[iDC] cloud computing and the university

[Elijah Saxon]

On 06/11/2010 04:52 AM, Ulises Mejias wrote:

> In the end, I suppose Google is no more evil or no less evil than 
> Apple, Microsoft, or any other media company.

Imagine if it was a requirement for running Windows that you grant
Microsoft the ability to analyze the entire contents of your hard drive
in order to build a detailed profile of your behavior. Or if Microsoft
routinely turned over the contents of your computer to law enforcement,
often without a warrant. Or if Microsoft could delete everything on your
computer if it decided that you violated the user agreement. Somehow we
have let Google get away with building a computing environment that no
one would put up with on a PC.

The cloud is with us to stay, I am afraid. Long live the PC!

There are hopeful models: firefox sync is one (aka mozilla weave). You
can use whatever cloud storage provider you want, and all the data is
encrypted on the client side. You get the benefit of cloud computing
(cyber-deterritorialization?), without lock-in and without surveillance.
Another example is wuala.com (although not open source).

On 06/11/2010 08:32 AM, Jesse Drew wrote:

> fyi, I was on the Google App test group at UC Davis.  Here is the 
> official letter that went out on why we rejected it:

I am so jealous. UC Santa Cruz just switched to gmail. The transition
did not go smoothly.

I am very curious what the details of the Google contracts are, and how
they differ from campus to campus.

Does anyone know what happens when a student graduates? Does their
university gmail account rollover to a regular gmail account? If Buzz
makes anything clear, it is that Google realizes it needs better social
network data and that gmail is the path by which it is going to get it.
What better social network to own than newly minted college grads?

-elijah