tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/cloud-computing-243/articlesCloud computing – The Conversation2023-12-22T15:47:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186752023-12-22T15:47:35Z2023-12-22T15:47:35ZApple, Tesla and Nvidia were among 2023’s ‘magnificent seven’ stocks – here’s what to expect from them all in 2024<p>In the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, a group of seven gunfighters protect a village from bandits. Only three survive to ride out of town at the end of the movie. The odds look much better for the seven tech companies recently dubbed the magnificent seven after dominating US stock markets in 2023. But there are problems that could ambush some of these companies in 2024. </p>
<p>Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Nvidia have driven a rally in US stocks in 2023. They now make up nearly a third of the S&P 500 measure of the largest listed US companies, which has risen <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/are-the-magnificent-seven-stocks-too-risky-for-you-consider-this-fund">more than 20%</a> since January. These tech stocks had provided shareholders with <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/2024-us-equity-outlook-all-you-had-to-do-was-stay/report.pdf">a whopping 71% return</a> by mid-November while the other 493 names added just 6%.</p>
<p>This impressive performance led Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett to name these companies the magnificent seven earlier this year. Goldman Sachs soon followed, calling their massive outperformance the <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/2024-us-equity-outlook-all-you-had-to-do-was-stay.html">“defining feature”</a> of the equity market in 2023.</p>
<p>But as dramatic as this performance has been – and although they’re all essentially tech companies – don’t make the mistake of thinking they’re all the same. In fact, the outlook for the magnificent seven next year is mixed, particularly in light of expected changes in their core markets.</p>
<h2>Rising competition in the EV market</h2>
<p>Let’s start with the bad news first. Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla Motors will continue to lose market share in 2024. While chief executive Elon Musk has been dealing with <a href="https://theconversation.com/apple-disney-and-other-big-brands-are-pulling-x-ads-why-elon-musks-latest-firestorm-could-bring-down-the-company-218961">advertising problems</a> on X (formerly Twitter), one of his other businesses, over the first three quarters of this year, Tesla has seen its US market <a href="https://www.automotivedive.com/news/bmw-mercedes-benz-ev-sales-jump-q3-tesla-loses-market-share/696406/">dominance shrink</a> from 62% to just over 50% of the market. Both BMW Group and Mercedes-Benz Cars have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-electric-vehicle-sales-hit-record-high-tesla-loses-market-share-report-2023-10-12/#:%7E:text=Tesla%20now%20dominates%20just%20half,in%20the%20competitive%20EV%20arena">expanded their footprints</a>. </p>
<p>And over the next few years, the growing global heft of Chinese manufacturers looks hard to beat. Chinese EV players such as BYD, Nio, Wuling and Xpeng produced almost <a href="https://thechinaproject.com/2023/05/18/chinas-top-15-electric-vehicle-companies/">60% of the world’s EVs</a> in 2022 – and they have been doing so in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwinton/2023/10/29/chinas-ev-threat-sharpens-as-us-and-europe-stumble/?sh=3a7bde807dd3">a very affordable manner</a>. In the first half of 2023, the average cost of an EV in China was US$33,000 (£26,040), more than half the US$70,700 (£55,800) people pay for EVs in Europe and the US$72,000 (£56,800) paid in the US.</p>
<p>US president Joe Biden has proposed strict new car pollution controls that will require almost <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-proposes-strongest-ever-pollution-standards-cars-and">two-thirds of new cars</a> sold in the US to be electric by 2032. But the cost of EVs will need to come down if they are to achieve mass market appeal. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A grey Tesla model S driving on the road with the sun setting in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566971/original/file-20231220-21-6ve5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566971/original/file-20231220-21-6ve5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566971/original/file-20231220-21-6ve5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566971/original/file-20231220-21-6ve5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566971/original/file-20231220-21-6ve5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566971/original/file-20231220-21-6ve5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566971/original/file-20231220-21-6ve5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Tesla Model S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/houston-texas-usa-november-22nd-2019-1567944361">canadianPhotographer56/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sunny outlook for cloud computing</h2>
<p>Magnificent seven members Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet make up <a href="https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/cloud-infrastructure-services-market-1599">two-thirds</a> of the cloud computing market, which will continue to grow in 2024, although perhaps not quite as much as in the past. </p>
<p>Still, the market for cloud infrastructure services is expected to expand from US$122 billion in 2023 to US$446 billion by 2032. In particular, concerns about the macroeconomic environment have seen some customers focus on using the cloud more <a href="https://www.crayon.com/resources/insights/unlocking-cloud-cost-optimization-strategies-real-world-savings-and-provider-specific-tactics/">to reduce costs</a> in recent years, although this has yet to have any meaningful impact on revenues.</p>
<p>And for Amazon in particular, there are some niggling questions around its outlook. Although its cloud business remains solid, its original e-commerce business has seen growing competition recently, notably from rival retail giant Walmart, which is <a href="https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2023/03/09/walmart-chips-away-at-amazons-lead-in-a-key-area-wealthy-online-shoppers/#:%7E:text=U.S.%20shoppers%20will%20spend%20%24431,of%20Amazon%27s%20estimated%2037.6%25%20share.">eating into its business</a> in the US.</p>
<p>This is one reason why holding Amazon shares provided an annual return over the past two years of -16.7%, as of early December, according to my calculations.</p>
<h2>Unstoppable AI</h2>
<p>Also linked to the cloud computing industry, California-based chip maker Nvidia Corporation has been the runaway success of the magnificent seven this year. This is all thanks to its dominance in processing AI workloads on the cloud. The majority of cloud players use Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). </p>
<p>But while its two-year return of 43.3% is the most impressive of the seven tech companies, there are competitors on the horizon that could nibble away at some market share.</p>
<p>Nvidia’s nearest rival AMD drew attention with its <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fa0c97af-c20f-461e-96c9-f2357496c599">latest chip offering</a> in 2023 – it’s betting the market will be worth <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/amd-forecasts-45-billion-ai-chip-market-this-year-2023-12-06/">US$400 billion by 2027</a>. A number of other start-ups are also developing chips for niche AI fields.</p>
<p>Can Nvidia maintain its dominance? If it does, its earnings will skyrocket
alongside the growth of AI. But even if it loses some market share, the AI market will boom for years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Jen-Hsun Huan, NVIDIA's founder, president and CEO, talking about the chipmaker." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566972/original/file-20231220-15-ovwa6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566972/original/file-20231220-15-ovwa6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566972/original/file-20231220-15-ovwa6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566972/original/file-20231220-15-ovwa6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566972/original/file-20231220-15-ovwa6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566972/original/file-20231220-15-ovwa6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566972/original/file-20231220-15-ovwa6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jen-Hsun Huan, NVIDIA’s founder, president and CEO.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/jenhsun-huan-nvidias-founder-president-ceo-2309655129">jamesonwu1972/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The outliers</h2>
<p>For those keeping track, that just leaves two final members of the magnificent seven. </p>
<p>Apple Inc – the world’s largest company by market capitalisation – consistently delivers solid returns: 16.2% over the past two years by my calculations. At the other end of the scale, social media company Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp) is the only one of the group to have shown an essentially flat stock market performance over the past two years.</p>
<p>Although Meta’s revenues and earnings have consistently beaten expectations this year, the threat of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/19/23800545/khan-ftc-doj-justice-antitrust-guidelines-meta-amazon">anti-trust legislation</a> in the US and Europe hangs over the company, as does an advertising market that is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a99cc93a-0fa0-4c12-a885-d7507692befa">bottoming out</a>. Both of these issues could harm Meta’s revenue outlook next year.</p>
<p>So, the magnificent seven have all survived to ride out of town at the end of 2023, but it’s as clear as a tumbleweed rolling down a deserted main street that not all of them are in for a leisurely horseback ride through 2024. Saddle up, partners!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl Schmedders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Nvidia have driven a bull market rally in US stocks in 2023. But will they dominate in 2024?Karl Schmedders, Professor of Finance, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2160672023-10-26T19:03:10Z2023-10-26T19:03:10ZMost data lives in the cloud. What if it lived under the sea?<p>Where is the text you’re reading, right now? In one sense, it lives “on the internet” or “in the cloud”, just like your favourite social media platform or the TV show you might stream tonight.</p>
<p>But in a physical sense, it’s stored and transmitted somewhere in a network of <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1228433/data-centers-worldwide-by-country/">thousands of data centres</a> across the globe. Each of these centres is whirring, buzzing and beeping around the clock, to store, process and communicate vast amounts of data and provide services to hungry consumers. </p>
<p>All this infrastructure is expensive to build and run, and has <a href="https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-staggering-ecological-impacts-of-computation-and-the-cloud/">a considerable environmental impact</a>. In search of cost savings, greater sustainability and better service, data centre providers are looking to get their feet wet.</p>
<p>Tech giant Microsoft and other companies want to relocate data centres into the world’s oceans, submerging computers and networking equipment to take advantage of cheap real estate and cool waters. Is this a good thing? What about the environmental impact? Are we simply replacing one damaging practice with another?</p>
<h2>Which companies are doing this?</h2>
<p>Microsoft’s <a href="https://natick.research.microsoft.com/">Project Natick</a> has been pursuing the idea of data centres beneath the waves since 2014. The initial premise was that since many humans live near the coast, so should data centres.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L2oJw1a_qEM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Microsoft’s underwater data centre: Project Natick.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An initial experiment in 2015 saw a <a href="https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-research-project-puts-cloud-in-ocean-for-the-first-time/">small-scale data centre</a> deployed for three months in the Pacific Ocean. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/">A two-year follow-up experiment</a> began in 2018. A total of 864 servers, in a 12 by 3 metre tubular structure, were sunk 35 metres deep off the Orkney Islands in Scotland.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lBeepqQBpvU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Microsoft’s Project Natick 2.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Microsoft is not the only company experimenting with moving data underwater. <a href="https://www.subseacloud.com/">Subsea Cloud</a> is another American company doing so. China’s Shenzhen HiCloud Data Center Technology Co Ltd has <a href="https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202303/31/WS642636b9a31057c47ebb7952.html">deployed centres in tropical waters</a> off the coast of Hainan Island.</p>
<h2>Why move data centres under the waves?</h2>
<p>Underwater data centres promise several advantages over their land-locked cousins.</p>
<p><strong>1) Energy efficiency</strong></p>
<p>The primary benefit is a significant cut in electricity consumption. According to the International Energy Agency, data centres <a href="https://www.iea.org/energy-system/buildings/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks">consume around 1–1.5%</a> of global electricity use, of which some 40% is used for cooling.</p>
<p>Data centres in the ocean can dissipate heat in the surrounding water. Microsoft’s centre uses a small amount of electricity for cooling, while Subsea Cloud’s design has an entirely passive cooling system.</p>
<p><strong>2) Reliability</strong></p>
<p>The Microsoft experiment also found the underwater centre had a boost in reliability. When it was brought back to shore in 2020, the rate of server failures was less than 20% that of land-based data centres.</p>
<p>This was attributed to the stable temperature on the sea floor and the fact oxygen and humidity had been removed from the tube, which likely decreased corrosion of the components. The air inside the tube had also been replaced with nitrogen, making fires impossible.</p>
<p>Another reason for the increased reliability may have been the complete absence of humans, which prevents the possibility of human error impacting the equipment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-environmental-cost-of-data-centres-is-substantial-and-making-them-energy-efficient-will-only-solve-half-the-problem-202643">The environmental cost of data centres is substantial, and making them energy-efficient will only solve half the problem</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>3) Latency</strong></p>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-prisms-coastal-futures/article/population-development-as-a-driver-of-coastal-risk-current-trends-and-future-pathways/8261D3B34F6114EA0999FAA597D5F2E2">one third</a> of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometres of a coast. Locating data centres close to where people live reduces the time taken for data to reach them, known as “latency”.</p>
<p>Offshore data centres can be close to coastal consumers, reducing latency, without having to pay the high real-estate prices often found in densely populated areas. </p>
<p><strong>4) Increased security and data sovereignty</strong></p>
<p>Moving data centres into the ocean makes them physically more difficult for hackers or saboteurs to access. It can also make it easier for companies to address “data sovereignty” concerns, in which certain countries require certain data to be stored within their borders rather than transmitted overseas. </p>
<p><strong>5) Cost</strong></p>
<p>Alongside savings due to reduced power bills, fewer hardware failures, and the low price of offshore real estate, the way underwater data centres are built may also cut costs. </p>
<p>The centres can be made in a modular, mass-produced fashion using standardised components, and shipped ready for deployment. There is also no need to consider the comfort or practicality for human operators to interact with the equipment.</p>
<h2>What about the environmental impact?</h2>
<p>At present there is no evidence placing data centres in the world’s oceans will have any significant negative impact. Microsoft’s experiments showed <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/want-an-energyefficient-data-center-build-it-underwater">some localised warming</a>, but “the water just metres downstream of a Natick vessel would get a few thousandths of a degree warmer at most”.</p>
<p>The Microsoft findings also showed the submerged data centre provided habitat to marine life, much like a shipwreck: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] crabs and fish began to gather around the vessel within 24 hours. We were delighted to have created a home for those creatures.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If underwater data centres go ahead, robust planning will be needed to ensure their placement follows best practise considering <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221149944">cultural heritage</a> and environmental values. There are also opportunities to enhance the environmental benefits of underwater data centres by incorporating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105198">nature-positive features</a> in the design to enhance marine biodiversity around these structures.</p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>Several companies are actively exploring, or indeed constructing, underwater data centres. While the average end-user will have no real awareness of where their data are stored, organisations may soon have opportunities to select local, underwater cloud platforms and services.</p>
<p>Companies with a desire to shout about their environmental credentials may well seek out providers that offer greener data centres – a change that is likely to only accelerate the move to the ocean.</p>
<p>So far, it looks like this approach is practical and can be scaled up. Add in the environmental and economic savings and this may well be the future of data centres for a significant proportion of the planet.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-are-ignoring-the-true-cost-of-water-guzzling-data-centres-167750">We are ignoring the true cost of water-guzzling data centres</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Could the data centres that power the internet be moved to the bottom of the ocean? It’s not as crazy as it soundsPaul Haskell-Dowland, Professor of Cyber Security Practice, Edith Cowan UniversityKathryn McMahon, Deputy Director, Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research, and Associate Dean of Research, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077182023-06-15T05:42:56Z2023-06-15T05:42:56ZTwitter is refusing to pay Google for cloud services. Here’s why it matters, and what the fallout could be for users<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532104/original/file-20230615-23-5exc5n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=37%2C75%2C4983%2C3267&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amid an ongoing cost-cutting effort, Twitter has now refused to pay the bills to renew its multi-year contract with Google Cloud, <a href="https://www.platformer.news/p/twitter-stiffs-google">Platformer has reported</a>. </p>
<p>We’ve all heard of “<a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cloud/what-is-the-cloud/">the cloud</a>” – but what does it have to do with Twitter? And more to the point, what will the consequences be for Twitter users if Google Cloud pulls the plug on the platform? </p>
<h2>What are cloud computing services?</h2>
<p>To put it simply, “the cloud” is an assembly of computing resources
that are remotely accessible over the internet. These resources are leased out to internet-connected organisations so they don’t have to buy and maintain their own. </p>
<p>In Twitter’s case, these resources include storage space for very large quantities of data, as well as a suite of programs that perform various operations on these data, as agreed upon in the contract. All of this takes place across a <a href="https://kinsta.com/docs/data-center-locations/#:%7E:text=(southamerica%2Dwest1)-,Council%20Bluffs%2C%20Iowa%2C%20USA%20(us%2Dcentral1),%2C%20USA%20(us%2Dwest1)">global network</a> of physical servers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wheres-your-data-its-not-actually-in-the-cloud-its-sitting-in-a-data-centre-64168">Where's your data? It's not actually in the cloud, it's sitting in a data centre</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Cloud computing is a convenient and cost-effective business model, which has gained much favour from enterprises large and small.</p>
<p>Currently, a handful of <a href="https://www.ciodive.com/news/aws-microsoft-google-cloud-market-share/623004/">players</a> dominate this market. In the lead is Amazon Web Services (AWS) which <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/967365/worldwide-cloud-infrastructure-services-market-share-vendor/">holds about 32%</a> of the market. Amazon became the first <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/The-history-of-cloud-computing-explained">cloud provider in 2006</a> and has since established a comfortable lead over its rivals, Microsoft Azure (23%) and Google Cloud (10%). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/how-do-you-ensure-reliability-scalability">Reliability</a> and <a href="https://www.simplilearn.com/what-is-cloud-scalability-article#what_is_cloud_scalability">scalability</a> are perhaps the most important requirements a company will have of its cloud service provider. And when it comes to reliability, “redundancy” is key. </p>
<p>Redundancy means that if one data centre goes down, there are multiple others with duplicate data that can seamlessly step into service. And if the quantity of user data is high in one particular data centre, the extra load can be farmed out to another. In this way, peak traffic periods can be managed without loss of performance.</p>
<h2>What might happen if Google pulls the plug?</h2>
<p>It seems Twitter is at loggerheads with its cloud provider, Google Cloud. The company is <a href="https://www.platformer.news/p/twitter-stiffs-google">reportedly</a> disputing its Google Cloud bill as it seeks to renegotiate its contract with Google. </p>
<p>The issue appears to be rooted in a disagreement over service quality and performance. Twitter doesn’t think it’s getting value for money, and is withholding the latest payment in its US$1 billion <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-twitter-google-cloud-b2355804.html">contract</a> with Google Cloud.</p>
<p>Under the contract, Google Cloud hosts many of Twitter’s trust and safety services. If the disagreement isn’t resolved by the end of the month, and if Twitter severs ties with Google Cloud, this could seriously threaten its ability to fight spam, remove child sexual abuse material and generally protect accounts. </p>
<p>Google also currently allows Twitter users to <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/create-twitter-account#googlesso">sign up</a> with their Google account. And Twitter profiles are highly <a href="https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/links/S230051-LINK21.PDF">ranked</a> in Google searches, by virtue of Twitter’s close ties with Google. This favoured status could be in jeopardy if the two companies can’t come to terms.</p>
<p>Apart from Google Cloud, Twitter also has a multi-year <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/15/twitter-taps-aws-for-its-latest-foray-into-the-public-cloud/">cloud computing contract</a> with AWS to offer a host of functions. According to reports, it has also withheld payments from Amazon in the past and owed some US$70 million in bills as of March. Amazon responded by threatening to withhold payments for advertising it runs on the platform.</p>
<h2>Why is Twitter refusing to pay?</h2>
<p>The dispute can perhaps be understood as yet another attempt by Twitter to radically reduce operating <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/10/26/how-twitter-meta-oracle-and-apple-are-cutting-costs-and-workers/?sh=381514653ba4">costs</a>. It’s a a trend that began late last year when Elon Musk acquired the company for US$44 billion. </p>
<p>Musk, who just appointed former NBC Universal advertising executive <a href="https://mashable.com/article/twitter-ceo-linda-yaccarino-email-elon-musk">Linda Yaccarino as Twitter CEO</a>, has implemented a suite of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/technology/elon-musk-twitter-cost-cutting.html">cost-cutting measures</a> since the takeover – among these, the firing of <a href="https://siliconangle.com/2022/12/30/twitter-reportedly-closes-sacramento-data-center-part-cost-cutting-initiative/">more than half</a> of the company’s 7,500 employees.</p>
<p>Looking at the big picture, we see Musk in the throes of trying to make Twitter a leaner, more efficient business. </p>
<h2>Cracking down on malicious misuse</h2>
<p>At stake in this dispute are services that help keep Twitter free of malicious, dangerous and offensive content. Twitter’s battle against this content, as well as against spam and bots, has been ongoing. While it’s difficult to predict the outcome of the dispute with Google, it’s likely Twitter will take whatever course of action helps the company save money. </p>
<p>That could mean moving those services to a different provider, or retaining Google Cloud’s services but on more favourable terms. Another possibility (although less likely) is for Twitter to migrate those particular services in-house where it will have more control. But this would also require spending and human resources to manage the data. </p>
