Box, DropBox, SpiderOak, GoogleDrive, SkyDrive, SugarSync, and many more...

Are there any possible legal problems you could run into by putting stuff into these free Cloud Computing services? I mean, say you wrote a story using Cloud Computing (because you were writing on three different computers and it was nice having it up-to-date on each). If it ends up being a bestseller can they ask for money because you used their free whatever to write it?

I'd assume not. And how safe are these? If JKR had OotP in there during the 3-year gap between GoF and OotP would it have been safe or would we have it early via hacking?

It's great for things like pictures, or recipes, or to-do lists, or whatever else. I just worry about it for scientific writing or anything that might be semi-sensitive or might possibly make money one day.

tl;dr -- is this shit safe for anything but personal stuff or are there legal pitfalls hanging around?

 

I haven't looked further into legal stuff pertaining cloud services, because I don't use them* as a matter of principle. Just like you said, I don't want any sensitive or important stuff floating around somewhere -- I want it where I can definitely control it, smash a HDD if I feel like it, disconnect stuff and be sure no one but me can reach it, know it can't suddenly get deleted etc.

And that's for using cloud as a backup -- I can't at all understand people who use it as the only place where they store data. So basically, as a concept, cloud does nothing for me at all.


*That said, there's nothing to be said against setting up a private cloud server at home, and I've actually been thinking about doing that every now and then. In theory, it combines only advantages: You have the accessibility as well as the privacy and security, because the base of the cloud is in your own house. The only reason I haven't done it is because it turns out I don't need it (so far): I have the LAN to get at files on my Desktop wherever I am in the house (e.g. writing the same story while switching back and forth between desktop and netbook works great), and for the access out of the house, I still have my old server I can kick up that allows me access to documents by using e.g. an SSH connection via Internet.

That's possibly not quite as comfortable as what nowadays is defined as "cloud", but it works for when I need it, which isn't very often. I think the bottomline here is that there exists server/client software that exactly mirrors whatever cloud does -- so if you have more need for it than I do (say, owning a smartphone, having lots of contacts and appointments and mails that you want synced) you can do it without resorting to services like google or Apple.

(Funny that most how-to's for self-hosted clouds I found seemingly are in German, by the way -- maybe we make it a bigger issue than others do ...)

 

Yeah I'd like to sort out that sort of thing Sesc. I'm not really up on how to do that sort of stuff. I recall using SSH once years ago for... something?

But basically I've got a laptop now, and given my schedule I'll probably be doing approximately half of my writing (fiction as well as scientific) on the laptop and half on the desktop. Maybe squeeze out a few percentages somewhere for when I might want to proofread some of it on my tablet or edit it on another computer, etc.

Cloud seems great but I just don't like not having control of my stuff -- that was a great way of putting it by the way.

Any tips on how I could get that working? I can't read German, sadly. Not sure if I want to use my desktop as a server (if that's even an option) but maybe? I do have an old laptop that I don't use but still works. It's hooked up to a CRT monitor not doing anything, but that likely isn't helpful.

Heh, you got me excited about having similar functionality without giving up data access. Didn't there used to be some other thing too, where you could access files on your desktop remotely on your laptop? I don't think that was considered cloud but I could be wrong. Also probably involved giving something access to one or both of your computers, and that's always not fun.

Thanks

 

Edit: I'm assuming your laptop will typically not be in your LAN when you do the writing, so what you want is a way to connect to your house/desktop via the internet e.g. while at work/in a library/etc(?).

SSH is a way to connect securely to a remote computer, in order to do just about anything you want there, for example transfering files. And yeah, regardless of how you end up implementing it, you need a server -- it can be your desktop, which means it has to run when you want to use the connection (i.e. also when you're not home), or sure, it can be your old laptop, as long as it has a connection to your LAN/internet.

It's actually fairly easy to set up an SSH server as well as get the appropriate clients, it's even possible to have your remote files (from the server) mounted as a device in your client system, so it's possible to use the entire thing as if they were locally stored on a HDD. For what you want, that seems like the easiest and most convenient option. It kinda depends on which OS you use, for server and for client -- Win, Linux, Mac, Android? And as far as risks go, the only one is that you have to open up your LAN to access from outside, so a good firewall is a must.

But it's definitely possible to do what you want, gimme your systems and I try to dig up a how-to.

