by | |

This weekend, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak appeared on stage for a Q&A session after a one-man show entitled "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs". Typical of Woz, when he was asked about cloud computing, he gave an honest answer.

"I think it's going to be a complete failure" Wozniak told the crowd, "With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away."

In perhaps a perfect demonstration of Wozniak's concerns, the iCloud account of Wired writer Mat Honan was hacked this weekend, according to reports, and Honan had no idea how it was done. A few hours later he found out that his account wasn't broken into, the hackers had simply called Apple tech support and were granted access.

Once in Honan's iCloud account, the hackers remotely wiped his Apple MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad, changed his gmail password and then took over his Twitter account. After getting into his personal handle, the hackers were able to access the Gizmodo Twitter account, confusing thousands of followers.

These two events have many questioning if the information that they have stored in the cloud is safe from the internet's seedy underbelly. Though others maintain that as long as cloud customers are careful, they will have nothing to worry about.

Joe McKendric of the Wall Street Journal suggests that the burden is on individuals and businesses to demand transparency and security from their cloud computing providers, and that as long as these services remain diligent about password protection, everything will be fine.

If you are concerned about the safety of cloud computing, and are wondering if there is anything that you can do to keep your accounts safe, the knowledgeable staff at PortableOne is able to help you. 

This entry was posted in .