<p>In a worst-case scenario, Twitter may collapse or destabilise if certain elements within it go offline. Aside from Twitter trolls, this outcome would be in nobody’s best interest. So it’s more likely Twitter and Google Cloud will find a mutually agreeable way forward. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/instead-of-showing-leadership-twitter-pays-lip-service-to-the-dangers-of-deep-fakes-127027">Instead of showing leadership, Twitter pays lip service to the dangers of deep fakes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Tuffley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cloud computing is a way for businesses to access extra computational resources over the internet. Without it, the internet as we know it would malfunction.David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1945582022-12-08T09:08:33Z2022-12-08T09:08:33ZCould video streaming be as bad for the climate as driving a car? Calculating Internet’s hidden carbon footprint<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497206/original/file-20221124-22-632ace.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1500%2C839&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Internet is anything but immaterial, as all those messages, images, and videos live in data centres, which consume immense amounts of energy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rawpixel</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are used to thinking that going digital means going green. While that is true for some activities – for example, making a video call to the other side of the ocean is better than flying there – the situation is subtler in many other cases. For example, driving a small car to the movie theatre with a friend may have lower carbon emissions than streaming the same movie alone at home.</p>
<p>How do we reach this conclusion? Surprisingly, making these estimates is fairly complicated. This is due to two reasons: we do not have good data to start with, and even when we do, the comparison with other human activities is often difficult to make. In a September 2022 report, <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks">“Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks”</a>, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There are currently no comprehensive data on the energy use of all data centre operators globally, so this estimated range is based on bottom-up models.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is remarkable given that we have been able to estimate quite accurately phenomena that are much more complex. In this case, we would only need quantitative information – the electrical energy and the amount of data used – that can be determined with great accuracy. The current situation is not acceptable and should be addressed soon by policymakers.</p>
<p>Talking of tons of CO<sub>2</sub> emitted, kilowatt-hours for electricity, cubic metres for gas, litres of gasoline and cars’ horsepower creates confusion in many, including academics. Most people would not be able to say how much energy they use daily nor what level of emissions these activities cause. But they would be able to tell you right away their salary or monthly rent. The ease of talking about money lies in the fact that we humans long ago decided that a commonly held currency was the best way to trade disparate things. We don’t do this for our energy use, hence the difficulty.</p>
<p>There is no reason not to change the situation, however: the beauty of the concept of “energy” is that nature gave it to us as a number that is <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/conservation-of-energy">mysteriously conserved</a> even when we change its form – for example, from electrical to thermal. Hence, we can always convert it into a single convenient unit, which would make it easy for us to understand the impact of our activities on the planet, including the digital ones.</p>
<h2>Apples to apples</h2>
<p>Let’s see how this could work by spelling out some examples. We choose the energy unit to be the kilowatt-hour (kWh). This proposal was made by David MacKay in his 2008 book <a href="https://www.withouthotair.com/"><em>Sustainable Energy, Without the Hot Air</em></a>. Why the amount of energy used rather than the CO<sub>2</sub> emitted? On the global level, the two concepts are equivalent, given that CO<sub>2</sub> emissions are proportional to the amount of non-renewable energy produced. But almost none of us has an intuitive idea of what a ton of CO<sub>2</sub> is, let alone its global scale values, or how it is generated. On the contrary, almost all of us can read an energy bill and relate it to what was done at home.</p>
<p>Here are three examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>A 10W light bulb kept on for an hour will consume 0.01 kWh of energy (1 kWh = 1,000 Wh).</p></li>
<li><p>A car driven in a city for one hour using an average power of 10 kW (approximately 13 horsepower) will consume 10 kWh.</p></li>
<li><p>In Northern Italy during winter, heating an apartment using 10 cubic metres of gas requires approximately 100 kWh per day or 4 kWh for each hour.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>When these activities are compared with the same units, it is clear that there are some (driving, heating) that would have a much broader impact than others (lighting) if their use is curtailed.</p>
<h2>A two-hour film pollutes as much as a 45-minute car drive</h2>
<p>With this in mind, let’s try to estimate the use of Internet in the same units. What we are after now is the amount of energy for a given amount of data transferred, expressed in gigabytes (GB). As mentioned, there are surprisingly no consistent numbers available. Estimates range from 0.1 kWh per GB (<a href="https://pisrt.org/psr-press/journals/easl-vol-3-issue-2-2020/new-perspectives-on-internet-electricity-use-in-2030/">Andrae</a>, Huwaei) to 10 kWh per GB (<a href="https://medium.com/stanford-magazine/carbon-and-the-cloud-d6f481b79dfe">Adamson</a>, <em>Stanford Magazine</em>) – 100 times more. The lower number seems to assume an unrealistic amount of data, almost 10 times the one reported by the World Bank, and implying an average worldwide data usage which is still uncommon even for the Western world (3,000 GB per year rather than 300). On the other hand, the higher estimate seems to have not considered the latest developments in energy efficiency due to new technologies.</p>
<p>It seems that a value of 1 kWh per GB could be a reasonable approximation of the current energy cost of data. Using that estimate, we can now more easily compare the energy use of data with other human activities. For instance, a two-hour movie in 4K resolution is about 7 GB, or approximately 7 kWh of energy, comparable to a 45-minute car drive. This is mind-boggling for something that we perceive as immaterial. Similar estimates would make you figure out that 300 Google searches use approximately 0.1 kWh, which is the same energy required to boil one litre of water starting from 20 degree Celsius, another mind-boggling realisation.</p>
<p>It is possible and plausible that technology will make Internet more energy efficient – that is what many of us physicists try to help with while studying novel materials and approaches to store and manipulate data. However, if we keep increasing the data usage, we will not decrease our energy use. For instance, movies in 8K resolution require four times more data than in 4K resolution.</p>
<h2>Consumption on the rise</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Global Internet usage, 2002-2022" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497040/original/file-20221123-14-j3he9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2002, global Internet usage was just 156 GB. Twenty years later, traffic is approximately 150,000 GB per second, nearly a thousand-fold increase.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wdr2021.worldbank.org/stories/crossing-borders/">WDR 2021, Cisco Visual Networking Index, 2017–2022</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The proof is that for several years now, the annual energy consumption of information and communication technology infrastructure is constantly at least 2,000 TWh, 5% of the global electricity use. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y">Projections suggest that we will reach 10% by 2030</a>, indicating that technology may not keep up unless we introduce fundamental new approaches.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the Internet and a more digital life offer an incredible opportunity to decrease our energy use and reduce our carbon footprint. For example, a single person on a fully loaded long-range round-trip plane flight – say from Venice, Italy, to Los Angeles, California – to attend an in-person meeting has an energy cost of 10 000 kWh. Using the estimates above, it would take eight months of 12-hour-long video meetings in 4K resolution for that person to consume the same energy. In this case, there is no doubt that streaming, not flying, is the best choice.</p>
<p>As with all technology, however, Internet use has an energy cost. It is proportional to the amount of data transferred, and use is highest with images and especially video. When heavily used, its impact becomes comparable to the one of activities that we already recognise as energy-hungry, such as driving a car. We clearly need more precise numbers to take the appropriate measures at the political level.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two women looking at a computer screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497041/original/file-20221123-12-j3raez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C224%2C5760%2C3474&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497041/original/file-20221123-12-j3raez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497041/original/file-20221123-12-j3raez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497041/original/file-20221123-12-j3raez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497041/original/file-20221123-12-j3raez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497041/original/file-20221123-12-j3raez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497041/original/file-20221123-12-j3raez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Watching a movie online can seem like an energy-smart choice, but research shows that the carbon emissions can be significant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-women-in-front-of-silver-macbook-1181723/">Christina Morillo/Pexels</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In advance of having them, we as private individuals can use data in a considerate manner:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Turn off the camera when not needed in a video call.</p></li>
<li><p>Decrease the video resolution when possible, particularly on small screens.</p></li>
<li><p>Watch movies when they are broadcast rather than using on-demand services, which require dedicated computational power and data for each viewer.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, let’s start thinking in kWh about everything we do, and do our part to help the implementation of such a standard. In this way, we will talk with the same energy currency, as we do with money.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>To help make this happen, write to your gas company, car manufacturer, grocery store and any manufacturers to get them to provide numbers in kWh of everything they sell. This would allow us to set up individual “energy wallets” and decide how to spend what we have in a sustainable way and thus reach our climate goals. Once these goals are defined in a clear and concrete way, it will much easier for individuals, companies and governments to take a sensible course of action every day, in all things large and small.</p>
<p>Part of the frustration that many of us experience these days is that we feel powerless against climate change because we do not have a concrete representation of how to do something about it in our daily life. By talking about the problems in units that we understand and perceive, we will close the gap between the local and the global scales, and hence be more effective in our actions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefano Bonetti ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The energy consumption of Internet use has multiplied by a thousand-fold in 20 years. So how can we better visualise our energy ‘spending’ and reduce carbon emissions?Stefano Bonetti, Professor of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, Ca' Foscari University of VeniceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1802892022-04-11T12:17:35Z2022-04-11T12:17:35ZMismanaged cloud services put user data at risk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457188/original/file-20220408-21-kraluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C5%2C3425%2C2332&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cloud services that aren't properly managed can 'leak' data into the wrong hands.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/hacker-finding-data-with-unsafe-cloud-royalty-free-illustration/1287194449">id-work/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Organizations’ failure to properly manage the servers they lease from cloud service providers can allow attackers to receive private data, <a href="https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2022/program-papers.html">research</a> my colleagues and I <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.05122">conducted</a> has shown.</p>
<p>Cloud computing allows businesses to lease servers the same way they lease office space. It’s easier for companies to build and maintain mobile apps and websites when they don’t have to worry about owning and managing servers. But this way of hosting services raises security concerns.</p>
<p>Each cloud server has a <a href="https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-privacy-what-does-an-ip-address-tell-you.html">unique IP address</a> that allows users to connect and send data. After an organization no longer needs this address, it is given to another customer of the service provider, perhaps one with malicious intent. IP addresses change hands as often as every 30 minutes as organizations change the services they use.</p>
<p>When organizations stop using a cloud server but fail to remove references to the IP address from their systems, users can continue to send data to this address, thinking they are talking to the original service. Because they trust the service that previously used the address, user devices automatically send sensitive information such as GPS location, financial data and browsing history.</p>
<p>An attacker can take advantage of this by “squatting” on the cloud: claiming IP addresses to try to receive traffic intended for other organizations. The rapid turnover of IP addresses leaves little time to identify and correct the issue before attackers start receiving data. Once the attacker controls the address, they can continue to receive data until the organization discovers and corrects the issue.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nHJZHWVgxU8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Poorly managed cloud services are another opportunity for attackers to steal data. Video by Penn State.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our study of a small fraction of cloud IP addresses found thousands of businesses that were potentially leaking user data, including data from mobile apps and advertising trackers. These apps initially intended to share personal data with businesses and advertisers, but instead leaked data to whoever controlled the IP address. Anyone with a cloud account could collect the same data from vulnerable organizations.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Smartphone users share personal data with businesses through the apps they install. In <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2018/presentation/votipka">a recent survey</a>, researchers found that half of smartphone users were comfortable sharing their locations through smartphone apps. But the personal information users share through these apps could be used to <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity21/presentation/mayer">steal their identity</a> or <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/woot18/presentation/smith">hurt their reputation</a>.</p>
<p>Personal data has seen <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/technology/europe-gdpr-privacy.html">increasing regulation</a> in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/technology/california-privacy-law.html">recent years</a>, and users may be content to trust the businesses they interact with to follow those regulations and respect their privacy. But these regulations may not sufficiently protect users. Our research shows that even when companies intend to use data responsibly, poor security practices can leave that data up for grabs.</p>
<p>Users should know that when they share their private or personal data with companies, they are also exposed to the security practices of those companies. They can take steps to reduce this exposure by reducing how much data they share and with how many organizations they share it.</p>
<h2>What other research is being done in this field</h2>
<p>Academics and industry are focusing on responsible collection of user data. A <a href="https://blog.google/products/android/introducing-privacy-sandbox-android/">recent push by Google</a> aims to reduce collection of users’ personal data by mobile advertisements, ensuring that their security and privacy is protected.</p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://research.samsung.com/blog/Automatically-Explaining-the-Privacy-Practices-in-Mobile-Apps">researchers are working</a> to better explain what applications do with the data they collect. This work aims to ensure that the data users share with applications is used how they expect by matching permission prompts with how the apps actually behave.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>We’re conducting research into new technologies on smartphones and devices to ensure they protect user data. For instance, <a href="https://petsymposium.org/2022/files/papers/issue2/popets-2022-0034.pdf">research led by a colleague of mine</a> describes an approach to protect personal data collected by smart cameras. Our vantage point on traffic in the public cloud is also enabling new studies of the internet as a whole. We are continuing to work with cloud providers to ensure that user data stored on the cloud is secure, and are introducing techniques to prevent businesses and their customers from being victimized on the cloud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180289/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Pauley receives funding from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE1255832. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Cloud services are convenient, but if an organization isn’t careful about how it uses them, the services can also give data thieves an opening.Eric Pauley, PhD student in Computer Science and Engineering, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623902021-06-09T14:43:29Z2021-06-09T14:43:29ZFastly’s global internet meltdown could be a sign of things to come<p>For an hour on the morning of June 8, dozens of the world’s most-visited websites went offline. <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/08/fastly-503-error-all-the-websites-affected-from-reddit-to-guardian-14736308/">Among those affected</a> were Amazon, Reddit, PayPal and Spotify, as well as the Guardian, the New York Times and the UK government website, gov.uk. Together, these websites handle hundreds of millions of users.</p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/fastlys-global-internet-meltdown-could-be-a-sign-of-things-to-come-162390&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The issue was <a href="https://theconversation.com/fastly-global-internet-outage-why-did-so-many-sites-go-down-and-what-is-a-cdn-anyway-162371">quickly traced</a> to <a href="https://www.fastly.com/">Fastly</a>, a cloud computing company which offers a <a href="https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4191/content-delivery-network-cdn">content delivery network</a> to the affected websites. Designed to alleviate performance bottlenecks, a content delivery network is essentially a system of computers or servers that hold copies of data across various points of a network. When it fails, the websites it supports cannot retrieve their data and are forced offline.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1402471264678256644"}"></div></p>
<p>The outage to Fastly’s content delivery network appears to have been caused by an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57413224">internal software bug</a> that was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57413224">triggered</a> by one of their customers. Yet even though it was resolved <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/fastly-internet-outage-is-a-cautionary-tale-about-the-fragility-of-the-web-12327846">within an hour</a>, it’s estimated to have cost Fastly’s global clientele <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/business/internet-down-fastly-cost-to-global-economy-b939430.html">hundreds of millions of dollars</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fastly-global-internet-outage-why-did-so-many-sites-go-down-and-what-is-a-cdn-anyway-162371">Fastly global internet outage: why did so many sites go down — and what is a CDN, anyway?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This case illustrates the fragility of an internet that’s being routed through fewer and fewer channels. When one of those major channels fails, in what is called a “<a href="https://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/single-point-failure-internet?ng_gateway_return=true&full=true">single point of failure</a>”, the results are dramatic, disruptive and incredibly costly. </p>
<p>This hasn’t been lost on cybercriminals, who know that one targeted hack can bring down or breach a number of organisations simultaneously. It’s urgent we address this significant vulnerability if we’re to avoid another global internet meltdown – but this time caused by criminals, not code.</p>
<h2>Warning signs</h2>
<p>Given that it came hot on the heels of the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57050690">ransomware attack</a> on the Colonial oil pipeline in the US, experts initially speculated that Fastly’s outage could have been <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/0/fastly-did-cyber-attack-cause-worlds-biggest-websites-go/">caused by a cyberattack</a>.</p>
<p>It’s easy to see why. Drawing upon an analysis of over <a href="https://www.emphasis.ac.uk/">4,000 ransomware attacks</a>, my research has revealed a massive acceleration in major cyberattacks that target organisations, conducted by <a href="https://theconversation.com/ransomware-gangs-are-running-riot-paying-them-off-doesnt-help-155254">ransomware gangs</a> looking to extort cash from businesses they manage to hack.</p>
<p>These attacks are taking advantage of <a href="https://conference.cepol.europa.eu/media/cepol-online-conference-2021/submissions/DBR7WE/resources/Wall_Cybercrime_and_Covid_CEPO_Zx0nGyn.pdf">vulnerabilities</a> caused by remote working arrangements. But there’s also been a noticeable shift in attacks upon organisations like Fastly, which provide core services to other organisations and their own clientele.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing the increase in cyberattacks on multiple service organisations" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405318/original/file-20210609-14808-1o9bkwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cyberattacks targeting platforms similar to Fastly have risen sharply since 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David S. Wall</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This trend is unlikely to stop. Ransomware has become a sophisticated billion-dollar <a href="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransomware-is-a-multi-billion-industry-and-it-keeps-growing/">business</a>, and attackers are supported by an increasingly <a href="https://conference.cepol.europa.eu/media/cepol-online-conference-2021/submissions/DBR7WE/resources/Wall_Cybercrime_and_Covid_CEPO_Zx0nGyn.pdf">professional ecosystem</a> that’s incentivised by the high yield generated by such attacks. <a href="https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/reports/2020-data-breach-investigations-report.pdf">A 2020 Verizon report</a> found 86% of hacks are financially motivated, while less than 10% are motivated by espionage.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ransomware-gangs-are-running-riot-paying-them-off-doesnt-help-155254">Ransomware gangs are running riot – paying them off doesn't help</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Two high-profile hacks that targeted organisations with access to thousands of other organisations have recently shown just how fragile centralised internet systems can be. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solarwinds-hack-explained-government-agencies-cyber-security-2020-12?r=US&IR=T">SolarWinds</a> and <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2021/03/02/new-nation-state-cyberattacks/">Microsoft Exchange Server</a> hacks, which took place in early 2020 and early 2021 respectively, breached <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/technology/microsoft-hack-china.html">tens of thousands</a> of companies. Both have been attributed to state-backed hackers, rather than ransomware gangs.</p>
<p>But cybercriminals have <a href="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransomware-attacks-target-msps-to-mass-infect-customers/">deliberately targeted</a> multiple service providers and critical <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/supply-chain-security/supply-chain-attack-examples">supply chains</a> too in order to upscale the impact, and therefore the potential payout, of their hacks. <a href="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/blackbaud-sued-in-23-class-action-lawsuits-after-ransomware-attack/">Blackbaud</a>, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/accellion-breach-victims-extortion/">Accellion</a> and other key online service providers have been victim to such attacks.</p>
<h2>Centralisation of the internet</h2>
<p>All these particularly disruptive hacks are partially the result of the drive towards centralisation of online services, which may be efficient for businesses, but is counter to the founding principles of the internet.</p>
<p>The initial appeal of the internet was that it was a <a href="https://hackernoon.com/the-evolution-of-the-internet-from-decentralized-to-centralized-3e2fa65898f5">distributed network</a> designed to resist attacks and censorship. When released for public use in the early 1990s, the internet became popular for commerce as well as being regarded as a beacon of free speech. But market logic, rather than free speech, has driven developments since the early days. </p>
