Email privacy under the spotlight in US Senate

Debate is currently underway in the US to bring the country’s electronic communication privacy laws into the 21st century.

The proposed changes have bipartisan support and include requiring the government to obtain a warrant before they can request email and other data stored in the cloud from internet and other online service providers.

The current Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which is almost 30 years old, only requires police to obtain a subpoena – without a judge’s approval – to search opened emails or emails more than 180 days old, which are then considered abandoned. When the ECPA was originally passed in 1986, the huge growth in online storage that exists today wasn’t forecast. The now-outdated ECPA operates on the premise that emails are stored on personal or work computers and were only stored on a third party server just long enough to transfer to the receiver’s email client. As things currently stand, a US citizen has more rights to privacy with postal mail and phone calls than online communications.

Google’s director of law enforcement and information security Richard Salgado has welcomed the ECPA review, saying the lag in the law has had a negative impact on the adoption of email and other cloud services.

Clueless about cloud computing

The European Union’s cloud computing strategy couldn’t come at a better time as the region lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to cloud computing usage.

The EU announced its cloud computing strategy last month and is optimistic it will create new jobs and help boost a struggling economy.

An information campaign is necessary if the EU is to overturn the misunderstanding and general lack of knowledge about the cloud.

A recent survey from BSA, The Software Alliance found only a quarter of respondents used cloud services, compared to 34 per cent globally. Nearly 4000 people were surveyed and the majority had either never heard of cloud computing or had heard the term but didn’t know what it was.

While only 24 per cent of respondents said they used cloud services compared to the majority, who didn’t know what cloud computing was, it turns out many were using cloud applications, they just didn’t realise it. Almost 90 per cent of cloud users accessed the cloud for personal use only – mostly email – compared to under 30 per cent who used it for business.

Europeans aren’t the only ones with their head in the clouds over cloud computing. Americans don’t seem to be very clued up on it either. A recent survey from software company Citrix uncovered some pretty amusing misconceptions about the cloud.

Citrix’s surveyed 1000 people and when asked what they thought cloud computing was, the answers varied from clouds in the sky, pillows, heaven, drugs and even toilet paper. More than half thought bad weather could affect cloud computing. A fifth of those surveyed even admitted they had pretended to know what the cloud was. Just 16 per cent of respondents correctly answered that cloud computing uses a computer network to store, access and share data via the Internet.

Similarly to Europeans, many Americans are using cloud services without even realising it. The majority said they had never used cloud computing, but in fact the opposite was true; almost all of those surveyed had used the cloud either for banking, online shopping, social networking or file sharing.

While I wasn’t able to find statistics on whether the general public in Australia understands cloud computing, a recent survey of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) shows similarities to cloud knowledge in the US and Europe.

The MYOB survey of 1000 SMBs found only 14 per cent admitted to using the cloud for business. MYOB’s CEO Tim Rees said this was a surprising statistic considering the widespread use of email, online banking and other cloud services. A quarter of respondents said they hadn’t moved any of their operations to the cloud because they didn’t know enough about it to make a decision. Similar to the problem in the US and Europe, Rees said the education campaign might need a rethink as businesses are still not grasping the definition of cloud computing, let alone its possibilities.

With the understanding of cloud computing still poor in Europe, the US and Australia, we could probably assume it is a similar problem globally. If education campaigns have so far produced limited results, what do you think could be done to improve the general understanding of cloud computing? What can be done to convince individuals and companies to embrace the technology? Please contribute your thoughts in the comments section below.

Trust the key to cloud computing growth in Europe

The European Commission is optimistic about the future of cloud computing in the region and predicts it will not only save on data storage costs, but create new jobs and boost GDP.

The European Union’s cloud computing strategy was finally unveiled last week and is expected to boost GDP by around AUD$200 million (about 1 per cent) and create almost four million jobs in just under a decade.

This is the first concerted effort by the EU to increase the popularity of cloud computing among businesses. Digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes said if the EU didn’t take united action, they would continue to miss out on the major profits to be made by using cloud computing. At present, only about a quarter of European computer users access cloud applications and they lag behind worldwide levels by about 10 per cent. The value of the cloud computing market is expected to more than double and be worth just over AUD$70 billion by 2015.

Kroes estimated the cloud will save most businesses – particularly small ones – up to 20 per cent in operating costs. So why is cloud computing still less popular in Europe than the rest of the world?

Trust is a major factor. Cloud services in Europe are mostly localised rather than regional and even though EU legislation protects cloud users, most are unaware of their rights. Cloud computing growth in Europe has been stunted as users are unclear on which jurisdiction they fall under, where their data is located and how safe it is. To help clear up confusion, the EC plans to introduce standards and a certification scheme for a single digital market by 2013. This will increase transparency and hopefully build users confidence in storing data across, and beyond, European borders.

Do you operate a business in Europe and use cloud services? If not, will these changes encourage you to move some of your business to the cloud, or do they not go far enough? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

What is Cloud Computing?

Do you check your email online? Share files via the web? Pay off your credit card using online banking or download music? Then you are already using cloud computing services, probably more often than you even realise.

Cloud computing is when hardware and/or software infrastructure and services are made available remotely and connected via a network, which is usually the Internet.

Using the cloud symbol to represent the Internet is not a new idea and dates back almost 20 years. The more recent term cloud computing refers to sketches of clouds to represent networks in computing and communication diagrams.

How does cloud computing work?

Cloud computing eliminates, or at a minimum reduces the time and money an individual or company needs to invest in infrastructure and/or software. Instead of buying a new computer and software license for each new employee, a company can pay a subscription fee and buy the rights to access an Internet-based service, where the company can store its files on remote servers and access any programs it needs. You can store as much or as little as you like in the cloud.

Cloud computing is based on three main models:-

• Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is the most basic of cloud models and provides mostly virtual servers on a pay-as-you-go basis. Other IaaS offerings include virtual machine image libraries, file-based storage, firewalls, IP addresses and software bundles.
• Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) providers offer a computing platform including an operating system, programming language interpreter and web server which is sometimes scalable, allowing application developers to create customised software without the outlay involved in buying their own hardware and software.
• Software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers offer access to their software online with a login, for example Google Mail or Dropbox. It is usually priced per user and is scalable so it can increase with demand without disruption to subscribers.

Who uses the cloud?

Cloud computing is available for both personal and business use. A Forrester Research study found 40 per cent of small businesses rated cloud services as a high priority for their business. 25 per cent of medium-sized businesses also thought cloud computing was very important for their operations.

You can access the cloud through three different models; the public, private or hybrid clouds. The public cloud is available to the general public and is either free or sold on a pay-per-use model, for example Google and Microsoft can offer access via the Internet only. The private cloud is available to individual companies who prefer to manage their own data rather than hand it over to a third party. Management of the private cloud can be done internally or outsourced and it can be hosted in-house or externally. The hybrid cloud is a combination of two or more clouds and requires cooperation between in-house and cloud infrastructure.

Why choose the cloud?

There are plenty of reasons why companies are choosing to use cloud-based applications and/or store their data in the cloud. Here are just a few of them:-

• Cloud computing reduces the workload of in-house IT staff and the cost of buying infrastructure and maintaining it
• Low upfront costs and pay-per-use means you don’t pay for more than you need
• Email archived in the cloud is backed up automatically
• Cloud services can be accessed from anywhere in the world with just an Internet connection
• Cloud computing is scalable, so as your storage needs grow, it grows with you

SilverDane can archive your enterprise email in the cloud. For more information, visit www.silverdane.com