data. You want to go out of business? Go ahead. Up to you. Stick your data in the cloud.
We know that. It's all a bit relentless. It's Sunday. Give us a break.
The gift that keeps on giving
Actually, there's another reason to avoid cloud computing, one that hasn't been mentioned so far on DMossEsq, a new answer to the question why is it foolish to store your data in the cloud.
Cloud computing is supposed to be cheaper than the alternatives. How many times have we heard that some new management fashion will save us money? How many times can we fall for it? How many times has it turned out to be true? Exactly.
Cloud computing is meant to be more efficient, more reliable, more trusted, more flexible, more scalable, more resilient, more modern, more transformative, ... In each case, the claim is either false or, at best, unproven.
No need to keep banging on about it, the point has been made.
Sign up for cloud computing, like what Her Majesty's Government has in the UK, and you lose control of your data. You want to go out of business? Go ahead. Up to you. Stick your data in the cloud.
We know that. It's all a bit relentless. It's Sunday. Give us a break.
The gift that keeps on giving
Actually, there's another reason to avoid cloud computing, one that hasn't been mentioned so far on DMossEsq, a new answer to the question why is it foolish to store your data in the cloud.
Friday, 19 October 2012
Cloud computing turns IT into a utility, and that's a good thing?
The interesting thing about cloud computing
is that we've redefined cloud computing
to include everything that we already do...
to include everything that we already do...
The computer industry is the only industry
that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.
that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.
Maybe I'm an idiot,
but I have no idea what anyone is talking about.
but I have no idea what anyone is talking about.
What is it?
It's complete gibberish.
It's insane.
When is this idiocy going to stop?
Cloud computing is cheaper, better, faster, easier, ... because it turns IT into a utility. In fact it's a no-brainer. So says Whitehall's G-Cloud team, reading from the industry hymn-sheet.
DMossEsq doesn't think that emulating the utilities markets is obviously a very good idea. Neither does Richard Stallman. And as for Larry Ellison, all $41 billion-worth of him, he thinks cloud computing announcements are "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish", see above. And below.
But never mind Messrs Stallman and Ellison and DMossEsq, take a look at the past week's utilities news and you decide, what do you think? Is this where you want public money spent? Your money?
Don't bother working on the answer too hard by the way because actually it doesn't matter what you think. HMRC have already contracted with Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd to put your tax data in the cloud and GDS – the Government Digital Service – have already contracted with the same company to put all your benefits data up there in the cloud, too.
| A | ||||
| • 14 January 2011, OECD, Reducing Systemic Cybersecurity Risk: cloud computing creates security problems in the form of loss of confidentiality if authentication is not robust and loss of service if internet connectivity is unavailable or the supplier is in financial difficulties ... | ||||
| • 10 February 2011, ENISA, Security & Resilience in Governmental Clouds: [re cloud computing] its adoption should be limited to non-sensitive or non-critical applications and in the context of a defined strategy for cloud adoption which should include a clear exit strategy ... | ||||
| (ENISA is the EU's Network and Information Security Agency) | ||||
| After a while, the penny drops for you, doesn't it. But it hasn't for Whitehall. | ||||
| B | Small arms fire: | |||
| • 4 May 2012 Sage thrusts small biz tool into Microsoft Azure: At the end of last year Sage had converted just 1,000 of its customers from cloud sceptics to adopters, out of an installed base of 6.3 million ... | ||||
| • 9 May 2012 Cloud data fiasco forces bosses to break out the whiteboards: Workers relying on Atlassian's cloudy team-tracking software have reverted to whiteboards and spreadsheets after a service outage made key project data vanish ... | ||||
| • 10 May 2012 Root canal surgery officially more desirable than cloud migration: Some IT decision makers would prefer to undergo root canal surgery than deal with migrating their business to a private or public cloud ... | ||||
| • 15 May 2012 iCloud blows away 15 million users for 90 minutes: Apple’s iCloud service crashed for ninety minutes on Monday, US time, leaving 12% of users – about 15 million people - possibly “unable to access iCloud mail” ... | ||||
| After a while, you can't help noticing, can you. Not everyone is a fan. | ||||
| C | from Whitehall's G-Cloud website: | |||