<p>Today, cloud computing firms and multiple service providers manage large chunks of internet traffic, causing <a href="https://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/single-point-failure-internet?ng_gateway_return=true&full=true">single points of failure</a> where internet flows can be accidentally or deliberately disrupted. Even something as simple as a typo can cause significant disruption, as was the case in 2017 when several of Amazon’s servers – which power large swathes of the internet – <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14792442/amazon-s3-outage-cause-typo-internet-server">went temporarily offline</a> due to an inputting error.</p>
<p>We should take our hats off to Fastly for quickly rectifying the June 8 outage. But this case has revealed the dangers of consolidating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/08/the-guardian-view-on-the-internet-outage-we-need-resilience-not-just-efficiency">key internet infrastructure</a>, resulting in the emergence of costly single points of failure. It’s another stern wake-up call for law enforcement and the cybersecurity community, giving renewed emphasis to the mission of the <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/ransomware-taskforce-rtf-announce-framework-to-combat-ransomware">US and European ransomware taskforces</a>.</p>
<h2>Avoiding internet meltdowns</h2>
<p>But are taskforces enough to address this problem? What this event has really shown is how firms like Fastly are in effect privately-owned public spaces, which not only blur the lines between business and national infrastructure, but have, in effect, become “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/too-big-to-fail.asp">too big to fail</a>”.</p>
<p>All this suggests that the solution to this dilemma must be found beyond multi-sector taskforces, requiring full-blown political debate over what we want the internet to look like in the latter three-quarters of the 21st century. If we fail to make that decision, then others will for us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David S. Wall receives funding from UKRI. EP/P011721/1 & EP/M020576/1</span></em></p>The centralisation of internet infrastructure leaves swathes of the online world vulnerable to sudden outages.David S. Wall, Professor of Criminology, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1374222020-04-29T17:03:45Z2020-04-29T17:03:45ZHow to prevent Internet congestion during the lockdown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331000/original/file-20200428-110770-137k7je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C28%2C2166%2C1314&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/M5tzZtFCOfs">Taylor Vick/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The current health crisis has led to a rise in the use of digital services. Telework, along with school closures and the implementation of distance learning solutions (CNED, MOOCs, online learning platforms such as Moodle for example), will put additional strain on these infrastructures since all of these activities are carried out within the network. This raises concerns about overloads during the lockdown period. Across the Internet, however, <a href="https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/why-akamai/dns-trends-and-traffic.jsp">DNS server loads have not shown a massive increase in traffic</a>, therefore demonstrating that Internet use remains under control.</p>
<p>The Internet is a network that is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resilience_(network)">designed to handle the load</a>. However, telework and distance learning will create an unprecedented load. Simple measures must therefore be taken to limit network load and make better use of the Internet. Of course, these rules can be adapted depending on the tools you have at your disposal.</p>
<h2>How do telecommunications networks work?</h2>
<p>The Internet network functions by sending packets between machines that are connected to it. An often-used analogy is that of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone">information highway</a>. In this analogy, the information exchanged between machines of all kinds (computers, telephones and personal assistants, to name just a few) is divided into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_packet">packets</a> (small and large vehicles). Each packet travels through the network between a source and a destination. All current networks operate according to this principle: Internet, wireless (wi-fi) and mobile (3G, 4G) networks etc.</p>
<p>The network must provide two important properties: reliability and communication speed.</p>
<p><em>Reliability</em> ensures accurate communication between the source and the destination, meaning that information from the source is transmitted accurately to the destination. Should there be transmission errors, they are detected and the data is retransmitted. If there are too many errors, communication is interrupted. An example of this type of communication is e-mail. The recipient must receive exactly what the sender has sent. Long packets are preferred for this type of communication in order to minimize communication errors and maximise the quantity of data transmitted.</p>
<p><em>Communication speed</em> makes real-time communication possible. As such, the packets must all travel across the network as quickly as possible, and their crossing time must be roughly constant. This is true for voice networks (3G, 4G) and television. Should a packet be lost, its absence may be imperceptible. This applies to videos or sound, for example, since our brain compensates for the loss. In this case, it is better to lose a packet from time to time – this leads to communication of lower quality, but they remain usable in most cases.</p>
<h2>Congestion problems</h2>
<p>The network has a large overall capacity but it is limited for each of its components. When there is very high demand, certain components can become congested (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router_(computing)">routers</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber">links</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_(computing)">servers</a>). In such cases, the two properties (reliability and speed) can break down.</p>
<p>For communications that require reliability (web, e-mail), the network uses the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol">TCP protocol</a> (TCP from the expression “TCP/IP”). This protocol introduces a session mechanism, which is implemented to ensure reliability. When a packet is detected as lost by its source, it is retransmitted until the destination indicates that it has arrived. This retransmission of packets exacerbates network congestion, and what was a temporary slowdown turns into a bottleneck. To put it simply, the more congested the network, the more the sessions resend packets. Such congestion is a well-known phenomenon during the “Internet rush hour” after work.</p>
<p>If the source considers that a communication has been subject too many errors, it will close the “session.” When this occurs, a great quantity of data may be lost, since the source and the destination no longer know much about the other’s current state. The congestion therefore causes a wastage of capacity, even once it is over.</p>
<p>For communications that require speed (video, voice), the network instead uses the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Datagram_Protocol">UDP protocol</a>. Unfortunately, <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routeur">routers</a> are often configured to reject this kind of traffic in the event of a temporary overload. This makes it possible to prioritize traffic using sessions (<a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol">TCP</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email">email</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web">web</a>). Losing a few packets in a video or voice communication is not a problem, but losing a significant amount can greatly affect the quality of the communication. Since the source and destination exchange only limited information about problems encountered, they may have the impression that they are communicating when this is not actually the case.</p>
<p>The following proposals aim to limit network load and congestion, in order to avoid a situation in which packets start to get lost. It should be noted that the user may be explicitly informed about this loss of packets, but this is not always the case. It may be observed following delays or a deterioration of communication quality.</p>
<h2>What sort of communications should be prioritized in the professional sphere?</h2>
<p>Professional use must prioritise connection time for exchanging e-mails or synchronising files. But the majority of work should be carried out without being connected to the network, since for a great number of activities, there is no need to be connected.</p>
<p>The most crucial and probably most frequently used tool is e-mail. The main consequence of the network load may be the time it takes to send and transmit messages. The following best practices will allow you to send shorter, less bulky messages, and therefore make e-mail use more fluid:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Choose thick clients (Outlook, Thunderbird for example) rather than web-based clients (Outlook Web Access, Zimbra, Gmail for example) since using e-mail in a browser increases data exchange. Moreover, using a thick client means that you do not always have to be connected to the network to send and receive e-mails.</p></li>
<li><p>When responding to e-mail, delete nonessential content, including attachments and signatures.</p></li>
<li><p>Delete or simplify signatures, especially those that include icons and social media images.</p></li>
<li><p>Send shorter messages than usual, giving preference to plain text.</p></li>
<li><p>Do not add attachments or images that are not essential, and opt for exchanging attachments by shared disks or other services.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>When it comes to <em>file sharing</em>, VPNs (for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network">virtual private networks</a>) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing">cloud computing</a> are the two main solutions. Corporate VPNs will likely be the preferred way to connect to company systems. As noted above, they should only be activated when needed, or potentially on a regular basis, but long sessions should be avoided as they may lead to network congestion.</p>
<p>Most shared disks can also be synchronized locally in order to work remotely. Synchronization is periodic and makes it possible to work offline, for example on office documents.</p>
<h2>Keeping in touch with friends and family without overloading the network</h2>
<p>Social media will undoubtedly be under great strain. Guidelines similar to those for e-mail should be followed and photos, videos, animated GIFs and other fun but bulky content should only be sent on a limited basis.</p>
<p>Certain messages may be rejected by the network. Except in exceptional circumstances, you should wait for the load to ease before trying again.</p>
<p>Advertising represents a significant portion of web content and congests the network without benefits for the user. Most browsers can incorporate extensions (privacy badger) to delete such content automatically. Some browsers, such as <a href="https://brave.com/">Brave</a> for example, also offer this feature. In general, the use of these tools does not have an impact on important websites such as government websites.</p>
<p>Television and on-demand video services also place great strain on the network. When it comes to video, it is preferable to use TNT (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television">terrestrial network</a>) instead of boxes, which use the Internet. The use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_on_demand">VoD</a> services should be limited, especially during the day, so as to give priority to educational and work applications. And a number of video services have limited their broadcast quality, which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling">significantly reduces bandwidth consumption</a>.</p>
<h2>Cybercrime and security</h2>
<p>The current crisis will unfortunately be used as an attack tool. Messages about coronavirus must be handled with caution. Such messages must be read carefully and care must be taken with regard to links they may contain if they do not lead to government websites. Attachments should not be opened. The <a href="https://www.hoaxbuster.com/">Hoaxbuster</a> website and the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/">Décodeurs</a> application by the <em>Le Monde</em> newspaper can be used to verify whether information is reliable.</p>
<p>At this time in which online meeting systems are extensively used, attention must be given to personal data protection.</p>
<p>The website of <a href="https://en.arcep.fr/">ARCEP</a> (France’s regulator for telecom operators) provides guidelines for making the best use of the network. To best protect yourself from attacks, the rules for IT security established by the French cybersecurity agency <a href="https://www.ssi.gouv.fr/en/">ANSSI</a> are more important than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hervé Debar a reçu des financements de la Commission Européenne sous le programme H2020.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gaël Thomas a reçu des financements de l'Agence Nationale de la Recherche et de la Commission Européenne sous le programme H2020. Il est membre de l'association ACM SIGOPS de France et de la Société Informatique de France.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Blanc a reçu des financements de l'agence européenne INEA sous le programme Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olivier Levillain has received funding from the European Commission under the H2020 programme.</span></em></p>Between teleworking, distance learning and the use of social networks, the current period is unusual in our use of the Internet. How does the network work? How to use it well?Hervé Debar, Directeur de la Recherche et des Formations Doctorales à Télécom SudParis, Télécom SudParis – Institut Mines-TélécomGaël Thomas, Professeur, Télécom SudParis – Institut Mines-TélécomGregory Blanc, Maître de conférences en cybersécurité, Télécom SudParis – Institut Mines-TélécomOlivier Levillain, Maître de conférences, Télécom SudParis – Institut Mines-TélécomLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1266362019-12-08T13:29:20Z2019-12-08T13:29:20ZThe digital economy’s environmental footprint is threatening the planet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304570/original/file-20191201-156103-6jwt50.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=194%2C64%2C1677%2C1179&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The world's data centres produce about the same amount of carbon dioxide as global air travel.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pexels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern society has given significant attention to the promises of the digital economy over the past decade. But it has given little attention to its negative environmental footprint.</p>
<p>Our smartphones rely on <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-2014-2015/smartphones.html">rare earth metals</a>, and <a href="https://www.tech-pundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Cloud_Begins_With_Coal.pdf">cloud computing, data centres, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies</a> consume large amounts of electricity, often sourced from <a href="https://www.iea.org/geco/electricity/">coal-fired power plants</a>. </p>
<p>These are crucial blind spots we must address if we hope to capture the full potential of the digital economy. Without urgent system-wide actions, <a href="https://www.pgionline.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/PGI-The-Digital-Economy-and-the-Green-Economy-Compatible-Agendas-final..pdf">the digital economy and green economy will be incompatible with each other</a> and could lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, accelerate climate change and pose great threats to humanity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-computers-faster-and-climate-friendly-101229">How to make computers faster and climate friendly</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The digital economy lacks a universal definition, but it entails the economic activities that result from billions of everyday online connections among people, businesses, devices, data and processes, from online banking to car sharing to social media. </p>
<p>It’s often referred to as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100037">knowledge economy</a>, information society or the <a href="https://future.internetsociety.org/2017/introduction-drivers-of-change-areas-of-impact/drivers-of-change/the-internet-economy/">internet economy</a>. It relies on data as its fuel and it is already benefiting society in many ways, such as with <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(19)30123-2/fulltext">medical diagnoses</a>. </p>
<h2>Coal is still king for the internet</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/what-are-rare-earth-elements-and-why-are-they-important">Rare earth elements</a> form the backbone of our modern digital technologies, from tablets and smartphones to televisions and electric cars. </p>
<p>China is the world’s largest producer of rare earth minerals, <a href="https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/minerals-metals-facts/rare-earth-elements-facts/20522">accounting for close to 70 per cent of global annual production</a>. The large-scale production of rare earth elements in China has raised grave concerns about the <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic-aftermath-of-rare-earth-mining">release of heavy metals and radioactive materials into water bodies, soil and air near mine sites</a>. </p>
<p>Research on the life-cycle assessments of rare earth minerals has found <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2014.00045/full">the production of these metals is far from environmentally sustainable</a>, consuming large amounts of energy and generating radioactive emissions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304151/original/file-20191127-112539-162irh0.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304151/original/file-20191127-112539-162irh0.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304151/original/file-20191127-112539-162irh0.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304151/original/file-20191127-112539-162irh0.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304151/original/file-20191127-112539-162irh0.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304151/original/file-20191127-112539-162irh0.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304151/original/file-20191127-112539-162irh0.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Preliminary data (p) on the global production of rare earth elements, 1988-2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/minerals-metals-facts/rare-earth-elements-facts/20522">(Natural Resources Canada, 2019)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s sometimes said that the <a href="https://www.tech-pundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Cloud_Begins_With_Coal.pdf">cloud (and the digital universe) begins with coal</a> because digital traffic requires a vast and distributed physical infrastructure that consumes electricity.</p>
<p>Coal is one of the world’s largest sources of electricity and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/climate-change-coal-still-king-global-carbon-emissions-soar/3276401002/">a key contributor to climate change</a>. China and the United States are the top <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/these-are-the-worlds-biggest-coal-producers/">producers of coal</a>. </p>
<h2>Energy hogs</h2>
<p>The world’s data centres — the storehouses for enormous quantities of information — <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-data-centres-to-consume-three-times-as-much-energy-in-next-decade-experts-warn-a6830086.html">consume about three per cent of the global electricity supply</a> (more than the entire United Kingdom), and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/25/server-data-centre-emissions-air-travel-web-google-facebook-greenhouse-gas">produce two per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions</a> — roughly the same as global air travel. </p>
<p>A report by Greenpeace East Asia and the North China Electric Power University found that China’s data centres produced <a href="https://secured-static.greenpeace.org/eastasia/PageFiles/299371/Powering%20the%20Cloud%20_%20English%20Briefing.pdf">99 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2018</a>, the equivalent of about 21 million cars driven for one year. </p>
<p>Greenhouse gases aren’t the only type of pollution to be concerned about. Electronic waste (e-waste), which is a byproduct of data centre activities, accounts for two per cent of solid waste and 70 per cent of toxic waste in the United States. </p>
<p>Globally, the world produces as much as 50 million tonnes of electronic e-waste a year, worth over US$62.5 billion and more than the GDP of most countries. Only <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/un-report-time-seize-opportunity-tackle-challenge-e-waste">20 per cent of this e-waste is recycled</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304828/original/file-20191202-66982-14irpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304828/original/file-20191202-66982-14irpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304828/original/file-20191202-66982-14irpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304828/original/file-20191202-66982-14irpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304828/original/file-20191202-66982-14irpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304828/original/file-20191202-66982-14irpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304828/original/file-20191202-66982-14irpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Bitcoin mining farm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When it comes to AI, <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.02243.pdf">recent research</a> found that training a large AI model — feeding large amounts of data into the computer system and asking for predictions — can emit more than 284 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent — nearly five times the lifetime emissions of the average American car. The results of this work show that there is a growing problem with AI’s digital footprint.</p>
<p>Another area of concern is Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r43LhSUUGTQ">rely on blockchain</a>, a digital ledger with no central authority that continually records transactions among multiple computers. The amount of energy required to produce one dollar’s worth of Bitcoin is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0152-7">more than twice that required to mine the same value of copper, gold or platinum</a>. A <a href="http://karlodwyer.com/publications/pdf/bitcoin_KJOD_2014.pdf">2014 study</a> found Bitcoin consumed as much energy as Ireland. </p>
<p>Blockchain technologies such as Bitcoin are energy inefficient and <a href="https://plu.mx/a/27i7NaFCNwoDgu_IpFXfLoEhqBfoHvH52iZJ_r9rRnY">unless their potential applications are developed sustainably they will pose a serious threat to the environment</a>. </p>
<h2>Thinking differently</h2>
<p>The digital economy is accelerating faster than the actions being taken in the green economy movement to counter negative environmental impacts. To move forward fast, we must first start thinking differently. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304829/original/file-20191202-67028-1he2qvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304829/original/file-20191202-67028-1he2qvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304829/original/file-20191202-67028-1he2qvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304829/original/file-20191202-67028-1he2qvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304829/original/file-20191202-67028-1he2qvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304829/original/file-20191202-67028-1he2qvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304829/original/file-20191202-67028-1he2qvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Satellite image of the Bayan Obo mine in China, taken on June 30, 2006. Vegetation appears in red, grassland is light brown, rocks are black and the water surfaces are green.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(NASA Earth Observatory)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The world and its intractable challenges are not linear — everything connects to everything else. We must raise awareness about these major blind spots, embrace <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/systems-leadership-can-change-the-world-but-what-does-it-mean/">systems leadership</a> (leading across boundaries), boost <a href="https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concept">circular economy ideas</a> (decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources), leverage an <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/416909.Eco_Economy">eco-economics approach</a> (an environmentally sustainable economy) and encourage policy-makers to explore the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13103046-a-new-synthesis-of-public-administration">interrelationships</a> between government-wide, system-wide and societal results.</p>
<p>We must also consider collective problem-solving by bringing together diverse perspectives from both the Global North and the Global South. We should take an <a href="http://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/622932/">inventory of the global and local damages caused by electronic devices, platforms and data systems</a>, and frame issues about the digital economy and its environmental impact in broad societal terms. </p>
<p>Perhaps, the way to move the current discussion forward is to ask: What needs to be done to set the world on a sustainable human trajectory? </p>
<p>We must not only ask what the digital economy can do for us, but what we can collectively do for both the digital economy and the environment.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.
