Cloud Servers: Confused

June 21, 2011 at 11:12 am (Nerd-stuffs)

Ok, so in case you haven’t noticed this trendy new thing called the Cloud Server recently, let me summarize it:

Everything stored on your hard drive? You know, your music, pictures, applications, documents, and basically everything along with them that take up so much space? Cloud servers hold all of that stuff on their hard drives and servers that are (conveniently) not in your house, which means that since you’re able to access the server over the internet, any of your mobile devices or other computers can sync to it (less importantly, it means you have more desk space for things like paperweights, bills, cords, and other things desks get cluttered with when you have space on it).

All of the sudden, you have every bit of data that you take on-the-go on every device you take on-the-go. Your phone? Got all your music. Your tablet PC? Got all your documents and spreadsheets. No more worrying about hooking it up to your computer and syncing it that way. Amazon, Dropbox, and Microsoft’s Azure are a few of the prominent ones, but the reason this is at the forefront is because of Apple’s new iCloud they’re launching soon. This is being marketed as a new stage in the technology revolution and in convenience as well.

Really, I don’t have a problem with this so much as an annoyance; it’s something a lot of people are going to tell me I need, and that they don’t know how they got by without it. The reality is, this isn’t a new thing: remote servers have been around a while, and people have been using them to access their stuff from other devices. The only thing “new” about this is that it’s trendy.

Though, I suppose there’s this new factor to consider: Apple’s products all work seamlessly with other Apple products; this has long been an advantage to switching completely Mac and i(Insert device) for everything. But now Apple has a cloud server for all of your data so that you don’t even have to bother with hooking your devices up to sync their data.

Video Gamers out there who use Steam have been actually been using remote similar “remote server” systems since Half-Life 2 came out in 2004; the games, for the most part, are stored on the user’s computer, but your Steam Account phones into the main Steam servers to authenticate it. This meant a few things:

1) All of your games, in the event of a system crash, were backed up on the Steam Servers; it could keep track of games you had purchased through Steam and would let you download them again.

2) Since you need an always-on Internet connection, Steam could automatically and quietly update the game with patches as they were released, even if you don’t want them (Conversely, you cannot un-install patches if they end up causing a bug that crashes your game on your computer)

3) You had an easy-to-use interface for every single game you played.

4) You could not play your game if the Steam Servers were offline, regardless of how good your own connection was. (Steam occasionally works in Offline Mode, but not for all games)

5) You cannot play your game if you happened to not have an internet connection.

6) You cannot let anyone else use your copy of the game. You cannot “lend” it out. You cannot give it away. (unless you buy another copy of the game specifically as a “gift”)

Basically, you don’t really own the games you buy with your money. What you’re now paying for is the ability to ask Steam to play it. Steam’s offline? Can’t play it. Steam thinks you may have pirated it? Can’t play it. Your internet connections down? Can’t play it. For the advantages you gain, you basically lose the ability to play the games when you want to.

I see something similar happening with Cloud Systems later on; they’re touting it as a convenience thing now, but how long until they start “forcing” you to use it? Sure, they’ll never actually “force” you to do anything, but what if you could only play songs purchased through iTunes through Cloud Streaming? What if any pictures imported through iPhoto are automatically (without option to change) loaded onto a Cloud Server? Of course, all of this will be done in the name of “convenience”, and people will buy into it and gush over how amazing Apple is.

I’d like to see their faces the first time the server crashes and they can’t access anything they “own” and they realize what a terrible trap they’ve fallen into. Even Amazon isn’t immune to that happening (their servers crashed just recently, taking down several websites and denying access to tons of files that customers had put on the servers)

Another problem is the incentive for hackers: One computer isn’t that much of a target for a high-profile hacker. Phishers love them, for sure, but master programmers who can maneuver security systems with ease don’t care about the data on one computer. But take hundreds of computers and put them on one server, and attach a credit card to each one (for purchasing songs/apps/etc), and suddenly you have an incredibly appetizing target for a team of hackers to try and take it down and steal the information. Sony’s PSN (the online gaming network for Playstation, where you buy games and play them) was hacked in recent months and was down because of it for 6 weeks. Hundreds of customers had their information stolen, which included usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, not to mention that none of the PSN’s player base could actually play any of the games they paid money for. Sony spent tons of money trying to recuperate their losses, most of which are customers that won’t want to come back because they don’t feel safe anymore.

Basically, Cloud Servers are nice, but only in theory. They’re great for the companies that run them because now they have near-complete control over the product they sell. It’s terrible for the customers because, in the end, they don’t own anything.