Results: Search by author Karl Bustamante.

Well, it's here. Apple fans have been waiting for it since the announcment and now the iCloud is here. Just update your iTunes and OS and you're all set. But in the release of the iCloud, Apple and its users (like yours truly) will have something else to worry about — the security of our data in the cloud. 

I was one of those burned when the big PSN hacking incident happened. I had to change my credit card info. And now there's been another fiasco concerning Sony's cloud security. I don't know if my account was one of those compromised. Now, do I also have to worry about my Apple account as well? Here's a great article on this issue.

"For Apple fans juggling iPads, iPhones and Macbooks, Apple's iCloud, which launched Wednesday, offers the chance to simplify their digital lives by linking email, calendars, music and photos from multiple devices.

But while iCloud promises convenience, experts say it raises potential security and privacy concerns inherent in storing data in the cloud: If one account is hacked or one device is stolen, others could be compromised because they are linked in the cloud. And cloud providers control that information, which they could hand over to marketers or law enforcement.

Users of cloud storage "have to be comfortable with someone else holding all your data," said Jamz Yaneza, a threat research manager with the security firm Trend Micro.

An Apple spokeswoman said Apple has taken several measures to secure information stored on iCloud, including encrypting data while it is transported over the Internet and while it is stored on Apple's servers.

In recent months, the risks associated with cloud computing have gained attention. In June, Dropbox, which provides online storage, admitted that a security glitch allowed people to log into any Dropbox account for several hours by typing in any password. In April, Amazon.com's cloud service failed, bringing down the websites of numerous businesses.

Read more here on Huffington Post.

As of now, i'm still not worried about my info. I'm not really sure why I trust Apple so much. So, like any Apple fan out there, my mantra, when dealing with anything Apple is:

I just found out about this great cloud storage service called Bitcasa. It's not just another one of those applications in the cloud. It's also entirely different from Dropbox where you drag and drop your files (about 2-3 gig) into folders and it syncs it to the cloud.

Piracy will always be an issue. I mean, you can't really stop people from pirating software whatever it may be. The best you can do is to prevent it from happening. In the SaaS world, piracy isn't a problem because the cloud ensures that all subscriptions are legit. However, this can be a hurdle to actually getting people to use your software. I found a great article that suggests ways on how to solve this problem — consider free software, to a certain extent of course.

"It is estimated that approximately 41% of revenue, close to $53 billion, is “lost” in software piracy. This number is totally misleading since it assumes that all the people who knowingly or unknowingly pirated software would have bought the software at the published price had they not pirated it. RIAA also applies the same nonsense logic to blow the music piracy number way out of proportion. The most people who pirate software are similar to the people who pirate music. They may not necessarily buy software at all. If they can’t pirate your software, they will pirate something else. If they can’t do that, they will find some other alternative to get the job done.

Fortunately, some software companies understand this very well and they have a two-pronged approach to deal with this situation: prevent large scale piracy and leverage piracy when you can’t prevent it. If an individual has access to free (pirated) software, as a vendor, you’re essentially encouraging an organic ecosystem. The person who pirated your software is more likely to make a recommendation to continue using it when he/she is employed by a company that cannot and will not pirate. This model has worked extremely well. What has not been working so well and what the most on-premise vendors struggle with is the unintentional license usage or revenue leakage. Customers buy on-premise software through channels and deploy to large number of users. Most on-premise software are not instrumented to prevent unintentional license usage. The license activation, monitoring, and compliance systems are antiquated in most cases and cannot deal with this problem. This is very different than piracy because the most corporations, at least in the western world, that deploy the on-premise software want to be honest but they have no easy way to figure out how many licenses have beed used. " 

Read the rest of the article here from CloudAve.

Many apps (in iTunes) are doing this and so are videogame vendors who use the cloud (like EA and Steam). It's a pretty effective solution. 

Cool video of Eric Schmidt of Google and Marc Benioff of Salesforce discussing the future of cloud computing. Whip out the popcorn and hook your laptop up to your TV. It's an hour long!