]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raynold has received funding from Public Governance International (PGI) for this research, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada for his doctoral program. Raynold serves as a Board Director and Chair of the Advocacy Committee for Nepean, Rideau and Osgoode Community Resource Centre (NROCRC), a non-profit organization serving vulnerable populations in Ottawa, including youth, seniors, children and newcomers to Canada. </span></em></p>The digital economy is taking off. So are the greenhouse gas emissions, electronic waste and pollution associated with it.Raynold Wonder Alorse, PhD Candidate in International Relations (International Political Economy of Mining), Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1245942019-10-02T13:44:22Z2019-10-02T13:44:22ZPasha 38: How cloud computing can speed up development in African countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295178/original/file-20191002-49365-suhopc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Cloud computing is the delivery and storage of technology capabilities over the internet. It can be a valuable tool, but to unlock its capability is no easy task. There are certain fundamentals that need to be in place. </p>
<p>In today’s episode of Pasha, Willem Fourie an associate Professor at the University of Pretoria, looks at the four fundamentals needed to get African countries to use cloud computing effectively. He discusses this with examples of where cloud computing is being used successfully. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cloud-computing-could-be-key-to-speeding-up-africas-development-121344">Cloud computing could be key to speeding up Africa's development</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Photo:</strong>
Jozsef Bagota
Future Technologies, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing in Africa <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/future-technologies-internet-things-cloud-computing-1438769294?src=IdiKwI7YsQiv17HYB6811g-1-19">Shutterstock</a></p>
<p><strong>Music</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Cloud computing can play a crucial role in helping African countries reach sustainable development.Ozayr Patel, Digital EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1230482019-09-26T12:18:32Z2019-09-26T12:18:32Z‘Digital colonialism’: why some countries want to take control of their people’s data from Big Tech<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294355/original/file-20190926-51421-gcgxpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C20%2C973%2C594&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/426983428?src=2Q7JrXi3WCG4DWKa7nAt5w-1-5&size=medium_jpg">knyazevfoto/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a global standoff going on about who stores your data. At the close of June’s G20 summit in Japan, a number of developing countries <a href="https://www.livemint.com/news/world/india-boycotts-osaka-track-at-g20-summit-1561897592466.html">refused to sign</a> an international declaration on data flows – the so-called Osaka Track. Part of the reason why countries such as India, Indonesia and South Africa boycotted the declaration was because they had no opportunity to put their own interests about data into the document. </p>
<p>With 50 other signatories, the declaration still stands as a statement of future intent to negotiate further, but the boycott represents an ongoing struggle by some countries to assert their claim over the data generated by their own citizens.</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages of 2016, data was touted as the new oil. Although the metaphor was quickly <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/data-is-not-the-new-oil-721f5109851b">debunked</a> it’s still a helpful way to understand the global digital economy. Now, as international negotiations over data flows intensify, the oil comparison helps explain the economics of what’s called “data localisation” – the bid to keep citizens’ data within their own country.</p>
<p>Just as oil-producing nations pushed for oil refineries to add value to crude oil, so governments today want the world’s Big Tech companies to build data centres on their own soil. The cloud that powers much of the world’s tech industry is grounded in vast data centres located mainly around northern Europe and the US coasts. Yet, at the same time, US Big Tech companies are increasingly turning to markets in the global south for expansion as enormous numbers of young tech savvy populations come online. </p>
<h2>Accusations of ‘digital imperalism’</h2>
<p>Take, for example, the case of Facebook. While India is the country with the biggest amount of Facebook users, when you look at the <a href="https://www.datacenters.com/providers/facebook">location of Facebook’s 15 data centres</a>, ten are in North America, four in Europe and one in Asia – in Singapore. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294172/original/file-20190925-51405-fwjrkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294172/original/file-20190925-51405-fwjrkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294172/original/file-20190925-51405-fwjrkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294172/original/file-20190925-51405-fwjrkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294172/original/file-20190925-51405-fwjrkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294172/original/file-20190925-51405-fwjrkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294172/original/file-20190925-51405-fwjrkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Countries with the most Facebook users in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-based-on-number-of-facebook-users/">We Are Social, DataReportal, Hootsuite, Facebook via Statista</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This disconnect between new sources of data and the location of data centres has <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/QMZDxbCufK3O2dJE4xccyI/Indias-data-must-be-controlled-by-Indians-not-by-global-co.html">led to accusations</a> from countries such as India of “data colonisation” and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/digital-colonialism-threatening-global-south-190129140828809.html">“digital colonialism”</a>.</p>
<p>The economic argument for countries in the global south to host more data centres is that it would boost digital industrialisation by creating competitive advantages for local cloud companies, and develop links to other parts of the local IT sector.</p>
<p>Many <a href="http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/article/view/19553/16635">countries</a> have flirted with regulations on what sort of data should be stored locally. Some cover only certain sectors such as health data in Australia. Others, such as South Korea, require the consent of the person associated with the data for it to be transmitted overseas. France continues to pursue its own data centre infrastructure, dubbed “le cloud souverain”, despite the closure of some of the <a href="https://www.rudebaguette.com/2019/08/cloudwatt-orange-cloud-souverain-fin/">businesses initially behind the idea</a>. The most comprehensive laws are in China and Russia, which mandate localisation across multiple sectors for many kinds of personal data.</p>
<p>Countries such as India and Indonesia with their massive and growing online populations arguably have the most to gain economically from such regulations as they currently receive the least data infrastructure investment from the tech giants relative to the number of users.</p>
<h2>The economics aren’t clear cut</h2>
<p>Supporters of data localisation cite developing countries’ structural dependency on foreign-owned digital infrastructure and an unfair share of the industry’s economic benefits. They dream of using data localisation to force tech companies into becoming permanent entities on home soil to eventually increase the amount of taxes they can impose on them. </p>
<p>Detractors point to the high business costs of local servers, not just for the tech giants, but also for the very digital start ups that governments say they want to encourage. They say localisation regulations interfere with global innovation, are difficult to enforce, and ignore the technical requirements of data centres: proximity to the internet’s “backbone” of fibre optic cables, a stable supply of electricity, and low temperature air or water for cooling the giant servers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294335/original/file-20190926-51438-1lah43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294335/original/file-20190926-51438-1lah43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294335/original/file-20190926-51438-1lah43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294335/original/file-20190926-51438-1lah43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294335/original/file-20190926-51438-1lah43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294335/original/file-20190926-51438-1lah43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294335/original/file-20190926-51438-1lah43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Data: how much is it worth?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/artistic-blurred-binary-numbers-data-travel-544111558?src=Bjwb083uwwYnsgSFI2-Huw-1-2">Robsonphoto/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Attempts to measure the economic impact of localisation are extremely partisan. The <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/174726">most cited study</a> from 2014 uses an opaque methodology and was produced by the <a href="https://ecipe.org/">European Centre for International Political Economy</a>, a free trade think-tank based in Brussels, some of whose funding comes from unknown <a href="https://thecorrespondent.com/3884/big-business-orders-its-pro-ttip-arguments-from-these-think-tanks/179184456-59671a10">multinational businesses</a>. Not surprisingly, it finds gross losses for countries considering localisation. Yet, a <a href="https://baxtel.com/data-center/facebook/files/facebook_data_centers_2018">2018 study</a> commissioned by Facebook found that its data centre spending in the US had created tens of thousands of jobs, supported renewable energy investments and contributed US$5.8 billion to US GDP in just six years.</p>
<p>Like the equivalent arguments for and against free trade, taking a dogmatic position for or against the issue masks other complexities on the ground. The economic costs and benefits depend on the type of data stored, whether it’s a duplicate or the only copy, the level of government support for wider infrastructure subsidies, to name just a few factors. </p>
<p>India has been the most vocal supporter for localisation, promoting its own regulation as “<a href="https://meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Data_Protection_Committee_Report.pdf">a template for the developing world</a>”, but it’s in a strong position to do so given the country’s relatively advanced digital industrialisation and technical manpower. Other emerging economies with large online populations, such as Indonesia, have vacillated on their localisation regulations under pressure from the US government which has threatened <a href="https://inet.detik.com/law-and-policy/d-4318420/revisi-pp-pste-diduga-sarat-tekanan-asing">to pull preferential trade terms</a> for other goods and services if they went ahead with restrictive regulations.</p>
<h2>What governments do with the data</h2>
<p>While the international economics of personal data may follow some of the same general dynamics as oil production, data is fundamentally different from oil because it does a double duty – providing not just monetary value to businesses, but also surveillance opportunities for governments. Some civil society activists I’ve met as part of my research in India and Indonesia told me they were sceptical of their own governments’ narratives about data colonialism, worrying instead about the increased access to sensitive personal information that localisation gives to governments.</p>
<p>It’s not just large corporations and states that have roles to play in this bid for “data sovereignty”. Tech developers may yet find ways to support the rights of individuals to control their own personal data with platforms such as <a href="http://www.databoxproject.uk">databox</a>, which gives each of us something akin to our own personal servers. These technologies are still in development, but <a href="https://www.decodeproject.eu/pilots">projects</a> are springing up – mostly around Europe – that not only give people greater control over their personal data, but aim to produce social value rather than profit. Such experiments may yet find a place in the developing world alongside what states and large corporations are doing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqueline Hicks receives funding from EU Horizon 2020. </span></em></p>Can developing countries get rich from data?Jacqueline Hicks, Marie-Curie Skłodowska Fellow, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1213442019-08-28T13:18:28Z2019-08-28T13:18:28ZCloud computing could be key to speeding up Africa’s development<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289457/original/file-20190826-8845-q5gvlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Data delivered over the cloud can do things like help farmers make planting decisions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">arrowsmith2/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this year, <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/hlpf/2019#vnrs">17 African countries presented their progress</a> on reaching the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/">Sustainable Development Goals</a>, or SDGs, at the United Nations. There was some good news and progress. But it’s clear that radical interventions are still required if countries on the continent are to achieve these ambitious global development goals.</p>
<p>Technology will be key in any such interventions. Doubling agricultural productivity (Goal 2), halving road deaths (Goal 3), increasing water efficiency (Goal 6), doubling the rate of improvement in energy (Goal 7), and halving food waste (Goal 12), among others, seem impossible without game-changing innovations and dramatic improvements in efficiency.</p>
<p>Cloud computing – the delivery of sophisticated information technology capabilities over the internet – could play a crucial role in both innovation and efficiency. </p>
<p>What’s especially useful about cloud computing is that companies or organisations don’t need to own computing infrastructure or data centres. Instead, they can rent access to storage and applications, among other things, from a cloud service provider. This allows them to get access to sophisticated capabilities on demand. And they don’t have to spend a great deal of money building and maintaining IT infrastructure on site.</p>
<p>But unlocking the developmental potential of cloud computing won’t happen automatically. In <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rGlGi0lkEzDlV4LB8kjCUVmix0xaW9TS/view">a recent publication</a> by the South African SDG Hub at the University of Pretoria I argue that four fundamentals must be in place before cloud computing can really be harnessed to help drive development.</p>
<p>These four are skills development; proper policies; safeguards to keep data private and secure; and effective infrastructure. If African countries can get these fundamentals right, cloud computing could become a powerful ally in the push for sustainable development. But this will require navigating a range of complex issues, from data privacy regulation to reliable electricity supply.</p>
<h2>Cloud computing in action</h2>
<p>Computing capabilities delivered over the cloud are already being used in some parts of the world in ways that dovetail with the SDGs’ requirements. </p>
<p>For example, IBM’s Watson Decision Platform is helping farmers in <a href="https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2018/09/smarter-farms-agriculture/">Brazil and India</a> to make more informed decisions about what to plant and when with data that predicts crop yields. Through <a href="https://www.healthmap.org/en/">Health Map</a>, information delivered over the cloud is also making it possible to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks. <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/lifeq/">LifeQ</a> is using the cloud to harness data to drive healthier lifestyles across Africa.</p>
<p>In the banking sector, banks such as <a href="https://netfinance.wbresearch.com/hsbc-artificial-intelligence-strategy-to-beat-money-launderers-ty-u">HSCB</a> are using the cloud to detect money laundering, which aligns with <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg16">Goal 16</a>. In Nigeria, <a href="https://customers.microsoft.com/en-in/story/interswitch-banking-capital-markets-azure-blockchain-workbench">Interswitch</a> is using the cloud to help small businesses access project financing more quickly, which is a key part of <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg17">Goal 17</a>. <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/jumo/">JUMO</a> is using the cloud to increase access to mobile money across Africa.</p>
<p>There are already several cloud computing projects underway on the African continent that are being used to nudge countries towards attaining some goals. A <a href="https://info.microsoft.com/rs/157-GQE-382/images/report-SRGCM1065.pdf">recent report by Microsoft</a> showcases a project by MTN Uganda that uses voice biometric software to handle PIN resets. </p>
<p><a href="https://cloud.google.com/customers/tencent-africa/">Tencent Africa</a> is using the cloud to overcome its own infrastructure constraints, and in this way is able to improve the speed of its services.</p>
<h2>Data centres</h2>
<p>The groundwork is already being laid for cloud computing services to become ubiquitous in some parts of Africa. </p>
<p>One example is the recent <a href="https://techcentral.co.za/microsoft-cloud-data-centres-now-live-in-south-africa/88003/">opening of the continent’s first cloud computing data centres</a> in two South African cities by Microsoft. Another is that Amazon Web Services plans to open a data centre in Cape Town in 2020. <a href="https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/bluemix/sites/default/files/assets/docs/importance_data_physical_location_cloud_0.PDF">The location of data centres</a> influences how efficiently data moves across networks. Data centres located in Africa will significantly improve the speed with which the cloud’s capabilities can be accessed.</p>
<p>Cloud computing services delivered by global companies also exist in <a href="https://www.researchictafrica.net/publications/Evidence_for_ICT_Policy_Action/Policy_Paper_20_-_The_cloud_over_Africa.pdf">Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana</a>, among others. </p>
<p>But physical data centres alone will not be enough. Some thorough planning and policy realignment is crucial, too.</p>
<h2>Crucial elements</h2>
<p>These are the four fundamentals that must be in place for cloud computing to really play a valuable role in driving sustainable development in African countries.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>skills development</em>: investment is required that improves employees’ existing skills or completely reskill those whose job descriptions will change because of the introduction of cloud computing services. Africa’s largely under-utilised training and vocational college sector is ideally positioned to do so.</li>
</ul>
<p>These skills are typically described as <a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/digital-skills-critical-jobs-and-social-inclusion">“digital skills”</a>, a rather fuzzy term that covers everything from operating and maintaining cloud infrastructure to integrating the cloud with existing IT infrastructure and using the cloud to innovate.</p>
<ul>
<li><p><em>policy</em>: there must be an integration of science, technology and innovation throughout the policy planning cycle. How? The African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/newsevents/workingdocuments/33178-wd-stisa-english_-_final.pdf">science, technology and innovation strategy</a> provides useful guidance. Put simply: policies should enable rather than restricting the development and adoption of new technology. </p></li>
<li><p><em>safeguards that guarantee the privacy and security of all data</em>: Cloud computing largely depends on the free yet regulated flow of data. But the free flow of data is only viable if its privacy and security are guaranteed.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/insights/articles/understanding-data-privacy-and-cloud-computing">Argentina</a>, along with many other countries, only allows cross-border data transfers of personal data to countries with similar data protection laws. However, the law was passed in 2000 and much has advanced since then. It is unclear, for example, whether the law is applicable to servers based outside Argentina. Under Spain’s data protection law, servers based in Spain but located outside its borders need to be registered in Spain and are subject to Spanish law. African countries must grapple with such nuances.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>infrastructure that ensures affordable and reliable access to internet and electricity</em>. Universal and affordable internet and energy access are prioritised in the SDGs. Without the necessary infrastructure investments, the impact of science, technology and innovation is unlikely to be transformative. Most African countries <a href="http://unsdsn.org/resources/publications/2019-africa-sdg-index-and-dashboards-report/">lag behind</a> in this regard, so intervention is required.</li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Willem Fourie works for the University of Pretoria. He receives funding from South Africa's Department of Science and Innovation.</span></em></p>If African countries can get the fundamentals right, cloud computing could become a powerful ally in the push for sustainable development.Willem Fourie, Associate Professor at the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership, Co-ordinator of the South African SDG Hub, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/946052018-04-08T19:46:11Z2018-04-08T19:46:11ZGame of thrones: IT departments and the cloud<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213583/original/file-20180406-125155-1o3ijz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/harvest316/25237454688/in/photolist-Es9y27-7irTMq-7H96ha-bz2dNP-7kAAEu-7kwF5v-7kwCvV-acK6jZ-7kwDDB-oxtQ9k-d4JThy-dHCXQi-8rXf2N-6hd6ad-7A6vVg-5Gr9Cm-7H96fT-6gQvvf-6dQuC2-inZDAF-pHTnac-7Hd4tu-6BenAk-pHTmVV-q1iVGi-hajU4W-89nc7F-hajheS-7Hd1Td-5VLWHg-hajocJ-fxzfxQ-ar1GPG-7H98TB-anSgJF-7H96kv-25mdg4u-7Hd1S3-YyZNaW-aHKfut-6442g2-hajAmm-7H96hD-89qsXU-7H96i4-89neKF-89qwRy-89qx7s-89qvhs-7Hfa7K">Paul Harvey/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cloud computing, a buzzword in the tech and business worlds, became popular through the big leaders – Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple and Salesforce.com. It’s mostly associated with Apple’s iCloud, yet not easily defined. Technically, it represents a <a href="https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/SP/nistspecialpublication800-145.pdf">shared pool of computing resources</a>, including networks, servers, applications, and services, that can be provisioned with minimal management effort.</p>
<h2>‘The climb’</h2>
<p>Cloud computing exists under numerous categories. The most popular are software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). SaaS is the most common, and can be used by both individuals and enterprises. The former might use Microsoft Office 365, Dropbox and Google Apps, the latter Salesforce.com, Amazon Web Services, Zendesk and Slack. For companies, these types of services can allow a remote workforce to be supported more easily and operate more independently.</p>
<p>Cloud services became popular due to the benefits they can offer for individuals and enterprises of different sizes, sectors and industries. The low prices and the pay-per-use characteristic of cloud services make them attractive, plus they offer agility, flexibility and ubiquity. The adoption of cloud services has increased in the recent years, and spending is estimated to reach <a href="https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3616417">$383 billion by 2020</a>.</p>
<h2>‘The wars to come’</h2>
<p>Despite their advantages, cloud services are not yet widely adopted because of a range of threats. These can include security risks, including data confidentiality, insider and outsider attacks, and data loss. Every individual and enterprise highly values their data, making the need for protection paramount. With the cloud, however, data location is unknown for users and clients, and can lead to compliance issues. The data stored in public cloud environments must abide by national and international laws, yet its “location” is unclear.</p>
<p>Moreover, cloud services can be afflicted by poor connectivity, servers downtime, service unpredictability and bugs in large distributed systems. Vendor lock-in is also perceived as a risk, where user data is “locked” in one provider and can’t easily be stored elsewhere. This list of threats forms subtext of the ongoing wars between the IT departments and cloud services.</p>
<h2>‘The old gods and the new’</h2>
<p>Information technology departments have controlled of IT since the beginning of the digital era, reigning with full discretion – they’re the kings and gods of the legacy hardware and software of enterprises. They built infrastructure, developed applications, made adjustments and adaptations and monitoring the security of companies’ complex systems. Whenever business departments needed a service to achieve their goals, they’ve had to go through the gods of IT.</p>
<p>As in every fairy tale, the knight in shining armour will arrive on its strong white horse to save the day. In our case, however, the knight arrives on a scalable cloud. Sweeping business departments off their feet, cloud computing offers easily accessible, ubiquitous, economical and scalable services.</p>
<p>While cloud computing is the saviour of business departments, it is the foe of IT departments. <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-cloud-computing-changes-almost-everything-about-the-skills-you-need/">Studies have shown</a> a relationship between the adoption of cloud services and decreased IT employment. IT employees can thus feel threatened by their enterprises implementing cloud services, and can oppose to the new gods of the cloud.</p>
<h2>‘Unbowed, unbent, unbroken’</h2>
<p>To keep their enterprises competitive, IT employees are nonetheless attention training sessions and replacing obsolete skills with valuable new abilities. Far from resisting the new gods of the cloud, such IT employees embrace them.</p>
<p>However, one might wonder about the impact the transition of old gods to new has on enterprises. How should enterprises deal with this confrontation? Should they oppose the cloud and stick to their traditional methods and be on the IT department side? Or should they face them down and adopt cloud services? And the most important question is: In a game of thrones, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/video/4882140021001/#1277e55c6995">what would Jon Snow do?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabine Khalil ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Cloud services became popular due to the benefits they can offer to users, but their adoption can be opposed by IT departments.Sabine Khalil, Assistant Professor in Management of Information Sytems, PropediaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900002018-01-25T11:38:06Z2018-01-25T11:38:06ZHow secure is your data when it’s stored in the cloud?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203255/original/file-20180124-107963-zzxb0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is this cloud secure?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/safety-concept-cloud-storage-data-571211755">SWEviL/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As cloud storage becomes more common, data security is an increasing concern. Companies and schools have been increasing their use of services like <a href="https://www.google.com/drive/">Google Drive</a> for some time, and <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170614005856/en/92.48-Billion-Cloud-Storage-Market---Forecasts">lots of individual users also store files</a> on <a href="http://dropbox.com/">Dropbox</a>, <a href="http://box.com/">Box</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive">Amazon Drive</a>, <a href="https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/">Microsoft OneDrive</a> and the like. They’re no doubt concerned about keeping their information private – and millions more users might store data online if they were <a href="http://www.securityweek.com/it-pros-still-concerned-over-public-cloud-security-survey">more certain of its security</a>.</p>
