In one article, from The Guardian, Richard Stallman talks about careless computing and losing control of one's data because it's no longer stored on our hard drive or other storage media in our physical or legal possession. The other article, closer to Google's home, has the San Francisco Chronicle's Matt Rosoff calling Chrome OS a "Waste Of Time."
Of the two articles, Richard Stallman's merits more thought and discussion. Stallman, the longtime champion of GNU, the Free Software Foundation, and all (most?) things that give you more control over your data and computing systems, is no fan of the 'cloud' or of relinquishing personal and immediate control of your data. He says,
"...In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant...as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear..."
Although my initial reaction is to dismiss RMS as a fringe geek and as someone who has chosen not to participate in the path along which the internet and personal computing seem to be moving, this article is a worthwhile read, and Stallman does raise valid points. We are ceding control of most of our data when we use Chrome OS or cloud storage, more so, I think, than when we store our data locally on a hard drive or other storage media. It's questionable whether the data truly is more secure on a hard drive in our house (or on the flash memory in our smartphone) if we're connected to the web and pass much of our data through it. However, those who care to take reasonable, or maybe even a tad paranoid, precautions to safeguard their hard drive files still have a fighting chance to keep private data private. Once you store your data primarily in the cloud, especially if it's a free-to-the-consumer storage service such as Google or Facebook, you've pretty much given up any reasonable expectation of privacy.
Since most people will not do local backups, or even cloud-based backups of the files on their primary data host, such as Google, Facebook or Microsoft, they have given up not only their privacy, they've also given those hosts 90% of the title for ownership. Possession is nine-tenths... In some cases, they may have given 100%, depending on what the EULA says for which they clicked a box indicating they will do whatever the host wants in exchange for using the service the host provides.
In the SF Chronicle opinion piece, Mr. Rosoff says,
"Based on what Google is showing now, unless they give away Chrome notebooks for free, there's no reason to use one...But Chrome doesn't make any sense...that's because it's not really doing much...Google should scrap this product before it gets any further..."
Rosoff totally dismisses Chrome OS and sees no value in Cr-48 for anyone. That may be his opinion because he is a SF/Silicon Valley-type geek and has primarily SF/Silicon Valley friends who know what technology they like and feel that everyone needs the same standard tech world computing paradigm. I doubt Mr. Rosoff has to do computer support for older people who mainly use computers to write emails, browse the web and look at photos of their grandchildren. He probably doesn't interact too much with school district tech people who support computers for everyone from middle schoolers to teachers and administrators. It seems like there are plenty of computer users for whom the Chrome OS would work better than a full fledged Windows or Mac machine.
Read both these articles so you're aware of the Dark Side of Chrome OS. Or at least two people's opinions of the downsides for Chrome OS. Even if Chrome OS is ahead of its time, it seems to represent a significant enough paradigm shift that we won't fully escape the concept it represents.
What's your opinion? Is Chrome OS the first step toward the 'real' SkyNet, or a major fiasco and waste of money for Google?
I hope not on the first, and I think not on the second.
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