Google boss Eric Schmidt answered a couple of questions at Times Online from October 2nd. He talks about what might be in store for the future, about Google Books, about which companies he admires (Apple tops his list – “they have a single-minded focus on building great products and they’re doing a terrific job”), about censorship in China, what newspapers could do to adapt, and more. On the security of cloud computing (see recent reports of the T-Mobile Sidekick probably-no-backup crash, for instance), he argues:
Let me say first that cloud computing is the future. But the concerns that people have about security in cloud computing are understandable: some people like to be able to see their computer server to know that’s exactly where their data is. It’s somewhat parallel to the banking system: early on, people believed that their money was safer under their mattress than in a bank, but all the systems and rules that have evolved over time do not support that belief.
You can look at cloud computing in a similar way. We have built and continue to build a lot of security protection into our applications to protect your privacy and your information. Consider also that if you put your data on one drive in your home and it gets stolen or damaged, then you have lost it permanently - I remember reading various articles in the British press about government officials losing sensitive data on laptops, CDs, memory sticks and the like.
[Thanks Jérôme!]
[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Times Online Presents Q&A With Google's Eric ... | Comments]
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