<p>Data stored in the cloud is nearly always <a href="https://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-storage3.htm">stored in an encrypted form</a> that would need to be cracked before an intruder could read the information. But as a <a href="https://www.csee.umbc.edu/%7Ehbzhang/">scholar of cloud computing and cloud security</a>, I’ve seen that where the keys to that encryption are held varies among cloud storage services. In addition, there are relatively simple ways users can boost their own data’s security beyond what’s built into systems they use.</p>
<h2>Who holds the keys?</h2>
<p>Commercial cloud storage systems encode each user’s data with a specific encryption key. Without it, the files look like gibberish – rather than meaningful data.</p>
<p>But who has the key? It can be stored either by the service itself, or by individual users. Most services keep the key themselves, letting their systems see and process user data, such as indexing data for future searches. These services also access the key when a user logs in with a password, unlocking the data so the person can use it. This is much more convenient than having users keep the keys themselves.</p>
<p>But it is also less secure: Just like regular keys, if someone else has them, they might be stolen or misused without the data owner knowing. And some services might have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Dropbox">flaws in their security practices</a> that leave users’ data vulnerable.</p>
<h2>Letting users keep control</h2>
<p>A few less popular cloud services, including <a href="https://mega.nz/">Mega</a> and <a href="https://spideroak.com/">SpiderOak</a>, require users to upload and download files through service-specific client applications that include encryption functions. That extra step lets users keep the encryption keys themselves. For that additional security, users forgo some functions, such as being able to search among their cloud-stored files. </p>
<p>These services aren’t perfect – there’s still a possibility that their own apps might be compromised or hacked, allowing an intruder to read your files either before they’re encrypted for uploading or after being downloaded and decrypted. An encrypted cloud service provider could even embed functions in its specific app that could leave data vulnerable. And, of course, if a user loses the password, the data is irretrievable. </p>
<p>One new mobile app says it can keep phone photos <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/pixek-app-encrypts-photos-from-camera-to-cloud/">encrypted from the moment they’re taken</a>, through transmission and storage in the cloud. Other new services may arise offering similar protection for other types of data, though users should still be on guard against the potential for information to be hijacked in the few moments after the picture is taken, before it’s encrypted and stored. </p>
<h2>Protecting yourself</h2>
<p>To maximize cloud storage security, it’s best to combine the features of these various approaches. Before uploading data to the cloud, first encrypt it using your own encryption software. Then upload the encoded file to the cloud. To get access to the file again, log in to the service, download it and decrypt it yourself. </p>
<p>This, of course, prevents users from taking advantage of many cloud services, like live editing of shared documents and searching cloud-stored files. And the company providing the cloud services could still modify the data, by altering the encrypted file before you download it. </p>
<p>The best way to protect against that is to use <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44448-3_41">authenticated</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/937527.937529">encryption</a>. This method stores not only an encrypted file, but additional metadata that lets a user detect whether the file has been modified since it was created.</p>
<p>Ultimately, for people who don’t want to <a href="https://www.cryptopp.com/">learn how</a> <a href="https://www.openssl.org">to program</a> <a href="https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pycryptodome">their own tools</a>, there are two basic choices: Find a cloud storage service with trustworthy upload and download software that is open-source and has been validated by independent security researchers. Or use trusted open-source encryption software to encrypt your data before uploading it to the cloud; these are available for all operating systems and are generally free or very low-cost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Haibin Zhang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Storing data in the cloud is convenient, but how secure is it? And what are users’ options for stepping up their data security?Haibin Zhang, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/854812017-10-20T10:30:54Z2017-10-20T10:30:54ZWhy we need to improve cloud computing’s security<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190591/original/file-20171017-30394-1iac65n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cloud computing has become every-day tool, but its security is questionable. New methods are developed to prevent data breaches.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/senatormarkwarner/18496575259">Mark Warner/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Do you often use Facebook? How about Snapchat, Gmail, Dropbox, Slack, Google Drive, Spotify or Minecraft? Perhaps all of them? Bottom line, if you use an online social network, e-mail program, data storage service or a music platform, you are almost certainly using cloud computing.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing">Cloud computing</a> is way of giving access to shared resources such as computer networks, servers, storage, applications and services. Individuals and organisations can place their data on the cloud and enjoy unlimited storage free or at a relatively low cost. It also allows services such as email to be offloaded, reducing companies’ development and maintenance costs.</p>
<h2>Data breaches happen every day</h2>
<p>Despite the tremendous benefits of cloud computing, the security and privacy of data are probably the biggest concerns that individuals and organisational users have. Current efforts to protect users’ data include measure such as firewalls, virtualisation (running multiple operating systems or applications simultaneously) and even <a href="https://www.cio.com/article/2405607/cloud-computing/cloud-computing--4-tips-for-regulatory-compliance.html">regulatory policies</a>, yet often users are required to provide information to service providers “in the clear” – means plain-text data without any protection.</p>
<p>Moreover, because cloud-computing software and hardware are anything but bug-free, sensitive information may be exposed to other users, applications and third parties. In fact, cloud data breaches <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/">happen every day</a>.</p>
<p>The cyber-security website Csoonline.com compiled a list of 16 of <a href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/2130877/data-breach/the-16-biggest-data-breaches-of-the-21st-century.html">the biggest data breaches of the 21st century</a> all happened during the past 11 years.</p>
<p>At the top of the list is Yahoo. In September 2016 the company announced that it had been the victim of a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/09/22/yahoo-500-million-hacked-by-nation-state/#1764c2b46dcb">huge data breach</a> in 2014 – names, e-mail addresses and other data belonging to half a billion users were hacked. The following December Yahoo revised their estimate, and said that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/yahoo-hack-security-of-one-billion-accounts-breached">1 billion accounts</a> were hacked in 2013. In addition to names and passwords, users’ security questions and answers were also compromised.</p>
<p>In October of 2017, Yahoo yet again revised their estimation of the number of compromised accounts. Instead, it was actually <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-cyber/yahoo-says-all-three-billion-accounts-hacked-in-2013-data-theft-idUSKCN1C82O1">3 billion</a>.</p>
<h2>Fighting a new threat model</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/d/Deng:Robert_H=">research project</a> that I am leading, we are aiming at providing cloud data security and privacy protection under a new threat model that more accurately reflects the open, heterogeneous and distributed nature of the cloud environment. This model assumes that cloud servers, which store and process users’ data, are not to be trusted to keep users’ data and the processing results confidential, or even to enforce access limitations correctly. This is a radical departure from the traditional threat model for closed enterprise IT systems, which assume that servers can be trusted.</p>
<p>The central approach of our research is thus to embed protection mechanisms, such as <a href="http://computer.howstuffworks.com/encryption.htm">encryption</a> and authentication, into the data itself. In this way, data security and privacy remain even if the cloud itself is compromised, all while enabling authorised to access and process shared data.</p>
<h2>Protecting the data and its users</h2>
<p>In our research project, we have created a suite of techniques for scalable access control and computation of encrypted data in the cloud. We also built an attribute-based secure messaging system as a proof-of-concept prototype. The system is designed to provide end-to-end confidentiality for enterprise users, and is built on the assumption that the cloud itself doesn’t necessarily keep users’ messages confidential.</p>
<p>To understand how it works, imagine that you’re depositing valuables in a house to which you have a key and that, from time to time, you want move these valuables to other friends’ houses where unknown people may come and go. Each of your friends keeps his or her key, but not all have the same access privileges: their keys can only open certain houses based on the access they have. Such privileges and key sets are managed by a keymaster who stays elsewhere.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190588/original/file-20171017-30379-1qud9iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190588/original/file-20171017-30379-1qud9iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190588/original/file-20171017-30379-1qud9iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190588/original/file-20171017-30379-1qud9iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190588/original/file-20171017-30379-1qud9iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190588/original/file-20171017-30379-1qud9iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190588/original/file-20171017-30379-1qud9iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To protect your data and enter a cloud, the system provides you with separate set of keys according to your access status.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1079113">Pxhere</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Every user in the system has a set of attributes that specifies his or her privileges to receive and decrypt messages. For example, Alice’s set of attributes could be “student, school of business” while Bob’s are “student, school of information systems”. At the user registration stage, the keymaster issues each person a decryption code based his or her attributes.</p>
<p>To send a message securely, a user encrypts it, and the appropriate access policy is attached. The encrypted message is referred to as ciphertext. Only users whose attributes match a message’s access policy can receive and decrypt it. For example, if a message is to “all students”, then both Alice and Bob can receive and decrypt it. On the other hand, if another message’s access policy is “business-school students”, only those students (meaning Alice but not Bob) can receive and decrypt it.</p>
<p>The system is highly efficient – only one message is generated and delivered regardless of the number of recipients, and it achieves confidentiality even if the cloud-based messaging server and the communication networks are open.</p>
<p>Our system has elicited significant interest, and we’re hopeful that it can help people using cloud storage and computing in a more secure manner.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=121&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=121&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Created in 2007, the Axa Research Fund supports more than 500 projets around the world conducted by researchers from 51 countries. To learn more about the work of Robert Deng, Axa Chair of Cybersecurity, visit the <a href="https://www.axa-research.org/en/projects/robert-deng">dedicated site</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Deng is Professor of Information Systems and AXA Chair Professor of Cybersecurity at Singapore Management University, and AXA Research Fund has been funding the research that led to this article.
The AXA Chair of Cybersecurity aims at providing organisations with the means to protect themselves against cyber criminality while safely enjoying the advantages of cloud storage.</span></em></p>Cloud computing is on the rise, but so are questions about its security. This is why we need systems where the data itself enforces security, not just the cloud system within which it is contained.Robert Deng, Professor of Information Systems - School of Information Systems, Singapore Management UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/758042017-04-26T01:03:21Z2017-04-26T01:03:21ZPolice around the world learn to fight global-scale cybercrime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166668/original/file-20170425-12650-umknr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police must join forces across international borders to take on modern cybercriminals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/armed-terrorist-group-terrorism-concept-flat-437036053">wutzkohphoto/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From 2009 to 2016, a cybercrime network called Avalanche grew into one of the world’s <a href="http://www.voanews.com/a/europol-brings-down-avalanche-global-cybercrime-syndicate/3619096.html">most sophisticated criminal syndicates</a>. It <a href="https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/Responding%20to%20Cybercrime%20at%20Scale%20FINAL.pdf">resembled an international conglomerate</a>, staffed by corporate executives, advertising salespeople and customer service representatives. </p>
<p>Its business, though, was not standard international trade. Avalanche provided a hacker’s delight of a <a href="http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/962-avalanche-takedown">one-stop shop</a> for <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/12/took-4-years-take-avalanche-huge-online-crime-ring/">all kinds of cybercrime</a> to criminals without their own technical expertise but with the motivation and ingenuity to perpetrate a scam. At the height of its activity, the Avalanche group had hijacked hundreds of thousands of computer systems in homes and businesses around the world, using them to send more than a million criminally motivated emails per week. </p>
<p><a href="https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/Responding%20to%20Cybercrime%20at%20Scale%20FINAL.pdf">Our study of Avalanche</a>, and of the groundbreaking law enforcement effort that ultimately took it down in December 2016, gives us a look at how the cybercriminal underground will operate in the future, and how police around the world must <a href="https://www.flashpoint-intel.com/blog/cybercrime/blog-psychology-cybercriminal/">cooperate to fight back</a>. </p>
<h2>Cybercrime at scale</h2>
<p>Successful cybercriminal enterprises need strong and reliable technology, but what increasingly separates the big players from the smaller nuisances is business acumen. Underground markets, forums and message systems, <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/this-dark-web-service-makes-spamming-hackers-ridiculously-easy">often hosted on the deep web</a>, have created <a href="https://securityintelligence.com/cybercrime-ecosystem-everything-is-for-sale/">a service-based economy of cybercrime</a>.</p>
<p>Just as regular businesses can <a href="https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/software-as-a-service-saas/">hire online services</a> – buying Google products to handle their email, spreadsheets and document sharing, and hosting websites on Amazon with payments handled by PayPal – <a href="https://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/white-papers/wp-cybercrime-exposed.pdf">cybercriminals can do the same</a>. Sometimes these criminals use legitimate service platforms like PayPal in addition to others specifically designed for illicit marketplaces.</p>
<p>And just as the legal cloud-computing giants aim to efficiently offer products of broad use to a wide customer base, <a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR600/RR610/RAND_RR610.pdf">criminal computing services do the same</a>. They pursue technological capabilities that a wide range of customers want to use more easily. Today, with an internet connection and some currency (<a href="http://www.econotimes.com/Bitcoin-remains-currency-of-choice-for-much-of-cybercrime-%E2%80%93-Europol-326623">bitcoin preferred</a>), almost anyone can buy and sell narcotics online, purchase hacking services or rent botnets to cripple competitors and spread money-making malware.</p>
<p>The Avalanche network excelled at this, selling technically advanced products to its customers while using <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-documents/operation-avalanche-infographic-technical">sophisticated techniques</a> to evade detection and identification as the source by law enforcement. Avalanche offered, in business terms, “<a href="http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/cybercrime-as-a-service-economy-stronger-than-ever-a-9396">cybercrime as a service</a>,” supporting a broad digital underground economy. By leaving to others the design and execution of innovative ways to use them, Avalanche and its criminal customers efficiently split the work of planning, executing and developing the technology for advanced cybercrime scams.</p>
<p>With Avalanche, renters – or the network’s operators themselves – could <a href="https://securelist.com/analysis/publications/36209/the-botnet-business/">communicate with, and take control of, some or all of the hijacked computers</a> to <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/02/zeus-a-virus-known-as-botnet/#more-1235">conduct a wide range of cyberattacks</a>. The criminals could then, for example, <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ddos-attacks-hit-record-numbers-in-q2-2015/">knock websites offline for hours or longer</a>. That in turn could let them <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/pay-or-well-knock-your-site-offline-ddos-for-ransom-attacks-surge/">extract ransom payments</a>, disrupt online transactions to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/10/a-lot/505025/">hurt a business’ bottom line</a> or <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/02/ddos-attack-on-bank-hid-900000-cyberheist/">distract victims</a> while accomplices employed stealthier methods to steal customer data or financial information. The Avalanche group also sold access to <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/%E2%80%98avalanche%E2%80%99-network-dismantled-in-international-cyber-operation">20 unique types of malicious software</a>. Criminal operations facilitated by Avalanche cost businesses, governments and individuals around the world <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/joint-statement-dismantling-international-cyber-criminal-infrastructure-known-avalanche">hundreds of millions of dollars</a>.</p>
<h2>Low risk, high reward</h2>
<p>To date, cybercrime has offered high profits – like the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/15/technology/ransomware-cyber-security/">US$1 billion annual</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-easier-to-defend-against-ransomware-than-you-might-think-57258">ransomware market</a> – with low risk. Cybercriminals often use technical means to obscure their identities and locations, making it <a href="https://community.norton.com/en/blogs/norton-protection-blog/how-do-cybercriminals-get-caught">challenging</a> for law enforcement to effectively pursue them.</p>
<p>That makes cybercrime very attractive to traditional criminals. With a lower technological bar, huge amounts of money, manpower and real-world connections have come flooding into the cybercrime ecosystem. For instance, in 2014, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/10/technology/jpmorgan-hack-charges/?iid=EL">cybercriminals hacked into major financial firms</a> to get information about specific companies’ stocks and to steal investors’ personal information. They first bought stock in certain companies, then sent false email advertisements to specific investors, with the goal of <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/file/632156/download">artificially inflating those companies’ stock prices</a>. It worked: Stock prices went up, and the criminals sold their holdings, raking in <a href="http://www.crime-research.org/library/Cybercrime.htm">profits they could use for their next scam</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, the internet allows criminal operations to function <a href="https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/magazine-features/cybercrime-knows-no-borders/">across geographic boundaries and legal jurisdictions</a> in ways that are simply impractical in the physical world. Criminals in the real world must be at a crime’s actual site and may leave physical evidence behind – like fingerprints on a bank vault or records of traveling to and from the place the crime occurred. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tracking-cyber-hackers/">In cyberspace</a>, a criminal in Belarus can hack into a vulnerable server in Hungary to remotely direct distributed operations against victims in South America without ever setting foot below the Equator.</p>
<h2>A path forward</h2>
<p>All these factors present <a href="https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/the-fbis-perspective-on-the-cybercrime-problem">significant challenges</a> for police, who must also contend with limited budgets and manpower with which to conduct complex investigations, the technical challenges of following sophisticated hackers through the internet and the need to work with officials in other countries.</p>
<p>The multinational cooperation involved in successfully taking down the Avalanche network can be a model for future efforts in fighting digital crime. Coordinated by Europol, the European Union’s police agency, the plan takes inspiration from the sharing economy. </p>
<p>Uber owns very few cars and Airbnb has no property; they help connect drivers and homeowners with customers who need transportation or lodging. Similarly, while Europol <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/about-europol">has no direct policing powers</a> or unique intelligence, it can connect law enforcement agencies across the continent. This <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uberisation-international-police-work-rob-wainwright">“uberization” of law enforcement</a> was crucial to synchronizing the coordinated action that seized, blocked and redirected traffic for <a href="http://blog.shadowserver.org/2016/12/01/avalanche/">more than 800,000 domains across 30 countries</a>. </p>
<p>Through those partnerships, various national police agencies were able to collect pieces of information from their own jurisdictions and send it, through Europol, to German authorities, who took the lead on the investigation. Analyzing all of that collected data revealed the identity of the suspects and untangled its complex network of servers and software. The nonprofit <a href="http://blog.shadowserver.org/2016/12/01/avalanche/">Shadowserver Foundation</a> and others assisted with the actual takedown of the server infrastructure, while anti-virus companies helped victims clean up their computers.</p>
<h2>Using the network against the criminals</h2>
<p>Police are increasingly learning – <a href="http://www.oecd.org/sti/consumer/42534994.pdf">often from private sector experts</a> – how to detect and stop criminals’ online activities. Avalanche’s <a href="http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Documents/Operation%20Avalanche%20infographic.pdf">complex technological setup</a> lent itself to a technique called “<a href="https://www.trendmicro.co.kr/cloud-content/us/pdfs/security-intelligence/white-papers/wp__sinkholing-botnets.pdf">sinkholing</a>,” in which malicious internet traffic is sent into the electronic equivalent of a bottomless pit. When a hijacked computer tried to contact its controller, the police-run sinkhole captured that message and prevented it from reaching the actual central controller. Without control, the infected computer couldn’t do anything nefarious.</p>
<p>However, interrupting the technological systems isn’t enough, unless police are able to stop the criminals too. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-botnet-idUSKBN17C2B4">Three times since 2010</a>, police tried to take down the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-actions-dismantle-kelihos-botnet-0">Kelihos</a> botnet. But each time the person behind it escaped and was able to resume criminal activities using more resilient infrastructure. In early April, however, the FBI was able to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/04/fbi-took-russias-spam-king-massive-botnet/">arrest Peter Levashov</a>, allegedly its longtime operator, while on a family vacation in Spain. </p>
<p>The effort to take down Avalanche also resulted in the <a href="https://www.cyberscoop.com/avalanche-botnet-cybercrime-europol/">arrests of five people</a> who allegedly ran the organization. Their removal from action likely led to a <a href="https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2016/12/16/avalanche-cybercriminal-infrastructure-takedown">temporary disruption in the broader global cybercrime environment</a>. It forced the criminals who were Avalanche’s customers to stop and regroup, and may offer police additional intelligence, depending on what investigators can convince the people arrested to reveal.</p>
<p>The Avalanche network was just the beginning of the challenges law enforcement will face when it comes to combating international cybercrime. To keep their enterprises alive, the criminals will share their experiences and learn from the past. Police agencies around the world must do the same to keep up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank J. Cilluffo receives funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Japanese External Trade Organization in support of the Center's work on cybersecurity issues. He is affiliated with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, the National Consortium for Advanced Policing, CBS, and KnowCyber</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Wainwright is the director of Europol. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alec Nadeau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cybercriminals are using cloud-based services, much like regular businesses. A new study reveals important lessons for the future of fighting cybercrime.Frank J. Cilluffo, Director, Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, George Washington UniversityAlec Nadeau, Presidential Administrative Fellow, Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, George Washington UniversityRob Wainwright, Director of Europol; Honorary Fellow, Strategy and Security Institute, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750652017-03-31T01:59:31Z2017-03-31T01:59:31ZCloud, backup and storage devices: how best to protect your data<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163266/original/image-20170330-15619-l7vchv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How much data do you still store only on your mobile, tablet or laptop?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Neirfy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are producing more data than ever before, with more than <a href="https://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/what-is-big-data.html">2.5 quintillion</a> bytes produced every day, according to computer giant IBM. That’s a staggering 2,500,000,000,000 gigabytes of data and it’s growing fast.</p>