 

Old Laptop: Thinkpad T61p, Intel Core2Duo T9300, on the best internet connection I have available (DSL). Running Windows XP.

Desktop: Currently at same location as the old laptop but shortly to be moved to a new location (with crappier internet) in January. Running Windows 7 Ultimate.

(Could probably run the server or w/e off either the Desktop or the old Laptop, it's just that the old Laptop isn't doing anything else and I'm not sure how much of a draw running a server will be on the Desktop when I'm using it -- is it even something I'd notice? Given that no one will be accessing it while I'm actually trying to use the Desktop)

New Laptop: Thinkpad x230. Running Windows 7 Home (might upgrade to Ultimate). This is my mobile computer so it connects in various locations.

Blackberry Tablet runs the Blackberry OS. If I can't access the SSH thingy with this that's fine.

Cheers

 

Right, so Windows. Before anything else: assuming you have a LAN, you'll need to access your router (the one behind which the server is). If you can't access it for whatever reason, we can stop right here >_>

The first thing probably is to decide which machine will perform as the server. CPU load really isn't an issue, this is way old technology. What is an issue is that wherever your server is, there your documents are. I.e. if you make that old laptop the server, you'll have to do some stuff to the desktop as well if you want to access your docs from there, whereas if you make the desktop the server, you can just work at them locally like you used to. The latter is probably a little easier, but on the flip side a constantly running desktop (or at least, constantly running when you're away) might not be something you like, and the laptop would use less energy, it being a laptop and all. When I had the SSH setup, I installed the server on my desktop, but I only used it rarely, so I didn't mind my computer running while I was away.

The only real requirement for the connection is that it's (more or less) stable, by the way. If you're disconnecting every five seconds either on the client or the server side, the thing naturally won't be very useful.

Anyway, if you have picked your server, there's basically three steps: Setting up the router, setting up the server, and setting up the client(s). The router is fairly straightforward: You need to open the SSH port (22) and forward it to the (LAN-)IP address of your server. What this means is that any connections from the internet arriving on that port will be directed by the router to your server, which is what you need, when you want to access stuff from the outside. This describes the basic stuff, except you want port 22, not 3389.

For the server, there are two options for Windows that I know: freesshd and winsshd. The former is easier to configure because it's less advanced, so I'd say start with that and if it doesn't work out, try the other. Here's a guide to set up freesshd. After that, you'll need to change the IP of the server to a static one. Here's how you get there, however, I'd probably pick slightly different settings, it kinda depends on what you've got in the network currently. Run the ipconfig (see the router configuration link) from your server and note down the numbers. In any case, the IP you pick here is the one you need to insert in the port forwarding from the router.

And for the client, it's Dokan, which is described here.


Finally, if you're all done, you can access your server via Dokan and the IP address your internet provider assigns you. With most providers, however, that will change every time you connect to the internet, so you might want a final step: a domain name.

No guarantees that it all will run just like that (it should, but then that's usually the case), but if you can wait a few hours, I'll try to set it up for myself and spot occurring problems, I kinda feel like it trying this now I originally had it years and years ago, let's see if it still works like it used to.

 

Thanks Sesc! That is awesome and I think I can do that.

@Pers - that's what I'm doing currently. It doesn't even need to be encrypted, it's not sensitive stuff, it's just that I didn't want it floating around the internet where I can't control it as easily.

The problem with the thumb drive is that I have to save it on the Thumb drive every time I change anything, and if I also have copies of it on various computers (don't want the only copy to be the thumb drive) it gets tedious trying to keep everything up-to-date.

It works. It's just not as nice as what I've heard Cloud-computing can do.

 

That would be too easy bro. Most people would consider you a dinosaur for saying things like that. CLOUDS its the future!

 

Neat Vash -- and are those "safe" in terms of all the stuff I was worried about in the OP? Might be an alternative to setting up the SSH thingy.

 

How easy is it to hack into DropBox or something? About the same amount of safety as e-mail? I mean, I guess with e-mail... even if someone gets your password and takes something you were working on, you can prove later that it was yours fairly easily. Is the same really true for this other stuff?

And yes, at this point I'm playing Devil's Advocate and bringing up quibbles as points. Sorry about that.

In reality you guys have answered my questions and addressed my concerns, and I appreciate every response. I'll keep following in case of more, but yeah.

You guys rock.