In another article, Your E-Mail Hijacked? No Ransom Necessary, Get It Back For Free, we talked about how your e-mail probably doesn't "live" on your computer but in a cloud up in cyber space.
More and more big Web providers, from Google to Yahoo!, are moving data to clouds. Even the software to run the data, from e-mails to big spreadsheets doesn't live on machines in offices but up in cyberspace. From sensitive financial information to lists of customers. They're moving your stuff from your computers and that of very large businesses' computers to a so-called cloud.
It's not so mysterious at all. The data is on some other computer. That could be a computer on the other side of the world. You and the business you work for gain access to the data through the Web. Increasingly, the big companies, Microsoft included, are enticing you to give up your data to them.
Where is my stuff?
Your stuff may be in a huge warehouse that is humming with the hard disks of thousands of special PCs called servers. They are, in principle, no different than the machine on your desk. But servers are usually powered by special chips and special software that you wouldn't be able to use. And they don't each have monitors, mouse and keyboards attached.
They consume large amounts of power and give off a lot of heat. So much heat that some companies have found it more profitable to locate their server farm - buildings the size of football fields - near places where the power is cheaper and where the climate is more agreeable. Because electrons whiz around at the speed of light, distance isn't that important.
There's been talk of powering servers down in areas where the day time temperatures are hot, and moving the data and software to a cooler location. Since it's all just bits and bytes, the data and software can be easily sent to another computer. That's something that has to be done anyway in case a particular server breaks or "goes down," in geek-speak.
You've been told by your Internet Service Provider, the company that keep your Web site up and running, that they rent server time from a company in Kansas. But the company in Kansas may find that a tornado is one the way. So they move all the data out of harm's way to, say, India. Why not?
The bottom line is that you don't know where your stuff is at any moment.
I pay, or do I pay, for my cloud?
Nothing's free in life. Remember over-the-air TV? It was "free," except that you had to sit through all the commercials. Well, "free" e-mail on the Web - or in the cloud - isn't free because you have to look at all the ads. Same for Google. Some businesses do pay for complicated services, like for being able to have customer data available to a salesman in the field who carries a Web-enabled computer with him on sales calls.
But what are you paying for? Or what do you get for "free?" That's a complicated question and can only be answered by reading the fine print. It's called "terms of use." It may have other words but the word "terms" is always there. If you're concerned about what you're paying for, read the terms of use.
Because that will also tell you how safe your data is.
How can I keep my stuff safe?
Just before the New Year, Microsoft "lost" the e-mails of more than 17,000 Hotmail customers. News reports weren't clear whether all 17,000 customer got their e-mails back but it's possible that some were permanently lost. And, remember, everything in the cloud is owned by one private company or another. They can - and do - go out of business.
The solution to keeping your stuff safe is an old one: back it up.
Storage is cheap
Permanent storage is cheap these days. Most of us know what a megabyte is. Even a gigabyte. How about a terabyte? That's a thousand gigabytes. A one terabyte external hard disk costs around $100 these days. The Library of Congress states that its collection fills about 745 miles of shelf space or 160 terabytes of stuff.
In the article, Your E-Mail Hijacked? No Ransom Necessary, Get It Back For Free, we discussed the most important stuff to back up: your e-mail address book. Take the time to re-read that. Then do it now.