| • 12 March 2012 The Times they are a changing: Cloud Computing offers utility services that are cheaper, better and faster to provision ... | ||||
| • 23 March 2012 A No Brainer: Cloud computing is: ICT services, or ICT enabled business services supplied on a utility basis ... | ||||
| • 4 April 2012 Baby Steps: You don’t need to make a big commitment up-front because cloud is based on a utility service model ... | ||||
| • 1 June 2012 G-Cloud ‘Simple’ Procurement Instructions: ... the aim of G-Cloud is to make it easier for the public sector to access and use utility-based ICT services and easier for suppliers to work with us ... | ||||
| • 26 July 2012 Guidance on Terms and Conditions: Public Cloud means Utility Computing that is available to individuals, public and private sector organisations. Public Cloud is often non-geographically specific and can be accessed wherever there is an Internet connection ... Private Cloud means a Utility Computing infrastructure exclusively for the use of one organisation or community ... See also • 10 May 2012 G-Cloud Information Assurance Requirements and Guidance See also • G-CLOUD SERVICES II FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT | ||||
| • 18 September 2012 .gov.uk hosting bought through G-Cloud: The purchase also shows that government is ready to embrace low cost utility cloud services ... | ||||
| After a while, you get the idea, don't you. Cloud computing is a good thing according to Whitehall because it turns IT into a utility, it has all the benefits enjoyed by the utilities. | ||||
| D | from the Guardian newspaper website: | |||
| 12 October 2012 British Gas set to raise gas and electricity prices | ||||
| 12 October 2012 British Gas raises green electricity bills | ||||
| 15 October 2012 Scottish Power raises gas and electricity prices | ||||
| 17 October 2012 Obama and Romney take up gas prices and energy policy during second debate | ||||
| 18 October 2012 Energy tariff plans under pressure | ||||
| 18 October 2012 Energy companies to be compelled to offer lowest tariff to customers | ||||
| 18 October 2012 David Cameron's energy team unable to explain price pledge | ||||
| 19 October 2012 Npower price hike highlights complexity of energy tariffs | ||||
| After a while, you get to wonder, don't you. Are these the benefits we want for IT? | ||||
| E | from the Guardian newspaper website, 29 September 2008: | |||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| No doubt someone will point out that Oracle now do offer cloud computing services. Does that imply that Mr Ellison no longer discerns gibberish, idiocy and insanity in cloud computing? Not necessarily. It may be simply that, having warned everyone about the idiocy, insanity and gibberish, he now feels that it is not in his shareholders' best interests to stand by and watch while Oracle's competitors pick all the low-hanging fruit. | ||||
| After a while, you give up, don't you. Like Whitehall. They've opened an on-line shop, the CloudStore, in which central and local government can buy cloud services (with no warranty*, incidentally). It's a leak, through which control over public sector IT escapes. Whitehall will soon enjoy all the control over their IT suppliers that you personally currently enjoy over your gas, electricity, telephone, water and sewerage suppliers. |
* Five questions were submitted to Whitehall's G-Cloud team about the advisability of including the products of Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd on the CloudStore. Skyscape is a small start-up with no trading history into whose care your tax data is being entrusted and your benefits data.
As she always does – and this is as good a point as any to thank her and to emphasise that it is appreciated – Eleanor Stewart, Assistant Director of G-Cloud, answered as fully as she could as follows.
It's up to the customer – whether HMRC, GDS, or any other public sector body – to decide if the supplier meets their requirements, the G-Cloud team give no warranty, inclusion on the CloudStore doesn't imply reliability.
The use of bold below doesn't match Ms Stewart's original reply:
To ensure the financial stability and repute of a company applying to be part of the Cloudstore the Government Procurement Service use a range a tests. The main one is the Experian Score for the company. This is an independent assessment of the financial risk of the company rated from 0-100 and recognised across all sectors. The normal benchmark set by HMG for a supplier is to have a score of 51 however as you have implied this penalises small or young companies and G-Cloud programme as set a requirement to have a score of 25 on the basis that we have a range of services, are broadening the marketplace and are not just for big companies with high scores. To gain a score of 25 you must be a stable company however, as with everything on the G-Cloud framework the customer can determine whether they are happy with any associated risk at the point of selection ...
