http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-security-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html?_r=3&smid=fb-share?smid=yt-nytimes

There are all kinds of stuff that can be put in the clouds: storage, computation, applications… What is left for the local PC? Just showing pix and sending clicks, what a thin client does. Granted most PCs are more general-purpose but the tendency is to move almost everything to thin clients: VDI, terminal server+thin client, cloud… all shift stuff from the local machine to the server for various reasons including saving cost, better performance, easier management, security, etc.

So if you trust Microsoft, Google, Chines government, Canonical you can store in the cloud whatever you want,”.

If you think governments have nothing better to do than spy on their people these days, I have a bridge in NYC that I can sell you, cheap. Governments, while often being huge organizations, are tiny compared to the mountain of IT in most countries. They already have power to tax, search and seize. What more do you think they could get from IT? Central control of anything is fragile, including government so most governments find it easier to do what’s necessary rather than everything. Even the so-called “communist/socialist” governments have found it pragmatic to let Nature take its course in many ways. It’s easier to change a government than to control a country.

I don’t trust M$. They have the stated purpose to run all of IT by any means legal or not and they stink at whatever they try.

Governments are becoming more open and the cartel of power at the centres are diffusing. There are exceptions but they tend to by tiny countries in a lot of chaos.

So if you trust Microsoft, Google, Chines government, Canonical you can store in the cloud whatever you want, but don’t care anymore about such things as privacy, you will have none.