1. HOW SECURE IS CLOUD COMPUTING? Michael Becker

2. Summary  This article is about the security flaws and our growing dependence on cloud computing such as Google apps and Amazon’s EC2.  Whitfield Diffe, a cryptography and security researcher at the University of London, talks about these security flaws and how they can be prevented.

3. Security Implications of Cloud Computing  Even though this is a very economical solution to computing, it forces us to use organizations in which we have no control over.  Diffe makes the analogy that our dependence on cloud computing is like our dependence on public transportation.  For instance when flying, we have to follow rules and schedules that we wouldn’t otherwise follow if we had our own private jet.

4. Severity of Cloud Computing Problems  For the general population, people are trusting confidential information with a public company, such as Gmail.  Another other class of people do not trust cloud computing and have started to use encryption. They will not send anything to cloud computing companies that is not already encrypted.  For the most part cloud computing is fairly safe, but it really depends on the company you are using.

5. Encrypted Search and Computation Solutions  It has been suggested for the cloud to use an encryption scheme to help protect the information from other people. The only problem with this is with the current encryption schemes, it will take away from the economical benefit in cloud computing and this is the whole reason cloud computing is used.  Though you can personally encrypt data before the information is sent out to help better protect sensitive information.

6. More Practical Solutions for Security  Since a full cryptographic solution is far off, we must find another more practical solution for today.  This first step will have to be in overall computer security. One example will be having the providers using more secure operating systems, such as Solaris.  Also keeping a good security center with a very limited number of employees working there and should never be able to access customer data.