To purchase from G-Cloud GDS and HMRC have gone through a detailed selection process looking their requirements and the options available to them and have concluded that the Skyscape services will best met their needs and that of UK citizens.
Cloud computing turns IT into a utility, and that's a good thing?
The interesting thing about cloud computing
is that we've redefined cloud computing
to include everything that we already do...
to include everything that we already do...
The computer industry is the only industry
that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.
that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.
Maybe I'm an idiot,
but I have no idea what anyone is talking about.
but I have no idea what anyone is talking about.
What is it?
It's complete gibberish.
It's insane.
When is this idiocy going to stop?
Cloud computing is cheaper, better, faster, easier, ... because it turns IT into a utility. In fact it's a no-brainer. So says Whitehall's G-Cloud team, reading from the industry hymn-sheet.
DMossEsq doesn't think that emulating the utilities markets is obviously a very good idea. Neither does Richard Stallman. And as for Larry Ellison, all $41 billion-worth of him, he thinks cloud computing announcements are "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish", see above. And below.
But never mind Messrs Stallman and Ellison and DMossEsq, take a look at the past week's utilities news and you decide, what do you think? Is this where you want public money spent? Your money?
Don't bother working on the answer too hard by the way because actually it doesn't matter what you think. HMRC have already contracted with Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd to put your tax data in the cloud and GDS – the Government Digital Service – have already contracted with the same company to put all your benefits data up there in the cloud, too.
Monday, 1 October 2012
Cloud computing and the Gadarene lemmings of Whitehall
It happens sometimes. You sit down to write a post and find you've already written it. In this case three months ago, HMG's cloud computing strategy – there isn't one.
In brief, Chris Chant identified 23 problems with Government IT and claimed that the solution is cloud computing and agile software engineering methods. He never stated how these remedies would solve the 23 problems and neither has anyone else.
Another way of putting which is to say that there is no Whitehall IT strategy for cloud computing. They can't give any examples of how cloud computing will help. They have no reason for creating CloudStores and contracting with a one-man band to host GOV.UK and HMRC's local office records in the cloud. They're just doing it. Because everyone else is. Allegedly.
Allegedly. The qualification has to be added because DMossEsq asked a very senior partner of a major global firm of lawyers if his firm uses the cloud and, in the politest way, he tried not to look as though he was dealing with a lunatic.
It's a breach of confidence to hand over client documents to a third party, a third party who may be anywhere in the world. The message was that his firm prefers to keep control of its data. It prefers to stay in business. The two are linked.
If Whitehall stick all our records in the cloud, they lose control of them. They lose control of their IT costs (our IT costs), the computers, the location of the computers and the staff who operate them, and they lose control of the data stored and processed on them.
Can anyone remember why Whitehall want cloud computing? Why they don't want to use their own data centres? What the return is meant to be? Why they're taking the risk?
Why are they wasting their time and our money? Why are they so intent on losing control? Is government too difficult for them? Have they given up?
Is there any sense in which Whitehall's behaviour is in the public interest? Any sense in which it's businesslike, professional, responsible, logical or dignified?
No. None.
Whitehall are behaving like a herd of adolescent fashion-driven Gadarene lemmings.
Someone wants to say that Whitehall are wasting our money with impunity and that the state of public administration in the UK is disgraceful. Or has he already said that?
In brief, Chris Chant identified 23 problems with Government IT and claimed that the solution is cloud computing and agile software engineering methods. He never stated how these remedies would solve the 23 problems and neither has anyone else.
Another way of putting which is to say that there is no Whitehall IT strategy for cloud computing. They can't give any examples of how cloud computing will help. They have no reason for creating CloudStores and contracting with a one-man band to host GOV.UK and HMRC's local office records in the cloud. They're just doing it. Because everyone else is. Allegedly.
Allegedly. The qualification has to be added because DMossEsq asked a very senior partner of a major global firm of lawyers if his firm uses the cloud and, in the politest way, he tried not to look as though he was dealing with a lunatic.
It's a breach of confidence to hand over client documents to a third party, a third party who may be anywhere in the world. The message was that his firm prefers to keep control of its data. It prefers to stay in business. The two are linked.
If Whitehall stick all our records in the cloud, they lose control of them. They lose control of their IT costs (our IT costs), the computers, the location of the computers and the staff who operate them, and they lose control of the data stored and processed on them.