<p>We have never been so connected through smart phones, smart watches, laptops and all sorts of wearable technologies inundating today’s marketplace. There were an estimated <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3165317">6.4 billion</a> connected “things” in 2016, up 30% from the previous year.</p>
<p>We are also continuously sending and receiving data over our networks. This unstoppable growth is unsustainable without some kind of smartness in the way we all produce, store, share and backup data now and in the future.</p>
<h2>In the cloud</h2>
<p>Cloud services play an essential role in achieving sustainable data management by easing the strain on bandwidth, storage and backup solutions. </p>
<p>But is the cloud paving the way to better backup services or is it rendering backup itself obsolete? And what’s the trade-off in terms of data safety, and how can it be mitigated so you can safely store your data in the cloud?</p>
<p>The cloud is often thought of as an online backup solution that works in the background on your devices to keep your photos and documents, whether personal or work related, backed up on remote servers. </p>
<p>In reality, the cloud has a lot more to offer. It connects people together, helping them store and share data online and even work together online to create data collaboratively. </p>
<p>It also makes your data ubiquitous, so that if you lose your phone or your device fails you simply buy a new one, sign in to your cloud account and voila! – all your data are on your new device in a matter of minutes. </p>
<h2>Do you <em>really</em> back up your data?</h2>
<p>An important advantage of cloud-based backup services is also the automation and ease of use. With traditional backup solutions, such as using a separate drive, people often discover, a little too late, that they did not back up certain files. </p>
<p>Relying on the user to do backups is risky, so automating it is exactly where cloud backup is making a difference. </p>
<p>Cloud solutions have begun to evolve from online backup services to primary storage services. People are increasingly moving from storing their data on their device’s internal storage (hard drives) to storing them directly in cloud-based repositories such as <a href="https://www.dropbox.com">DropBox</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/drive/">Google Drive</a> and Microsoft’s <a href="https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-au/">OneDrive</a>.</p>
<p>Devices such as Google’s <a href="https://www.google.com.au/chromebook/">Chromebook</a> do not use much local storage to store your data. Instead, they are part of a new trend in which everything you produce or consume on the internet, at work or at home, would come from the cloud and be stored there too. </p>
<p>Recently announced cloud technologies such as <a href="https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/introducing-new-enterprise-ready-tools-google-drive/">Google’s Drive File Stream</a> or <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/business/smartsync">Dropbox’s Smart Sync</a> are excellent examples of how cloud storage services are heading in a new direction with less data on the device and a bigger primary storage role for the cloud. </p>
<p>Here is how it works. Instead of keeping local files on your device, placeholder files (sort of empty files) are used, and the actual data are kept in the cloud and downloaded back onto the device only when needed. </p>
<p>Edits to the files are pushed to the cloud so that no local copy is kept on your device. This drastically reduces the risk of data leaks when a device is lost or stolen.</p>
<p>So if your entire workspace is in the cloud, is backup no longer needed?</p>
<p>No. In fact, backup is more relevant than ever, as disasters can strike cloud providers themselves, with hacking and ransomware affecting cloud storage too. </p>
<p>Backup has always had the purpose of reducing risks using redundancy, by duplicating data across multiple locations. The same can apply to cloud storage which can be duplicated across multiple cloud locations or multiple cloud service providers. </p>
<h2>Privacy matters</h2>
<p>Yet beyond the disruption of the backup market, the number-one concern about the use of cloud services for storing user data is privacy. </p>
<p>Data privacy is strategically important, particularly when customer data are involved. Many privacy-related problems can happen when using the cloud. </p>
<p>There are concerns about the processes used by cloud providers for privacy management, which often trade privacy for convenience. There are also concerns about the technologies put in place by cloud providers to overcome privacy related issues, which are often not effective. </p>
<p>When it comes to technology, encryption tools protecting your sensitive data have actually been around for a long time. </p>
<p>Encryption works by scrambling your data with a very large digital number (called a key) that you keep secret so that only you can decrypt the data. Nobody else can decode your data without that key. </p>
<p>Using encryption tools to encrypt your data with your own key before transferring it into the cloud is a sensible thing to do. Some cloud service providers are now offering this option and letting you choose your own key. </p>
<h2>Share vs encryption</h2>
<p>But if you store data in the cloud for the purpose of sharing it with others – and that’s often the precise reason that users choose to use cloud storage – then you might require a process to distribute encryption keys to multiple participants. </p>
<p>This is where the hassle can start. People you share data with would need to get the key too, in some way or another. Once you share that key, how would you revoke it later on? How would you prevent it from being re-shared without your consent?</p>
<p>More importantly, how would you keep using the collaboration features offered by cloud providers, such as Google Docs, while working on encrypted files?</p>
<p>These are the key challenges ahead for cloud users and providers. Solutions to those challenges would truly be game-changing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adnene Guabtni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We have never been so connected and we are producing more data than ever before. But how can we manage our data effectively while making sure it remains safe?Adnene Guabtni, Senior Research Scientist/Engineer, Data61Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/700332017-01-04T03:37:10Z2017-01-04T03:37:10ZThe factories of the past are turning into the data centers of the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151599/original/image-20170103-18679-1y38re7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At one time, Bibles and Sears catalogs were printed here. Now, this building is known as the Lakeside Technology Center, one of the largest data centers in the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/teemu08/10556760306/in/photolist-4aW1vH-h5Sa3J-oucKCN-ngkFoP-7BvZi9-NHfZp-8nW7WW-c4pXnJ-3nNbui-8snbvj-8sj7Gp-4gni4P-h1PSB-6THe18-bWPhG2-2iA5c1-5X2LWe-51UaSK-51UaLV-e31Upn-oSLm6z-p9Z1oF-p8dzrL-inCXw-Bz8js-6mzro8-x74sd2-GU1u9K-x79jBF-8GrPAF-Bz8k2-Bzc1v-Bz8jJ-Bzc1K-eb6frA-6DvybV-3exr34-6DvybM-bV2Yxw-7ECaS-6g8PKH-81dUW3-2C8CH-nER3LU-8Q1rE7-3UmoUj">Teemu008/flicker</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We live in a data-driven world. From social media <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/14/fact-sheet-administration-announces-new-smart-cities-initiative-help">to smart cities</a> to <a href="https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/11/the-internet-of-things-bigger/">the internet of things</a>, we now generate huge volumes of information about nearly every detail of life. This has revolutionized everything from business to government to the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shelly-palmer/big-dating-its-a-data-science_b_6919594.html">pursuit of romance</a>. </p>
<p>We tend to focus our attention on what is new about the era of big data. But our digital present is in fact deeply connected to our industrial past. </p>
<p>In Chicago, where I teach and do research, I’ve been looking at the transformation of the city’s industrial building stock to serve the needs of the data industry. Buildings where workers once <a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20110108/ISSUE01/301089986/-200-million-data-center-planned-for-former-northern-trust-building-in-chicago">processed checks</a>, <a href="http://1547realty.com/datacenters/chicago-il/">baked bread</a> and <a href="http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/special-report-the-worlds-largest-data-centers/worlds-largest-data-center-350-e-cermak/">printed Sears catalogs</a> now stream Netflix and host servers engaged in financial trading. </p>
<p>The buildings themselves are a kind of witness to how the U.S. economy has changed. By observing these changes in the landscape, we get a better sense of how data exist in the physical realm. We are also struck with new questions about what the rise of an information-based economy means for the physical, social and economic development of cities. The decline of industry can actually create conditions ripe for growth – but the benefits of that growth may not reach everyone in the city. </p>
<h2>‘Factories of the 21st century’</h2>
<p>Data centers have been described as <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2011/Cool%20IT/dirty-data-report-greenpeace.pdf">the factories of the 21st century</a>. These facilities contain servers that store and process digital information. When we hear about data being stored “in the cloud,” those data are really being stored in a data center.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150392/original/image-20161215-26062-4psy6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Servers inside a data center.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">By Global Access Point, via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But contrary to the ephemeral-sounding term “cloud,” data centers are actually incredibly <a href="https://eta.lbl.gov/publications/united-states-data-center-energy">energy- and capital-intensive infrastructure</a>. Servers use tremendous amounts of electricity and generate large amounts of heat, which in turn requires extensive investments in cooling systems in order to keep servers operating. These facilities also need to be connected to fiber optic cables, which deliver information via beams of light. In most places, these cables – the “highway” part of the “information superhighway” – are buried along the rights of way provided by existing road and railroad networks. In other words, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/how-railroad-history-shaped-internet-history/417414/">the pathways of the internet are shaped by previous rounds of development</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150395/original/image-20161215-26068-1xp4mim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The interior of the Schulze Baking Company facility in 2016 showing some of the utility connections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graham Pickren</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An economy based on information, just like one based on manufacturing, still requires a human-made environment. For the data industry, taking advantage of the places that have the power capacity, the building stock, the fiber optic connectivity and the proximity to both customers and other data centers is often central to their real estate strategy. </p>
<h2>From analog to digital</h2>
<p>As this real estate strategy plays out, what is particularly fascinating is the way in which infrastructure constructed to meet the needs of a different era is now being repurposed for the data sector. </p>
<p>In Chicago’s South Loop sits the former R.R. Donnelley & Sons printing factory. At one time, it was one of the largest printers in the U.S., producing everything from Bibles to Sears catalogs. Now, it is <a href="http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/01/06/chicagos-data-fortress-for-the-digital-economy-2/">the Lakeside Technology Center</a>, one of the largest data centers in the world and the second-largest consumer of electricity in the state of Illinois. </p>
<p>The eight-story Gothic-style building is well-suited to the needs of a massive data center. Its vertical shafts, formerly used to haul heavy stacks of printed material between floors, are now used to run fiber optic cabling through the building. (Those cables come in from the railroad spur outside.) Heavy floors built to withstand the weight of printing presses are now used to support rack upon rack of server equipment. What was once the pinnacle of the analog world is now a central node in global financial networks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150393/original/image-20161215-26032-e4y62x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of printing press #D2, 1949. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company. Archive, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just a few miles south of Lakeside Technology Center is the former home of Schulze Baking Company in the South Side neighborhood of Washington Park. Once famous for its butternut bread, the five-story terra cotta bakery is currently being renovated into the Midway Technology Center, a data center. Like the South Loop printing factory, the Schulze bakery contains features useful to the data industry. The building also has heavy-load bearing floors as well as louvered windows designed to dissipate the heat from bread ovens – or, in this case, servers. </p>
<p>It isn’t just the building itself that makes Schulze desirable, but the neighborhood as a whole. A developer working on the Schulze redevelopment project told me that, because the surrounding area had been deindustrialized, and because a large public housing project had closed down in recent decades, the nearby power substations actually had plenty of idle capacity to meet the data center’s needs. </p>
<p>Examples of this “adaptive reuse” of industrial building stock abound. The former <a href="http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/content-tracks/design-build/qts-opens-data-center-at-former-chicago-sun-times-printing-site/96547.fullarticle">Chicago Sun-Times printing facility</a> became a 320,000-square-foot data center earlier last year. <a href="http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2016/08/10/digital-realty-buys-campus-in-tight-chicago-data-center-market/">A Motorola office building and former television factory</a> in the suburbs has been bought by one of the large data center companies. Even the once mighty retailer Sears, which has one of the largest real estate portfolios in the country, has <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/retailwire/2013/05/31/sears-replaces-retail-stores-with-data-centers/#29af472f6b0a">created a real estate division tasked with spinning off some of its stores into data center properties</a>. Beyond Chicago, Amazon is in the process of turning <a href="http://www.independent.ie/business/commercial-property/amazon-to-take-ireland-spend-past-1bn-with-new-data-centre-34143142.html">an old biscuit factory in Ireland</a> into a data center, and in New York, some of the world’s most significant data center properties are <a href="http://seeingnetworks.in/nyc/#places">housed in the former homes of Western Union and the Port Authority</a>, two giants of 20th-century modernity. </p>
<p>What we see here in these stories is the seesaw of urban development. As certain industries and regions decline, some of the infrastructure retains its value. That provides an opportunity for future savvy investors to seize upon.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151471/original/image-20161227-29218-b9q41c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151471/original/image-20161227-29218-b9q41c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151471/original/image-20161227-29218-b9q41c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151471/original/image-20161227-29218-b9q41c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151471/original/image-20161227-29218-b9q41c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151471/original/image-20161227-29218-b9q41c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151471/original/image-20161227-29218-b9q41c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Schulze Baking Company advertisement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Illinois Chicago Digital Collections</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150394/original/image-20161215-26051-5hupwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Schulze Baking Company operated on Chicago’s South Side from 1914–2004. The historic building is being turned into a data center.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graham Pickren</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Data centers and public policy</h2>
<p>What broader lessons can be drawn about the way our data-rich lives will transform our physical and social landscape?</p>
<p>First, there is the issue of labor and employment. Data centers generate tax revenues but don’t employ many people, so their relocation to places like Washington Park is unlikely to change the economic fortunes of local residents. If the data center is the “factory of the 21st century,” what will that mean for the working class?</p>
<p>Data centers are crucial to innovations such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/google-says-machine-learning-is-the-future-so-i-tried-it-myself">machine-learning</a>, which threatens to automate many routine tasks in both high and low-skilled jobs. By one measure, <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf">as much as 47 percent</a> of U.S. employment is at risk of being automated. Both low- and high-skilled jobs that are nonroutine – in other words, difficult to automate – are <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21700758-will-smarter-machines-cause-mass-unemployment-automation-and-anxiety">growing in the U.S</a>. Some of these jobs will be supported by data centers, freeing up workers from repetitive tasks so that they can focus on other skills. </p>
<p>On the flip side, employment in the manufacturing sector – which has provided so many people with a ladder into the middle class – <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/29/news/economy/us-manufacturing-jobs/">is in decline in terms of employment</a>. The data center embodies that economic shift, as data management enables the displacement of workers through offshoring and automation. </p>
<p>So buried within the question of what these facilities will mean for working people is the larger issue of the relationship between automation and the polarization of incomes. To paraphrase Joseph Schumpeter, data centers seem likely to both <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/10/your-money/half-a-century-later-economists-creative-destruction-theory-is.html">create and destroy</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150396/original/image-20161215-26068-1oz8nd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bakers working the conveyor belt at Schulze Baking Company, circa 1920. The new data center will employ significantly fewer workers than the bakery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">By Fred A. Behmer for the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company, via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, data centers present a public policy dilemma for local and state governments. Public officials around the world are eager to grease the skids of <a href="https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2013/june_2013/mayor_emanuel_launchesdatacenterexpresstohelpmakechicagothedesti.html">data center development</a>. </p>
<p>In many locations, generous tax incentives are often used to entice new data centers. <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/tech/states-competing-data-centers-extend-1-5b-tax-165147713.html">As the Associated Press reported last year</a>, state governments across the U.S. extended nearly US$1.5 billion in tax incentives to hundreds of data center projects nationwide during the past decade. For example, an <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2015/03/hillsboro_got_an_enterprise_zo.html">Oregon law</a> targeting data centers provides property tax relief on facilities, equipment, and employment for up to five years in exchange for creating one job. The costs and benefits of these kinds of subsidies have not been systematically studied.</p>
<p>More philosophically, as a geographer, I’ve been influenced by people like <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/64-the-limits-to-capital">David Harvey</a> and <a href="http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/uneven_development">Neil Smith</a>, who have theorized capitalist development as inherently uneven across time and space. Boom and bust, growth and decline: They are two sides of the same coin. </p>
<p>The implication here is that the landscapes we construct to serve the needs of today are always temporary. The smells of butternut bread defined part of everyday life in Washington Park for nearly a century. Today, data is in the ascendancy, constructing landscapes suitable to its needs. But those landscapes will also be impermanent, and predicting what comes next is difficult. Whatever the future holds for cities, we can be sure that what comes next will be a reflection of what came before it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graham Pickren does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Data centers are taking over the factories where workers once processed checks, baked bread and printed Bibles. What will the rise of the information-based economy mean for American cities?Graham Pickren, Assistant Professor of Sustainability Studies, Roosevelt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/656202016-09-21T23:00:24Z2016-09-21T23:00:24ZFeds: We can read all your email, and you’ll never know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138697/original/image-20160921-21691-wksiq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The feds say they can secretly read all your email.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-423265222/stock-photo-fbi-agent-working-on-his-computer-in-office.html">FBI agent with computer via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fear of hackers reading private emails in cloud-based systems like Microsoft Outlook, Gmail or Yahoo has recently sent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/politics/email-hacking-colin-powell-congress.html">regular people and public officials scrambling</a> to delete entire accounts full of messages dating back years. What we don’t expect is our own government to hack our email – but it’s happening. Federal court cases <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Index.html">going on right now</a> are revealing that federal officials can read all your email without your knowledge.</p>
<p>As a scholar and lawyer who started researching and writing about the history and meaning of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment">Fourth Amendment</a> to the Constitution <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Cunningham-MeaningsOfSearch.html">more than 30 years ago</a>, I immediately saw how the <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Index.html">FBI versus Apple controversy</a> earlier this year was <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/AppleAndTheAmericanRevolution-DraftAsOf7Sep.pdf">bringing the founders’ fight for liberty into the 21st century</a>. My study of that legal battle caused me to dig into the federal government’s actual practices for getting email from cloud accounts and cellphones, causing me to worry that our basic liberties are threatened.</p>
<h2>A new type of government search</h2>
<p>The federal government is getting access to the contents of entire email accounts by using an ancient procedure – the search warrant – with a new, sinister twist: secret court proceedings. </p>
<p>The earliest search warrants had a very limited purpose – authorizing entry to private premises to find and recover stolen goods. During the era of the American Revolution, <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/AppleAndTheAmericanRevolution-DraftAsOf7Sep.pdf">British authorities abused this power</a> to conduct dragnet searches of colonial homes and to seize people’s private papers looking for evidence of political resistance.</p>
<p>To prevent the new federal government from engaging in that sort of tyranny, special controls over search warrants were written into the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment">Fourth Amendment</a> to the Constitution. But these constitutional provisions are failing to protect our personal documents if they are stored in the cloud or on our smartphones.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the government’s efforts are finally being made public, thanks to legal battles taken up by Apple, Microsoft and other major companies. But the feds are fighting back, using even more subversive legal tactics.</p>
<h2>Searching in secret</h2>
<p>To get these warrants in the first place, the feds are using the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-121">Electronic Communications Privacy Act</a>, passed in 1986 – long before widespread use of cloud-based email and smartphones. That law allows the government to use a warrant to get electronic communications <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2703">from the company providing the service</a> – rather than the true owner of the email account, the person who uses it.</p>
<p>And the government <a href="http://harvardlpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Gagged-Sealed-and-Delivered.pdf">then usually asks that the warrant be “sealed,”</a> which means it won’t appear in public court records and will be hidden from you. Even worse, the law lets the government get what is called a “gag order,” a court ruling <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/GagOrders/GagOrderDecisions.html">preventing the company from telling you</a> it got a warrant for your email. </p>
<p>You might never know that the government has been reading all of your email – or you might find out when you get charged with a crime based on your messages. </p>
<h2>Microsoft steps up</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/news-event/apple-fbi-case">Much was written</a> about <a href="http://www.npr.org/series/469827708/the-apple-fbi-debate-over-encryption">Apple’s successful fight</a> earlier this year to prevent the FBI from forcing the company to <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/apple-vs-fbi-25241">break the iPhone’s security system</a>. </p>
<p>But relatively little notice has come to a similar <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/MicrosoftWDWash.html">Microsoft effort on behalf of customers</a> that began in April 2016. The <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/MicrosoftvUS-WDWash-1stAmendedComplaint.pdf">company’s suit</a> argued that search warrants delivered to Microsoft for customers’ emails are violating regular people’s constitutional rights. (It also argued that being gagged violates Microsoft’s own First Amendment rights.)</p>
<p>Microsoft’s suit, filed in Seattle, says that over the course of 20 months in 2015 and 2016, it received <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/MicrosoftvUS-WDWash-1stAmendedComplaint.pdf">more than 3,000 gag orders – and that more than two-thirds of the gag orders were effectively permanent</a>, because they did not include end dates. Court documents supporting Microsoft <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/MicrosoftWDWash-Amicus-Cloud.html">describe thousands more gag orders</a> issued against Google, Yahoo, Twitter and other companies. Remarkably, <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/MicrosoftvUS%28WDWash%29-FormerOfficialsAmicus.pdf">three former chief federal prosecutors</a>, who collectively had authority for the Seattle region for every year from 1989 to 2009, and the retired head of the FBI’s Seattle office have also joined forces to support Microsoft’s position.</p>
<h2>The feds get everything</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138123/original/image-20160916-17008-1eu91gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This search warrant clearly spells out who the government thinks controls email accounts – the provider, not the user.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s very difficult to get a copy of one of these search warrants, thanks to orders sealing files and gagging companies. But in <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft2dCir.html">another Microsoft lawsuit</a> against the government <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/USvMicrosoft-2dCir-warrant.pdf">a redacted warrant</a> was made part of the court record. It shows how the government asks for – and receives – the power to look at all of a person’s email.</p>
