So Is this what cloud computing will be like?

I always try and visualize what cloud computing would look like through an apt metaphor.

I usually picture a cloud or balloon floating through the sky with one string dangling down and that is my connection which stays open all day and night.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hebe/271191422/sizes/m/

What would it be like if someone strung up another line to my cloud?

Today I had a sense of what that would be like:

I received a contact from Google, at first sort of dismissed it as another Google tool that I would check later. It said there was an unknown IP accessing my account. I move between home and school and hardly think twice as I access the WIFI signal. I thought it was something through my district. I wonder about the relationship between my district then the county and some commercial provider.

I checked my own IP and it wasn't me. I suddenly had the vision of a room in Russian, many computers searching and trying  combinations of letters and numbers breaking through accounts. I thought about the Chinese dissadents who have to protect themselves against such attacks.

I tried another website to trace IPs and it connected to Google maps and showed me a location a few miles from where I live. Then I was thinking about my home wireless, but I created a monster of a password with numbers and letters that would be impossible to break.

I changed my password, something I haven't done even with all the warnings that I've seen about changing and making it more secure.

Maybe there is some credit card information that would be enough to cause me trouble.

No, it ended up being a web 2.0 company called Boxbe.

I had signed up for an account and they had been agressive in accessing my account information, even putting a filter amongst my personal Google filters that I was not aware I had approved.

So my little balloon cloud is still floating, unaware, my data, and personal information. Who convinced me this was the way to go? I supposed the same feeling that had me do much of the digitization and consolidation of my life into one place accessible, 24/7.

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Comments

[Ann Oro]

Thanks for sharing this Darrell. I might need it some day. I like the documentation you put together. It will make it easy to replicate if I need to.