Can anyone remember why Whitehall want cloud computing? Why they don't want to use their own data centres? What the return is meant to be? Why they're taking the risk?
Why are they wasting their time and our money? Why are they so intent on losing control? Is government too difficult for them? Have they given up?
Is there any sense in which Whitehall's behaviour is in the public interest? Any sense in which it's businesslike, professional, responsible, logical or dignified?
No. None.
Whitehall are behaving like a herd of adolescent fashion-driven Gadarene lemmings.
Someone wants to say that Whitehall are wasting our money with impunity and that the state of public administration in the UK is disgraceful. Or has he already said that?
Cloud computing and the Gadarene lemmings of Whitehall
It happens sometimes. You sit down to write a post and find you've already written it. In this case three months ago, HMG's cloud computing strategy – there isn't one.
Monday, 9 July 2012
Francis Maude and the economies of scale
"A seven-year government efficiency programme has backfired and increased costs for the taxpayer by hundreds of millions of pounds, a public spending watchdog said ... Whitehall departments have spent £1.4 billion in an attempt to save £159 million by sharing "back-office" functions such as personnel and procurement ..." – Telegraph readers and followers of DMossEsq have known all about this since March.
Any 12 year-old management consultant can make the case that sharing services saves money. It stands to reason.
Except that it's not true.
And now the Public Accounts Committee have a few words of advice for Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office:
Any 12 year-old management consultant can make the case that sharing services saves money. It stands to reason.
Except that it's not true.
And now the Public Accounts Committee have a few words of advice for Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office:
Will Mr Maude listen to Parliament? Or to the agile 12 year-olds touting shared services in the G-Cloud?
Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: "Shared service centres have failed to deliver the savings they should have. They cost £1.4bn to set up, £500m more than expected, and in some cases have actually cost the taxpayer more than they have saved. I welcome the Cabinet Office's ambitious new strategy for improving shared services. But unless it learns from the past it will end up making the same mistakes again."
Francis Maude and the economies of scale
"A seven-year government efficiency programme has backfired and increased costs for the taxpayer by hundreds of millions of pounds, a public spending watchdog said ... Whitehall departments have spent £1.4 billion in an attempt to save £159 million by sharing "back-office" functions such as personnel and procurement ..." – Telegraph readers and followers of DMossEsq have known all about this since March.
Any 12 year-old management consultant can make the case that sharing services saves money. It stands to reason.
Except that it's not true.
And now the Public Accounts Committee have a few words of advice for Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office:
Any 12 year-old management consultant can make the case that sharing services saves money. It stands to reason.
Except that it's not true.
And now the Public Accounts Committee have a few words of advice for Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office:
Will Mr Maude listen to Parliament? Or to the agile 12 year-olds touting shared services in the G-Cloud?
Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: "Shared service centres have failed to deliver the savings they should have. They cost £1.4bn to set up, £500m more than expected, and in some cases have actually cost the taxpayer more than they have saved. I welcome the Cabinet Office's ambitious new strategy for improving shared services. But unless it learns from the past it will end up making the same mistakes again."
Thursday, 14 June 2012
HMG's cloud computing strategy – there isn't one – and the Edgbaston Test
On 20 October 2011 Chris Chant listed 23 symptoms of the illness which Government IT suffers from. He carried on energetically repeating his diagnosis, unchallenged, and promoting cloud computing as the effective prescription. There he was, at it again, six months later on 11 April 2012, in a blog post on the G-Cloud website, #Unacceptable IT is pervasive. Two days later his resignation was announced.
The man in charge of G-Cloud is Andy Nelson, the Government's Chief Information Officer (CIO). That's only a part-time job. He is more fully occupied as CIO at the Ministry of Justice, where he's got his work cut out with Libra among other things. Libra is the £467 million Fujitsu system which is meant to produce the accounts for HM Courts and Tribunals Service. When the National Audit Office saw the 2010-11 accounts they were in such a mess that the NAO couldn't even qualify their opinion, they had to disclaim an opinion.
Under Mr Nelson, Denise McDonagh is also responsible for G-Cloud. Again, it's only a part-time job. Her day job is CIO at the Home Office. And again, there are quite a few distractions there:
Not so, Eleanor Stewart. She's a trouper. She's the Assistant Director of G-Cloud and she's always good for a lively post. On 27 April 2012 she produced Crowdsourcing and a response., in which she took up some of the many questions posed in the 20 responses to Chris Chant's last post.