<p>On the first page of the warrant, the cloud-based email account is clearly treated as “premises” controlled by Microsoft, not by the email account’s owner:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“An application by a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government requests the search of the following … property located in the Western District of Washington, the premises known and described as the email account [REDACTED]@MSN.COM, which is controlled by Microsoft Corporation.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment">Fourth Amendment</a> requires that a search warrant must “particularly describe the things to be seized” and there must be “probable cause” based on sworn testimony that those particular things are evidence of a crime. But this warrant orders Microsoft to turn over “the contents of <strong>all</strong> e-mails stored in the account, including copies of e-mails sent from the account.” From the day the account was opened to the date of the warrant, everything must be handed over to the feds.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138124/original/image-20160916-17005-1kpmlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The warrant orders Microsoft to turn over every email in an account – including every sent message.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reading all of it</h2>
<p>In warrants like this, the government is deliberately not limiting itself to the constitutionally required “particular description” of the messages it’s looking for. To get away with this, it tells judges that incriminating emails can be hard to find – maybe even hidden with misleading names, dates and file attachments – so their computer forensic experts need access to the whole data base to work their magic. </p>
<p>If the government were serious about obeying the Constitution, when it asks for an entire email account, at least it would write into the warrant <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Waxse/HotmailCase.html">limits on its forensic analysis</a> so only emails that are evidence of a crime could be viewed. But this Microsoft warrant says an unspecified “variety of techniques may be employed to search the seized emails,” including “email by email review.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138125/original/image-20160916-16988-17ygblc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The right to read every email.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As I explain in a forthcoming paper, there is good reason to suspect this type of warrant is <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/AppleAndTheAmericanRevolution-DraftAsOf7Sep.pdf">the government’s usual approach</a>, not an exception.</p>
<p>Former federal computer-crimes prosecutor <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/ohm-paul.cfm">Paul Ohm</a> says <a href="http://www.virginialawreview.org/volumes/content/massive-hard-drives-general-warrants-and-power-magistrate-judges">almost every federal computer search warrant</a> lacks the required particularity. Another former prosecutor, <a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/orin-s-kerr">Orin Kerr</a>, who <a href="https://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1020905.files/SearchandSeizureDigital.pdf#page=49">wrote the first edition</a> of the <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/DOJ-Manual-Ch2.pdf">federal manual on searching computers</a>, agrees: “<a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2628586">Everything can be seized. Everything can be searched</a>.” Even some federal judges are calling attention to the problem, <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/WhatsWrongWithCellPhoneSearchWarrants.html">putting into print their objections to signing such warrants</a> – but unfortunately most <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Facciola/Facciola-RedactedMac.Com-DistrictJudge.pdf">judges seem all too willing to go along</a>.</p>
<h2>What happens next</h2>
<p>If Microsoft wins, then citizens will have the chance to see these search warrants and challenge the ways they violate the Constitution. But the government has come up with a clever – and sinister – argument for throwing the case out of court before it even gets started. </p>
<p>The government has asked the judge in the case to rule that Microsoft has <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/Microsoft%20v%20DOJ%20Motion%20to%20Dismiss.pdf">no legal right</a> to raise the Constitutional rights of its customers. Anticipating this move, the American Civil Liberties Union <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/MicrosoftvDOJ-ACLUProposedIntervention.pdf">asked to join the lawsuit</a>, saying it uses Outlook and wants notice if Microsoft were served with a warrant for its email. </p>
<p>The government’s response? The ACLU has no right to sue because it <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/US%20v%20Microsoft%20Docket%2033-DOJBriefInOppositionToACLUIntervention.pdf">can’t prove that there has been or will be a search warrant</a> for its email. Of course the point of the lawsuit is to protect citizens who can’t prove they are subject to a search warrant because of the secrecy of the whole process. The government’s position is that no one in America has the legal right to challenge the way prosecutors are using this law.</p>
<h2>Far from the only risk</h2>
<p>The government is taking a similar approch to smartphone data. </p>
<p>For example, in the case of <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/USvRavelo.html">U.S. v. Ravelo</a>, pending in Newark, New Jersey, the government used a search warrant to download the entire contents of a lawyer’s personal cellphone – more than 90,000 items <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Ravelo/Ravelo-LtrFromFilterProsecutor-19Feb2016.pdf">including text messages, emails, contact lists and photos</a>. When the phone’s owner <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Ravelo/Ravelo-MotionToSuppress-29Apr2016.pdf">complained to a judge</a>, the <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Ravelo/Ravelo-MotionToSuppress-GovtResponse-23May2016.pdf">government argued</a> it could look at everything (except for privileged lawyer-client communications) before the court even issued a ruling. </p>
<p>The federal prosecutor for New Jersey, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/meet-us-attorney">Paul Fishman</a>, has gone even farther, telling the judge that once the government has cloned the cellphone it gets to keep the copies it has of all 90,000 items <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Ravelo/Ravelo-MotionToSuppress-GovtSupplementalResponse-12July2016.pdf">even if the judge rules that the cellphone search violated</a> the Constitution.</p>
<p>Where does this all leave us now? The judge in <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/USvRavelo.html">Ravelo</a> is expected to issue a preliminary ruling on the feds’ arguments sometime in October. The government will be filing a final brief on its motion to dismiss <a href="http://clarkcunningham.org/Apple/Cases/Microsoft/MicrosoftWDWash.html">the Microsoft case</a> September 23. All Americans should be watching carefully to what happens next in these cases – the government may be already watching you without your knowledge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clark D. Cunningham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We don’t expect our own government to hack our email – but it’s happening, in secret, and if current court cases go badly, we may never know how often.Clark D. Cunningham, W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics; Director, National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641682016-08-31T00:11:19Z2016-08-31T00:11:19ZWhere’s your data? It’s not actually in the cloud, it’s sitting in a data centre<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135869/original/image-20160830-28244-11da7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The new Equinix SY4 data centre in Alexandria sure doesn't look like a cloud from the outside.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Equinix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Without data centres, today’s world stops. Flights are grounded, Wall Street closes, and the internet grinds to a halt. Yet despite their emergence as nerve centres of the global economy, data centres have drawn almost no attention in debates about globalisation and nor are they often discussed outside of business and IT publications. </p>
<p>Even the recent debate on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/census-website-cracks-after-malicious-attack-by-hackers-63734">bungling of the digital census</a> managed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics focused on questions surrounding possible distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. </p>
<p>This was despite mention of <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/census-website-attacked-by-hackers-abs-claims-20160809-gqouum.html">hardware failures</a> as well as inadequate redundancy and load testing, which are problems that stem from operations within data centres. </p>
<p>Data centres provide governments and industry with advantages in terms of improving website and internet service speed, providing access to technical and security services and expertise, and cutting labour and hardware costs. </p>
<p>Consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan forecasts that the Australian data centre services market will <a href="http://ww2.frost.com/news/press-releases/australian-data-centre-market-offers-sizeable-growth-opportunities-says-frost-sullivan/">grow by 12.4% a year</a> to 2022.</p>
<p>Much of this growth will be driven by regular internet users. If you use social media sites, Google applications, web-based mail services, or just carry a smartphone, you have your data stored in a data centre. </p>
<p>Even if you only very occasionally use the internet, you still have data stored about you: all <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/metadata-6464">metadata</a> of people residing in Australia is now legally required to be stored by internet service providers for <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/new-data-retention-laws-begin-today-this-is-what-you-need-to-know/news-story/28ea2dc1b01d15e53f474e21b6d68501">two years</a>. </p>
<h2>Where’s your data?</h2>
<p>But where are these data – your data – being stored? Ask someone in Australia where everything they’ve ever uploaded to social media is actually located, and they are more likely to say “in the cloud” than “in a data centre”. </p>
<p>Although cloud technologies make it difficult to pinpoint data to a particular data centre, the reality is that data centres are never too far from us. </p>
<p>They are in our cities, suburbs and occasionally in rural and remote locations. In order to investigate the data centres near us we began looking in the inner Sydney suburb of Alexandria.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d13245.119840178884!2d151.18309779261108!3d-33.908193531849534!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x6b12b1b436d0496b%3A0x5017d681632ab30!2sAlexandria+NSW+2015!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sau!4v1472434044556" width="100%" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>Most Sydneysiders are aware of the ongoing transformation of Alexandria, which includes parts of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/move-over-suburbia-green-square-offers-new-norm-for-urban-living-57633">urban renewal project called Green Square</a>. </p>
<p>In the 1940s it was the country’s densest industrial area: more than <a href="http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/195642/8928_Green-Square-History-Booklet-A5_FA1.pdf">22,000 people were documented to be working in 550 factories</a> that were crammed into a 4km-square boundary. </p>
<p>Today the suburb is best known for its warehouse apartments, tech industries, offices, commercial businesses and showrooms. The industrial look of the suburb has largely been retained thanks to a <a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/heritagesearch.aspx">large number of heritage-listed buildings</a>.</p>
<p>A lesser-known fact about Alexandria is one that is shaping its current development phase: it is one of the places you need to be if you want the fastest connectivity in Australia. </p>
<p>Alexandria, along with Brookvale on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, is where the Southern Cross Cable network “lands” in the country. This cable is one of five that sit above the ocean floor to connect Australia with the rest of the world. </p>
<p>As New York University’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-our-wi-fi-world-the-internet-still-depends-on-undersea-cables-49936">Nicole Starosielski</a> has explained on The Conversation, “undersea cables transport almost 100% of transoceanic data traffic”. </p>
<p>Few people know that Alexandria plays a role in connecting them to rest of the world, transmitting data through telecommunication networks. </p>
<p>This is not surprising. Neither the landing port nor the suburb’s cluster of data centres are easy to find. </p>
<p>Taking a walking tour around the data centres of Alexandria requires research and planning. Data centres generally do not have a company name on their front gates. They are secured by guards and surveillance technologies.</p>
<p>We decided to explore Alexandria by focusing on one company that has four data centres in the area, including a recently opened facility that will become one of the country’s largest data storage and processing plants.</p>
<p>Equinix is a US corporation that operates some 145 data centres across five continents. These data centres are “carrier-neutral”, which means they operate independently from the companies that interconnect within them. </p>
<p>Among Equinix’s clients are cloud service providers such as <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/">Amazon Web Services</a> and <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/">Microsoft Azure</a>. </p>
<p>Equinix bills its data centres as “international business exchanges”. Peering services like those offered by Equinix allow companies to enhance speed and obtain a competitive advantage by connecting directly with each other inside its facilities rather than having to establish links over the much slower public internet. High-frequency trading is one financial sector that benefits from such arrangements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135871/original/image-20160830-28253-9fzfhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Servers in the Equinix SY4 facility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Equinix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Equinix’s four Alexandria data centres are spread along Bourke Road. One is housed in a <a href="http://sydneyyoursay.com.au/industrial-and-warehouse-heritage-listings-and-conservation-areas/documents/22774/download">refurbished warehouse</a> designed by renowned architect Harry Seidler in the late 1960s. </p>
<p>The recently opened facility, dubbed SY4, will almost double the company’s capacity in Australia. A <a href="http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/208595/140724_CSPC_ITEM04.pdf">development application</a> submitted in 2014 details plans for power supply, water management and noise control. </p>
<p>The document states that the “data centre is to provide 24/7 mission critical services to business customers by providing a secure and reliable location for the ‘co-locating’ of their equipment”.</p>
<h2>Bricks and mortar</h2>
<p>An argument can be made that the public doesn’t really need to know where data centres like those in Alexandria are located. After all, much of the data they store, process and transmit are private and confidential. </p>
<p>However, since data centres comprise a growing global industry that provides critical social and economic infrastructure we think they warrant research. </p>
<p>Governments spend a great deal of resources <a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-critical-infrastructure-in-a-world-of-infinite-attacks-37511">safeguarding critical infrastructure</a>. The protection of data and information systems is now included in this work. </p>
<p>However, the focus for data security is on the development of software, as though we have forgotten that data storage happens in real places on the ground – and not in “virtual” clouds. </p>
<p>Not knowing where data centres are located, or indeed what they actually do, prevents us from having conversations about how this infrastructure is governed, supported and protected. </p>
<p>We need to ask how data centres can and will impact on the economy, different industries, government policy, society and the environment. </p>
<p>Becoming acquainted with these facilities is a first step to understanding their role in shaping how digital communication and content are stored, used and moved around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brett Neilson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ned Rossiter receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Notley receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Without data centres the world stops. We explored the inner Sydney suburb of Alexandria to learn more about these critical infrastructures.Brett Neilson, Professor of Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityNed Rossiter, Professor of Communication., Western Sydney UniversityTanya Notley, Lecturer in Internet Studies & Convergent Media, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610032016-06-16T20:04:04Z2016-06-16T20:04:04ZApple iOS 10 v Google Android: which is leading the way?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126655/original/image-20160615-22386-rtsabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Apple's new iOS 10 includes a slew of new features.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Apple</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Both Apple and Google use their developer conferences to introduce updates to their mobile operating systems. Google IO, held last month, <a href="http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/google-io-1307820">introduced</a> Google’s latest version “N” of Android, along with new apps. </p>
<p>Apple has done the same this week at its World Wide Developer Conference, <a href="https://theconversation.com/apple-emphasises-social-responsibility-and-new-features-but-is-superficial-on-both-61008">introducing</a> iOS 10.</p>
<p>While both Apple and Google are likely to be monitoring each others’ releases to stay competitive, there is a big difference underlying the Android and iOS approaches to feature development that means their respective focus will also differ. </p>
<p>Google has little control over hardware and the rate at which OS versions are released on the vast array of Android phones. It can take years before a new version will reach a significant proportion of Android users, if at all. </p>
<p>Android Marshmallow (version 6), released in 2015, is still <a href="http://www.droid-life.com/2016/06/07/android-distribution-update-june-2016-marshmallow-jumps-past-10/#more-187406">only on</a> 10% of devices. Apple’s iOS 9, also released last year, <a href="https://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/">is on</a> 86% of devices.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126636/original/image-20160615-22416-1libd9m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Apple has recently announced iOS 10.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Apple</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another important difference driving the design of features is the range of devices that each company targets. Google’s software is designed to run on a range of operating systems and not just Android, whereas iOS apps are tied into the particular release of the operating system software.</p>
<p>What is possibly a more distinguishing difference is the way Apple has emphasised the integration of third-party apps into its own applications. <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201287">iMessage</a>, for example, will come with an “app drawer” that can do everything from providing custom animations to allowing users to exchange money or pay for services and products. </p>
<p>Google, on the other hand, has released “<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.fireball&hl=en">Allo</a>”, which is a self-contained messaging app, albeit with some clever predictive awareness built in. </p>
<p>Apple Maps gets upgraded in iOS 10 but still generally lags behind <a href="https://www.google.com.au/maps/">Google Maps</a>. As with iMessage, Apple is expecting developers to add functionality to Maps to make it truly useful. </p>
<p>In the meantime, Apple has added traffic information (for certain countries) and alternative routes based on that information; features Google Maps has had for some time. </p>
<p>Changes to Apple <a href="http://www.apple.com/au/osx/apps/#photos">Photos</a> brings it more into line with Google’s <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.photos&hl=en">Photos</a> app. Photos will be automatically arranged into suggested albums based on a range of information including automatically recognised faces. Photos will also create automatic presentations with accompanying music to create “memories”. Again, this is similar to features in Google Photos. </p>
<h2>Clouds and watches</h2>
<p>An important distinction in approaches that may not be obvious is how much processing happens on the phone itself rather than on the cloud. </p>
<p>Apple can take advantage of the enormous processing power of its phones and do a great deal of its processing locally, whereas Google does much of this type of processing on the cloud. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126653/original/image-20160615-22377-4xs4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Android N is coming soon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sham Hardy/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This means that Apple can ensure greater privacy and security as the information never leaves the phone. Theoretically, law enforcement agencies could intercept Google’s process of facial recognition by gaining access to that information on their servers, something that they would not be able to do with Apple’s approach.</p>
<p>Apple has enhanced its use of information on the lock screen, including what can be done directly from those notifications. This coincides with Google’s revamped <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/hands-on-with-android-n-increased-customization-better-notifications-and-more/">notifications</a> in Android N.</p>
<p>Google and Apple also announced upgrades to their respective watch OSs. Google upgraded <a href="https://www.android.com/intl/en_au/wear/">Android Wear</a> to version 2.0 and Apple’s <a href="http://www.apple.com/watchos-preview/">watchOS</a> goes to version 3.0. In Apple’s case, watchOS gets huge speed-ups (which it really needed), and the ability for apps on the watch to update in the background, in preparation for being launched. </p>
<p>Another intriguing feature not available on Android Wear 2.9 is Apple’s SOS app, which allows the watch to automatically dial emergency services and provide updates to them on the wearer’s location. </p>
<p>The watch will then notify pre-configured contacts and let them know that the SOS button has been activated. This feature still relies on the wearer having their phone available but could prove incredibly useful as an alternative to panic buttons that are provided to the elderly in case of emergencies. </p>
<p>It could also be useful in cases of personal security as activating a feature via the watch in an emergency may be much easier than through the phone.</p>
<p>Other features introduced for watchOS 3 include the ability to “scribble” messages – another feature already available on Android Wear. </p>
<p>Any user of Android on one of the latest phones and a user of iOS would in essence be likely to do the same things on either platform. </p>
<p>If you really value security and privacy, Apple would have the edge. If you use other Apple products, using an Android phone would put you at more of a disadvantage. In all other events, either set of users could answer any “I can do this” with a “me too”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Glance owns shares in Apple.</span></em></p>Apple has announced its next generation iOS 10, but how does it stack up to the latest Android offering from Google?David Glance, Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/547962016-06-03T01:02:30Z2016-06-03T01:02:30ZUsing lasers to make data storage faster than ever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124210/original/image-20160526-22083-afpj7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Optical elements of the experimental setup allowing to obtain visible-spectrum laser pulses as short as 10 femtoseconds.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Dr. R. Borrego-Varillas and Prof. G. Cerullo, University Politecnico Milan (Italy)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we use <a href="https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/mobile-white-paper-c11-520862.html">more and more data every year</a>, where will we have room to store it all? Our rapidly increasing demand for web apps, file sharing and social networking, among other services, relies on information storage in the “cloud” – always-on Internet-connected remote servers that store, manage and process data. This in turn has led to a pressing need for faster, smaller and more energy-efficient devices to perform those cloud tasks. </p>
<p>Two of the three key elements of cloud computing, microchips and communications connections, are getting ever faster, smaller and more efficient. My research activity has implications for the third: data storage on hard drives.</p>
<p>Computers process data, at its most fundamental level, in ones and zeroes. Hard disks store information by changing the local magnetization in a small region of the disk: its direction up or down corresponds to a “1” or “0” value in binary machine language.</p>
<p>The smaller the area of a disk needed to store a piece of information, the more information can be stored in a given space. A way to store information in a particularly tiny area is by taking advantage of the fact that individual electrons possess magnetization, which is called their spin. The research field of spin electronics, or “spintronics,” works on developing the ability to control the direction of electrons’ spins in a faster and more energy efficient way.</p>
<h2>Shining light on magnets</h2>
<p>I work to control electrons’ spins using extremely short laser pulses – one quadrillionth of a second in duration, or one “femtosecond.” Beyond just enabling smaller storage, lasers allow dramatically faster storage and retrieval of data. The speed comparison between today’s technology and femtosecond spintronics is like comparing the fastest bullet train on Earth to the speed of light.</p>
<p>In addition, if the all-optical method is used to store information in materials that are transparent to light, little or no heating occurs – a huge benefit given the economic and environmental costs presented by the need for <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3022">massive data-center cooling systems</a>.</p>
<h2>Ultrafast laser-control of magnetism</h2>
