1. Cloud computing and government surveillance
Cloud storage providers:
Is data in cloud storage considered yours?
so long as you are well an alive, and are paying for your cloud storage, you will be able to access it. But if you stop paying for the service, or die, that content will be lost. If that content has an expiration date, the storage company may delete it. Imagine losing all of your music and family picture because you were late on a payment.
The Government:
Stored communications act:
-American citizens right to privacy is under the provision of the 4th amendment.
- "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures“
-Because the 4th amendment protects only against privacy pertaining to the home, it provides a lot less protection to privacy on the internet.
-When you give up your information to a third party isp, it is considered giving up your right to privacy, and with it comes a much easier process for the government to access your information stored on the internet.
Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act
-The purpose of the bill was to make it easier for companies to share personal information with the government
-This information can be shared to prosecute cyber crimes
Microsofts Skydrive Terms of service
“You’re responsible for backing up the data that you store on the service. If your service is suspended or canceled, we may permanently delete your data from our servers. We have no obligation to return data to you after the service is suspended or canceled. If data is stored with an expiration date, we may also delete the data as of that date. Data that is deleted may be irretrievable.”
Is your data safe?
When Mega upload was raided by the government and the website shut down, because of terms of service, Mega upload wasn’t required to ensure that all the users received there data back.
“all major cloud storage services refuse to guarantee the safety of any data uploaded to their servers”
Rapid Share has a policy of guilty until proven innocent stating that when they scan your documents, that if you are under suspicion of copyright infringement, they will terminate your service
Government searching of your house vs searching cloud storage
-Typically access to your house requires a warrant and probably cause
-Cloud storage requires only a subpoena and prior notice
Should companies allow the government to access cloud storage?
Companies like google have been known to voluntarily share private information with the government. Apple keeps the image up that they are not sharing your private data, but there’s no way to know for sure.

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