What the heck can we do to resolve some of the scary and largely unknown legal and policy issues that people are nervous about in a globalised world?, she asked. Good question. No answer.
And What ‘worked examples’ might we be able to provide to ... sceptics? That's in response to the simple question how cloud computing is supposed to obviate the need for long contracts to produce systems like Libra, for example, or IABS or DWP's Universal Credit. Chris Chant says it will. How? No answer.
Ms Stewart threw the post open to the crowd. And published one comment. One. The limiting case of a crowd. (I wandered lonely as a cloud?)
"Scary and largely unknown"? Hmm. Quite clearly, no-one in HMG knows the answers to some very basic questions about its cloud computing strategy. Which is odd. They keep talking about it. Andy Nelson, for example, was holding forth at the Cloud Computing World Forum only the other day. And they've been advocating it for years – the G-Cloud Overview was being touted in August 2010. But still no-one can answer the questions.
Is it all hot air? A cloud of hot air? A cloud which, when it hits some of the colder patches of reality, results in heavy precipitation and the wettest drought ever seen, which washed out the Edgbaston Test? That's certainly what it looks like at this end of the wicket.
----------
A version of this post has been kindly published by the estimable PublicTechnology.net
The man in charge of G-Cloud is Andy Nelson, the Government's Chief Information Officer (CIO). That's only a part-time job. He is more fully occupied as CIO at the Ministry of Justice, where he's got his work cut out with Libra among other things. Libra is the £467 million Fujitsu system which is meant to produce the accounts for HM Courts and Tribunals Service. When the National Audit Office saw the 2010-11 accounts they were in such a mess that the NAO couldn't even qualify their opinion, they had to disclaim an opinion.
Under Mr Nelson, Denise McDonagh is also responsible for G-Cloud. Again, it's only a part-time job. Her day job is CIO at the Home Office. And again, there are quite a few distractions there:
- There's the £385 million CSC contract with Sarah Rapson's Identity & Passport Service which is one of the reasons UK passport-holders are currently being over-charged by £300 million a year.
- There's the £265 million IBM contract with the UK Border Agency to provide IABS, Jackie Keane's Immigration and Asylum Biometric System. IABS is meant to keep the UK border secure and make the 2012 Olympics safe but there's a problem – the biometrics don't work.
- The same problem applies to the National Policing Improvement Agency's promotion of MobileID, a system to allow policemen on patrol to check suspects' fingerprints on the spot using mobile equipment. The idea is for MobileID to save police time. Which it will because, with a 20% failure rate, this flaky technology will cause 20% fewer criminals to be arrested.
Not so, Eleanor Stewart. She's a trouper. She's the Assistant Director of G-Cloud and she's always good for a lively post. On 27 April 2012 she produced Crowdsourcing and a response., in which she took up some of the many questions posed in the 20 responses to Chris Chant's last post.
What the heck can we do to resolve some of the scary and largely unknown legal and policy issues that people are nervous about in a globalised world?, she asked. Good question. No answer.
And What ‘worked examples’ might we be able to provide to ... sceptics? That's in response to the simple question how cloud computing is supposed to obviate the need for long contracts to produce systems like Libra, for example, or IABS or DWP's Universal Credit. Chris Chant says it will. How? No answer.
Ms Stewart threw the post open to the crowd. And published one comment. One. The limiting case of a crowd. (I wandered lonely as a cloud?)
"Scary and largely unknown"? Hmm. Quite clearly, no-one in HMG knows the answers to some very basic questions about its cloud computing strategy. Which is odd. They keep talking about it. Andy Nelson, for example, was holding forth at the Cloud Computing World Forum only the other day. And they've been advocating it for years – the G-Cloud Overview was being touted in August 2010. But still no-one can answer the questions.
Is it all hot air? A cloud of hot air? A cloud which, when it hits some of the colder patches of reality, results in heavy precipitation and the wettest drought ever seen, which washed out the Edgbaston Test? That's certainly what it looks like at this end of the wicket.
----------
A version of this post has been kindly published by the estimable PublicTechnology.net
HMG's cloud computing strategy – there isn't one – and the Edgbaston Test
On 20 October 2011 Chris Chant listed 23 symptoms of the illness which Government IT suffers from. He carried on energetically repeating his diagnosis, unchallenged, and promoting cloud computing as the effective prescription. There he was, at it again, six months later on 11 April 2012, in a blog post on the G-Cloud website, #Unacceptable IT is pervasive. Two days later his resignation was announced.
Thursday, 31 May 2012
A suggestion for Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston, published on a blog provided "free" by Google
Two articles in the Sunday Times by Jon Ungoed-Thomas – Your emails, sex secrets and health details – all harvested by Google and Google grabs secrets of private lives – and one in the Telegraph next day by Philip Johnston – That car in your street was a Google Street View search engine.
While Google was filming our streets it was also collecting information about our WiFi networks. Without permission and without telling anyone. That was a mistake, said Google when they were found out, which is an odd thing for Google to say. The whole point about Google is that they don't make mistakes.
The US Federal Communications Commission are fining Google $25,000 for impeding their investigation of the matter. Google had revenues in 2011 of $37.905 billion on which it made profits of $9.737 billion. The fine amounts to 81 seconds of profits and is thought not to have dealt a mortal blow to the company's share price.
According to Jon Ungoed-Thomas, Google's telecommunications interception system was designed by Mr Marius Milner, a Trinity College Cambridge maths graduate, who handed it over to Google recommending that they'd better get a ruling from a privacy lawyer before using it.
At which point the claim that Google's Street View cars used Mr Milner's system by mistake all over the world for several years starts to look a bit threadbare.
We all know that Google record our web searches and read our email and do something with the information they glean there about our preferences and interests. We never pay them for the use of any of their excellent services. We know there's something odd there. Where does the $38 billion annual revenue come from? We latter-day Dr Faustuses prefer not to ask.
Mr Johnston muses in his article about the attitude of the young today, incontinently spraying their personal information all over the web, no sense of decency, or privacy, no dignity. Or words to that effect. He is rewarded for this perfectly sensible observation by being called an "old fart" by one of Google's astrosurfers commenting below the line.
DMossEsq made a much politer comment but it was deleted. Several times. Every time it was submitted. So quickly that it must have been deleted by an automated old fart.
No such indignity on the Sunday Times website (a website readers pay for, incidentally), where the comment was published and is still there:
While Google was filming our streets it was also collecting information about our WiFi networks. Without permission and without telling anyone. That was a mistake, said Google when they were found out, which is an odd thing for Google to say. The whole point about Google is that they don't make mistakes.
The US Federal Communications Commission are fining Google $25,000 for impeding their investigation of the matter. Google had revenues in 2011 of $37.905 billion on which it made profits of $9.737 billion. The fine amounts to 81 seconds of profits and is thought not to have dealt a mortal blow to the company's share price.
According to Jon Ungoed-Thomas, Google's telecommunications interception system was designed by Mr Marius Milner, a Trinity College Cambridge maths graduate, who handed it over to Google recommending that they'd better get a ruling from a privacy lawyer before using it.
At which point the claim that Google's Street View cars used Mr Milner's system by mistake all over the world for several years starts to look a bit threadbare.
We all know that Google record our web searches and read our email and do something with the information they glean there about our preferences and interests. We never pay them for the use of any of their excellent services. We know there's something odd there. Where does the $38 billion annual revenue come from? We latter-day Dr Faustuses prefer not to ask.
Mr Johnston muses in his article about the attitude of the young today, incontinently spraying their personal information all over the web, no sense of decency, or privacy, no dignity. Or words to that effect. He is rewarded for this perfectly sensible observation by being called an "old fart" by one of Google's astrosurfers commenting below the line.
DMossEsq made a much politer comment but it was deleted. Several times. Every time it was submitted. So quickly that it must have been deleted by an automated old fart.
No such indignity on the Sunday Times website (a website readers pay for, incidentally), where the comment was published and is still there:
There's the story Messrs Ungoed-Thomas and Johnston should be writing, surely – in the name of modernisation and transformational government, the middle-aged delinquents of Whitehall are openly planning to hand over our personal data en masse to Google and others. How much will that free lunch cost us?
... Note that the Department of Business Innovation and Skills want Google to help provide us all with "personal data stores" as part of the department's midata project.
And that the Cabinet Office look to Google to provide us with electronic identities so that public services can all become "digital by default".
And that Whitehall's plans for a G-Cloud – a government cloud – rely on Google and others storing our data on their servers in a gigantic leap of faith in so-called "cloud computing".
HMG seems to be desperate to invite Google into our lives and to hand over the responsibility for public administration to Google in a re-run of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/04/amazon-google-facebook-et-al-latter-day.html
Why? Have they given up? Is government too difficult for them?
A suggestion for Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston, published on a blog provided "free" by Google
Two articles in the Sunday Times by Jon Ungoed-Thomas – Your emails, sex secrets and health details – all harvested by Google and Google grabs secrets of private lives – and one in the Telegraph next day by Philip Johnston – That car in your street was a Google Street View search engine.
While Google was filming our streets it was also collecting information about our WiFi networks. Without permission and without telling anyone. That was a mistake, said Google when they were found out, which is an odd thing for Google to say. The whole point about Google is that they don't make mistakes.
The US Federal Communications Commission are fining Google $25,000 for impeding their investigation of the matter. Google had revenues in 2011 of $37.905 billion on which it made profits of $9.737 billion. The fine amounts to 81 seconds of profits and is thought not to have dealt a mortal blow to the company's share price.
While Google was filming our streets it was also collecting information about our WiFi networks. Without permission and without telling anyone. That was a mistake, said Google when they were found out, which is an odd thing for Google to say. The whole point about Google is that they don't make mistakes.
The US Federal Communications Commission are fining Google $25,000 for impeding their investigation of the matter. Google had revenues in 2011 of $37.905 billion on which it made profits of $9.737 billion. The fine amounts to 81 seconds of profits and is thought not to have dealt a mortal blow to the company's share price.
Saturday, 19 May 2012
Ministry of Justice soon to be Chakrabartiless
The Times, 19 May 2012:
HM Courts Service Trust Statement for the year ended 31 March 2011
HM Courts Service hides “Libra” IT’s new shortcomings
...
Whitehall – misfeasance in public office
Whitehall mandarin wins race for bank
A leading Whitehall official has secured the top job at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, making him the first Briton to win the post.
In a diplomatic victory for Britain, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, who serves as the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, will lead the EBRD for the next four years ...
HM Courts Service Trust Statement for the year ended 31 March 2011
HM Courts Service hides “Libra” IT’s new shortcomings
...
Ministry of Justice soon to be Chakrabartiless
The Times, 19 May 2012:
HM Courts Service Trust Statement for the year ended 31 March 2011
HM Courts Service hides “Libra” IT’s new shortcomings
...
Whitehall – misfeasance in public office
Whitehall mandarin wins race for bank
A leading Whitehall official has secured the top job at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, making him the first Briton to win the post.
In a diplomatic victory for Britain, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, who serves as the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, will lead the EBRD for the next four years ...
HM Courts Service Trust Statement for the year ended 31 March 2011
HM Courts Service hides “Libra” IT’s new shortcomings
...
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
The good news about cloud computing continues to blow in
HM Government plans to deliver all public services over the web. In particular, Whitehall will store all its data in the G-Cloud – the government cloud – and we parishioners will all access public services through public clouds. (Parishioners who can't use the web will no longer be parishioners.)
Cloud computing, we are told by Whitehall officials and IT salesmen, will be more flexible, cheaper, more secure and more resilient than what is, by implication, the present inflexible, expensive, insecure and non-resilient service.
In witness whereof the reader is referred to the cloud computing section of The Register magazine where he or she may discover that:
Cloud computing, we are told by Whitehall officials and IT salesmen, will be more flexible, cheaper, more secure and more resilient than what is, by implication, the present inflexible, expensive, insecure and non-resilient service.
In witness whereof the reader is referred to the cloud computing section of The Register magazine where he or she may discover that:
- Cloud data fiasco forces bosses to break out the whiteboards – Atlassian team-tracker outage caused by disk failure
- Root canal surgery officially more desirable than cloud migration – Unicorn spotting more likely than app transfer in poll
- iCloud blows away 15 million users for 90 minutes – Normal service has been restored, photo-sharing on the way
- ...
At the end of last year Sage had converted just 1,000 of its customers from cloud sceptics to adopters, out of an installed base of 6.3 million.
The good news about cloud computing continues to blow in
HM Government plans to deliver all public services over the web. In particular, Whitehall will store all its data in the G-Cloud – the government cloud – and we parishioners will all access public services through public clouds. (Parishioners who can't use the web will no longer be parishioners.)
Cloud computing, we are told by Whitehall officials and IT salesmen, will be more flexible, cheaper, more secure and more resilient than what is, by implication, the present inflexible, expensive, insecure and non-resilient service.
In witness whereof the reader is referred to the cloud computing section of The Register magazine where he or she may discover that:
Cloud computing, we are told by Whitehall officials and IT salesmen, will be more flexible, cheaper, more secure and more resilient than what is, by implication, the present inflexible, expensive, insecure and non-resilient service.
In witness whereof the reader is referred to the cloud computing section of The Register magazine where he or she may discover that:
- Cloud data fiasco forces bosses to break out the whiteboards – Atlassian team-tracker outage caused by disk failure
- Root canal surgery officially more desirable than cloud migration – Unicorn spotting more likely than app transfer in poll
- iCloud blows away 15 million users for 90 minutes – Normal service has been restored, photo-sharing on the way
- ...
At the end of last year Sage had converted just 1,000 of its customers from cloud sceptics to adopters, out of an installed base of 6.3 million.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Anonymous demonstration of foolproof Cabinet Office plans
 |
| Don't worry – this can't happen |
Under no circumstances should this be taken as an example of what could happen if the Cabinet Office have their way and all public services are delivered over the web.
The public can safely remain entirely confident that this could never happen to the G-Cloud, for example, the "government cloud" on the web in which Her Majesty's Government plan to store all our data. All our tax records and pension records and benefits records and health records and housing records and travel records (eBorders) and Companies House records and Charity Commission records and criminal records and military records and energy infrastructure records and driving licences and passports and the Government Gateway and ... all tucked up in the G-Cloud and all as safe as houses.
The Chinese would be quite incapable of pulling off the same trick as Anonymous, a small group of gifted amateurs. Nor could the Russians. Or an undergraduate class at the University of Michigan.
Admittedly, the OECD recommend that "cloud computing creates security problems in the form of loss of confidentiality if authentication is not robust and loss of service if internet connectivity is unavailable or ...".
And ENISA, the EU's information security agency, say that cloud computing "should be limited to non-sensitive or non-critical applications and in the context of a defined strategy ... which should include a clear exit strategy".
But here in the UK, cyber security is masterminded by the arch-moderniser Francis Maude – and what could be more modern than to use the web for all government business?
- Mr Maude may have a limited understanding of DDoS attacks and LOICs, but he was once the managing director of Morgan Stanley. Or was he?
- He has the imprimatur of Martha Lane Fox.
- The modernisation plan – "transformational government", as it used to be known, i.e. making front line public servants redundant and replacing them with computers – was first floated in 2005 by Sir Gus now Lord O'Donnell at the behest of Tony Blair the telecommunications security expert, and is in the safe hands of Ian Watmore, sometime chairman of the Football Association.
- Mr Maude is also ably assisted by Andy Nelson, Chris Chant and Denise McDonagh ...
- ... not to mention ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken ...
- ... to whom all enquiries should be confidently addressed.
As the BBC report says, the Home Office "have put all potential measures in place and will be monitoring the situation very closely". There really is nothing to see here. "Potential measures" are in place. Not just some of them. All of them. It is simply impossible that access to the G-Cloud should ever be cut off:
 |
| Don't worry – this can't happen |
Anonymous demonstration of foolproof Cabinet Office plans
|
| Don't worry – this can't happen |
Under no circumstances should this be taken as an example of what could happen if the Cabinet Office have their way and all public services are delivered over the web.
The public can safely remain entirely confident that this could never happen to the G-Cloud, for example, the "government cloud" on the web in which Her Majesty's Government plan to store all our data. All our tax records and pension records and benefits records and health records and housing records and travel records (eBorders) and Companies House records and Charity Commission records and criminal records and military records and energy infrastructure records and driving licences and passports and the Government Gateway and ... all tucked up in the G-Cloud and all as safe as houses.