<p>A decade ago, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature03564">studies</a> first demonstrated that laser pulses could control electron spins to write data and could monitor the spins to read stored data. Doing this involved measuring tiny oscillations in the electrons’ magnetization. After those early investigations, researchers believed – wrongly, as it turned out – that lasers could not affect or detect fluctuations smaller than the wavelength of the lasers’ own light. If this were true, it would not be possible to control magnets on a scale as short as one nanometer (one millionth of a millimeter) in as little time as a femtosecond. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124212/original/image-20160526-22050-q96qun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124212/original/image-20160526-22050-q96qun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124212/original/image-20160526-22050-q96qun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124212/original/image-20160526-22050-q96qun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124212/original/image-20160526-22050-q96qun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124212/original/image-20160526-22050-q96qun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124212/original/image-20160526-22050-q96qun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artistic representation of laser-induced modulation of electronic spins, which are represented by the red arrows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Dr. D. Afanasiev and Prof. A.V. Kimel, Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Very recently an international team of researchers of which I am a member has provided an <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10645">experimental demonstration</a> that such a limitation does not actually exist. We were able to affect magnets on as small as one nanometer in length, as quickly as every 45 femtoseconds. That’s one ten-millionth the size, and more than 20,000 times as fast as today’s hard drives operate.</p>
<p>This suggests that future devices may be able to work with processing speeds as fast as 22 THz – 1,000 times faster than today’s GHz clock speeds in commercial computers. And devices could be far smaller, too.</p>
<h2>Novel scientific frontiers</h2>
<p>In addition to the practical effects on modern computing, the scientific importance of this research is significant. Conventional theories and experiments about magnetism assume that materials are in what is called “equilibrium,” a condition in which the quantities defining a system (temperature, pressure, magnetization) are either constant or changing only very slowly.</p>
<p>However, sending in a femtosecond laser pulse disrupts a magnet’s equilibrium. This lets us study magnetic materials in real time when they are not at rest, opening new frontiers for fundamental research. Already, we have seen <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.4250">exotic phenomena such as loss</a> or even <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.047601">reversal of magnetization</a>. These <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09901">defy our current understanding of magnetism</a> because they are impossible in equilibrium states. Other phenomena are likely to be discovered with further research.</p>
<p>Innovative science begins with a vision: a scientist is a dreamer who is able to imagine phenomena not observed yet. The scientific community involved in the research area of ultrafast magnetism is working on a big leap forward. It would be a development that doesn’t mean just faster laptops but always-on, connected computing that is significantly faster, smaller and cheaper than today’s systems. In addition, the storage mechanisms won’t generate as much heat, requiring far less cooling of data centers – which is a significant cost both financially and environmentally. Achieving those new capabilities requires us to push the frontier of fundamental knowledge even farther, and paves the way to technologies we cannot yet imagine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Davide Bossini does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The speed comparison between today’s technology and femtosecond spintronics is like comparing the fastest bullet train on Earth to the speed of light.Davide Bossini, Postdoctoral Researcher in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, University of TokyoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/547982016-03-23T10:08:02Z2016-03-23T10:08:02ZBig data security problems threaten consumers’ privacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115152/original/image-20160315-9246-29vu6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who has your personal data, and how secure is it? Do you even know?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-237254344/stock-photo-chained-credit-cards-security-lock-with-password-phishing-protection-concept.html?src=csl_recent_image-1">Card and lock image from shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As more personal information is collected up by ever-more-powerful computers, giant sets of data – big data – have become available for not only legitimate uses but also abuses.</p>
<p>Big data has an enormous potential to revolutionize our lives with its predictive power. Imagine a future in which you know what your weather will be like with 95 percent accuracy 48 hours ahead of time. But due to the possibility of malicious use, there are both security and privacy threats of big data you should be concerned about, especially as you spend more time on the Internet. </p>
<p>What threats are emerging? How should we address these growing concerns without denying society the benefits big data can bring?</p>
<h2>The size of the potential problem</h2>
<p>First of all, due to the sheer scale of people involved in big data security incidents, the stakes are higher than ever. When the professional development system at Arkansas University was breached in 2014, just <a href="http://www.astate.edu/news/arkansas-state-reports-data-breach-related-to-dhs-childhood-services">50,000 people were affected</a>. That’s a large number, but compare it with 145 million people whose birth dates, home and email addresses, and other information were stolen in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/05/21/ebay-asks-145-million-users-to-change-passwords-after-data-breach/">data breach at eBay</a> that same year.</p>
<p>From the perspective of a security professional, protecting big data sets is also more daunting. This is partly due to the nature of the underlying technologies used to store and process the information. </p>
<p>Big data companies like Amazon heavily rely on distributed computing, which typically involves data centers geographically dispersed across the whole world. Amazon divides its <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/">global operations into 12 regions</a> each containing multiple data centers and being potentially subject to both physical attacks and persistent cyberattacks against the tens of thousands of individual servers housed inside.</p>
<h2>Difficulties with access control</h2>
<p>One of the best strategies for controlling access to information or physical space is having a single access point, which is much easier to secure than hundreds of them. The fact that big data is stored in such widely spread places runs against this principle. Its vulnerability is far higher because of its size, distribution and broad range of access.</p>
<p>In addition, many sophisticated software components do not take security seriously enough, including parts of companies’ big data infrastructure. This opens a further avenue of potential attack.</p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://hadoop.apache.org/">Hadoop</a> is a collection of software components that allows programmers to process a large amount of data in a distributed computing infrastructure. When first introduced, Hadoop had very <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2498601/business-intelligence/it-must-prepare-for-hadoop-security-issues.html">basic security features</a> suitable for a system used by only a few users. Many big companies have adopted Hadoop as their corporate data platform, despite the fact that its access control mechanism wasn’t designed for large-scale adoption. </p>
<h2>Consumer demand drives security and privacy</h2>
<p>For consumers, then, it is critical to demand a heightened level of security through vehicles such as terms and conditions, service level agreements, and security trust seals from organizations collecting and using big data. </p>
<p>What can companies do to protect personal information? Countermeasures such as encryption, access control, intrusion detection, backups, auditing and corporate procedures can prevent data from being breached and falling into the wrong hands. As such, security can promote your privacy.</p>
<p>At the same time, heightened security can also hurt your privacy: it can provide legitimate excuses to collect more private information such as employees’ web surfing history on work computers.</p>
<p>When law enforcement agencies collect information in the name of improved security, everyone is treated as a potential criminal or terrorist, whose information may eventually be used against them. The authorities already know a lot about us but could ask companies such as Apple, Google and Amazon to provide more intelligence such as a decrypted version of our data, what search terms we are using and what we are buying online. </p>
<p>The fundamental security principle used to justify this type of blanket surveillance (which is now more affordable and feasible due to the use of big data technologies) is “nobody can be trusted.” Once collected, those data join the rest of the information in being susceptible to abuse and breaches, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/nsa-snooping/">as demonstrated in snooping incidents involving National Security Agency employees</a>.</p>
<p>And yet when used properly, big data can help enhance your privacy by allowing more information to be leveraged and eventually improve the quality (especially, the accuracy) of intelligence on potential attacks and attackers in cyberspace. </p>
<p>For example, in an ideal world we don’t have to worry about fraudulent emails (also called <a href="https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0003-phishing">phishing</a>) because a big data analytics engine would be able to pick out malicious emails with pinpoint accuracy.</p>
<h2>How big data is used – for you or against you</h2>
<p>There are also other privacy concerns about big data. Companies are eager to deliver targeted advertising to you and tracking your every online move. Big data makes this tracking easier to do, less expensive and more easily analyzed. </p>
<p>A service like IBM’s <a href="http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/personality-insights.html">Personality Insights</a> can build a detailed profile of you, moving well beyond basic demographics or location information. Your online habits can reveal aspects of your personality, such as whether you are outgoing, environmentally conscious, politically conservative or enjoy travel in Africa.</p>
<p>Industry representatives make benign claims about this capability, saying <a href="http://www.activedigital.co.uk/news-events/news-blog/digital-profiling-will-improve-customer-experience/">it improves users’ online experiences</a>. But it is not hard to imagine that the same information could be very easily used against us. </p>
<p>For example, insurance companies could start questioning coverage to consumers based on these sorts of big-data profiles, <a href="http://dataconomy.com/how-big-data-is-changing-the-insurance-industry-forever/">which has already begun to happen</a>.</p>
<p>Banning large-scale data collection is unlikely to be a realistic option to <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/09/data_use_regulation_the_libertarian_push_behind_a_new_take_on_privacy.html">solve the problem</a>. Whether we like it or not, the age of big data has already arrived. We should find the best way of protecting our privacy while allowing legitimate uses of big data, which can make our lives much safer, richer and more productive. </p>
<p>For example, when used legitimately and securely, big data technology can drastically improve the <a href="https://theconversation.com/machine-learning-and-big-data-know-it-wasnt-you-who-just-swiped-your-credit-card-48561">effectiveness of fraud detection</a>, which, in turn, frees us from worrying about stolen identities and potential monetary loss.</p>
<p>Transparency is the key to letting us harness the power of big data while addressing its security and privacy challenges. Handlers of big data should disclose information on what they gather and for what purposes. </p>
<p>In addition, consumers must know how the data is stored, who has access to it and how that access is granted. Finally, big data companies can earn public trust by giving specific explanations about the security controls they use to protect the data they manage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jungwoo Ryoo receives funding from National Science Foundation (NSF). </span></em></p>How should we address growing concerns about information security without denying society the benefits big data can bring?Jungwoo Ryoo, Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Altoona campus, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/485612015-11-25T17:25:30Z2015-11-25T17:25:30ZMachine learning and big data know it wasn’t you who just swiped your credit card<p>You’re sitting at home minding your own business when you get a call from your credit card’s fraud detection unit asking if you’ve just made a purchase at a department store in your city. It wasn’t you who bought expensive electronics using your credit card – in fact, it’s been in your pocket all afternoon. So how did the bank know to flag this single purchase as most likely fraudulent?</p>
<p>Credit card companies have a vested interest in identifying financial transactions that are illegitimate and criminal in nature. The stakes are high. According to the <a href="https://www.frbservices.org/files/communications/pdf/research/2013_payments_study_summary.pdf">Federal Reserve Payments Study</a>, Americans used credit cards to pay for 26.2 billion purchases in 2012. The estimated loss due to unauthorized transactions that year was <a href="https://www.frbservices.org/files/communications/pdf/research/2013_payments_study_summary.pdf">US$6.1 billion</a>. The federal <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/fcb.pdf">Fair Credit Billing Act</a> limits the maximum liability of a credit card owner to <a href="http://www.consumer-action.org/english/articles/questions_and_answers_about_credit_card_fraud/#Topic_07">$50</a> for unauthorized transactions, leaving credit card companies on the hook for the balance. Obviously fraudulent payments can have a big effect on the companies’ bottom lines. The industry requires any vendors that process credit cards to <a href="https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org">go through security audits</a> every year. But that doesn’t stop all fraud.</p>
<p>In the banking industry, measuring risk is critical. The overall goal is to figure out what’s fraudulent and what’s not as quickly as possible, before too much financial damage has been done. So how does it all work? And who’s winning in the arms race between the thieves and the financial institutions?</p>
<h2>Gathering the troops</h2>
<p>From the consumer perspective, fraud detection can seem magical. The process appears instantaneous, with no human beings in sight. This apparently seamless and instant action involves a number of sophisticated technologies in areas ranging from finance and economics to law to information sciences.</p>
<p>Of course, there are some relatively straightforward and simple detection mechanisms that don’t require advanced reasoning. For example, one good indicator of fraud can be an inability to provide the correct zip code affiliated with a credit card when it’s used at an unusual location. But fraudsters are adept at bypassing this kind of routine check – after all, finding out a victim’s zip code could be as simple as doing a Google search.</p>
<p>Traditionally, detecting fraud relied on data analysis techniques that required significant human involvement. An algorithm would flag suspicious cases to be closely reviewed ultimately by human investigators who may even have called the affected cardholders to ask if they’d actually made the charges. Nowadays the companies are dealing with a constant deluge of so many transactions that they need to rely on big data analytics for help. Emerging technologies such as machine learning and cloud computing are stepping up the detection game.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103208/original/image-20151125-23821-1hjs8kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It takes a lot of computing power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/airforceone/2472281967">Stefano Petroni</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Learning what’s legit, what’s shady</h2>
<p>Simply put, machine learning refers to self-improving algorithms, which are predefined processes conforming to specific rules, performed by a computer. A computer starts with a model and then trains it through trial and error. It can then make predictions such as the risks associated with a financial transaction.</p>
<p>A machine learning algorithm for fraud detection needs to be trained first by being fed the normal transaction data of lots and lots of cardholders. Transaction sequences are an example of this kind of training data. A person may typically pump gas one time a week, go grocery shopping every two weeks and so on. The algorithm learns that this is a normal transaction sequence.</p>
<p>After this fine-tuning process, credit card transactions are run through the algorithm, ideally in real time. It then produces a probability number indicating the possibility of a transaction being fraudulent (for instance, 97%). If the fraud detection system is configured to block any transactions whose score is above, say, 95%, this assessment could immediately trigger a card rejection at the point of sale.</p>
<p>The algorithm considers many factors to qualify a transaction as fraudulent: trustworthiness of the vendor, a cardholder’s purchasing behavior including time and location, IP addresses, etc. The more data points there are, the more accurate the decision becomes. </p>
<p>This process makes just-in-time or real-time fraud detection possible. No person can evaluate thousands of data points simultaneously and make a decision in a split second.</p>
<p>Here’s a typical scenario. When you go to a cashier to check out at the grocery store, you swipe your card. Transaction details such as time stamp, amount, merchant identifier and membership tenure go to the card issuer. These data are fed to the algorithm that’s learned your purchasing patterns. Does this particular transaction fit your behavioral profile, consisting of many historic purchasing scenarios and data points?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103207/original/image-20151125-23830-1qjsvsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I buy gas only during daylight hours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/colorblindpicaso/3502628098">Christopher</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The algorithm knows right away if your card is being used at the restaurant you go to every Saturday morning – or at a gas station two time zones away at an odd time such as 3:00 a.m. It also checks if your transaction sequence is out of the ordinary. If the card is suddenly used for cash-advance services twice on the same day when the historic data show no such use, this behavior is going to up the fraud probability score. If the transaction’s fraud score is above a certain threshold, often after a quick human review, the algorithm will communicate with the point-of-sale system and ask it to reject the transaction. Online purchases go through the same process.</p>
<p>In this type of system, heavy human interventions are becoming a thing of the past. In fact, they could actually be in the way since the reaction time will be much longer if a human being is too heavily involved in the fraud-detection cycle. However, people can still play a role – either when validating a fraud or following up with a rejected transaction. When a card is being denied for multiple transactions, a person can call the cardholder before canceling the card permanently.</p>
<h2>Computer detectives, in the cloud</h2>
<p>The sheer number of financial transactions to process is overwhelming, truly, in the realm of big data. But machine learning thrives on mountains of data – more information actually increases the accuracy of the algorithm, helping to eliminate false positives. These can be triggered by suspicious transactions that are really legitimate (for instance, a card used at an unexpected location). Too many alerts are as bad as none at all.</p>
<p>It takes a lot of computing power to churn through this volume of data. For instance, PayPal processes more than <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/08/25/paypal-fights-fraud-with-machine-learning-and-human-detectives/">1.1 petabytes of data for 169 million customer accounts</a> at any given moment. This abundance of data – one petabyte, for instance, is more than <a href="http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/What-does-a-petabyte-look-like">200,000 DVDs’</a> worth – has a positive influence on the algorithms’ machine learning, but can also be a burden on an organization’s computing infrastructure.</p>
<p>Enter cloud computing. Off-site computing resources can play an important role here. Cloud computing is scalable and not limited by the company’s own computing power.</p>
<p>Fraud detection is an arms race between good guys and bad guys. At the moment, the good guys seem to be gaining ground, with emerging innovations in IT technologies such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/chip-enabled-cards-may-curb-fraud-but-consumers-will-be-picking-up-the-tab-48410">chip and pin technologies</a>, combined with encryption capabilities, machine learning, big data and, of course, cloud computing.</p>
<p>Fraudsters will surely continue trying to outwit the good guys and challenge the limits of the fraud detection system. Drastic changes in the payment paradigms themselves are another hurdle. Your phone is now capable of storing credit card information and can be used to make payments wirelessly – introducing new vulnerabilities. Luckily, the current generation of fraud detection technology is largely neutral to the payment system technologies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jungwoo Ryoo receives funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Eun-Kyeong Kim, PhD candidate in Geography at Penn State, assisted with a literature review for this article.</span></em></p>The end-of-year shopping whirlwind is underway. How does your credit card issuer watch out for fraudulent purchases on your account amid all those transactions?Jungwoo Ryoo, Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Altoona campus, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/508892015-11-20T05:45:17Z2015-11-20T05:45:17ZAre we ready for a world even more connected in the Internet of Things?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102605/original/image-20151120-10452-tr2pxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We are already connected in many ways through technology, and we're about to get a lot more connected.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/15693478146/">Flickr/kris krug</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a world that is even more connected technologically than ours today.</p>
<p>That’s what the Australian Communications and Media Authority (<a href="http://www.acma.gov.au/">ACMA</a>) has done this week with a very timely occasional <a href="http://www.acma.gov.au/theacma/internet-of-things-and-the-acmas-areas-of-focus-occasional-paper">paper on the Internet of Things</a> (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/internet-of-things">IoT</a>). As well as identifying issues of direct concern to the ACMA, the paper also includes an overview of the technology and its capabilities.</p>
<p>The IoT is the bringing together of a very large numbers of devices, data and computing power through the internet. The internet at the moment usually has a human at one or both ends of the communication. In the IoT, most communications will have sensors, actuators, databases or cloud-based computing process at either end. </p>
<p>It is the linking of data from a large numbers of devices to the tremendous computing power of the cloud that makes the IoT so interesting. Sensor networks and machine-to-machine communication have been around for quite some time now, but has mostly been over the cellular telephony network or over short range, mesh networks such as <a href="http://www.zigbee.org/">ZigBee</a>.</p>
<p>Generally, the processing of data generated by these networks has been reasonably straightforward, such as pollution monitoring or device tracking. But the linking of these devices to the internet opens up many new possibilities. Large scale deployment of sensor networks will generate vast amounts of data which can be moved via the internet to be processed using the huge resources of cloud computing. </p>
<h2>Many applications</h2>
<p>There are potential applications in health, aged care, infrastructure, transport, emergency services among others. Terms such as “smart cities” and “smart infrastructure” have been coined to refer to the capabilities of combining large scale sensor networks with cloud computing.</p>
<p>So for example, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/9-real-life-scenarios-that-show-how-the-internet-of-things-could-transform-our-lives-2014-8">smoke alarms might be integrated with fire services</a>. A rapid increase in the number of alarms may indicate (for example) an explosion in a factory. Data from the alarms along with the sequence and pattern of the alarms might be able to be processed to give information as to the nature, location and extent of the explosion.</p>
<p>The ACMA paper has some discussion of projections for the take up of the technology. These seem extraordinary. There is a reference to a recent <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/The_Internet_of_Things_The_value_of_digitizing_the_physical_world">McKinsey report</a> that estimates worldwide productivity gains of US$11.1-trillion a year by 2025.</p>
<p>Catherine Livingstone, chair of Telstra, believes that the changes brought by IoT will dwarf those we saw with the fixed line internet in the mid-1990s and the mobile internet in the mid-2000s.</p>
<h2>Billions more connections</h2>
<p>What is even more extraordinary is the expected speed of the take up of these technologies. Cisco expects <a href="http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?articleId=1621819">50-billion devices</a> to be connected to the internet by 2020 compared to the 15-billion currently connected. </p>
<p>There is certainly a great deal of activity in this area and consequently, there is some urgency in making sure that there is a suitable regulatory framework for it. This is what the paper deals with.</p>
<p>The paper is an invitation for interested parties to comment on ACMA’s plans for the area. The most interesting part of the paper is that describing ACMA’s current, medium term and long term IoT focus.</p>
<p>Current concerns include availability of spectrum, mobile numbers and information exchange. Spectrum refers to the frequency ranges available for wireless communication of the sensors and actuators attached to the IoT.</p>
<p>The precursor to the IoT is Machine to Machine Communications (M2M). This has relied primarily on the mobile telephone network. Back in 2012 ACMA made available a new mobile number range (05) to supplement the existing (04) range. If there is an explosion in the number of devices there may need to be additional number ranges.</p>
<p>Short range sensor networks make use of unlicensed spectrum such as that used by Wi-Fi. The paper looks at the suitability of existing unlicensed spectrum arrangements and the possibility of new spectrum in the 6GHz range being made available. It also identifies the emergence of long range communications (such as <a href="https://www.lora-alliance.org/">LoRa</a>) using unlicensed spectrum.</p>
<p>The other area is how “harms” can be addressed. In this context “harms” refers to issues related to breaches of privacy, security and other problems that we may not yet understand. Managing “harms” involves the exchange of information between parties. For example, dealing with a computer that is infected by malware may need cooperative behaviour between a number of parties. How will that be done in the IoT world?</p>
<p>Longer term concerns identified in the paper include network security and reliability as well as the capabilities of businesses and consumers to manage their devices and information. </p>
<p>All in all, the paper is a welcome addition to discussion on an increasingly important area.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The ACMA is looking for feedback on the paper which <a href="http://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/internet-of-things-and-the-acmas-area-of-focus">you can do online here</a> before Deecmber 14, 2015.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Branch receives funding for Internet of Things related research. </span></em></p>Imagine a world that’s even more connected technologically than ours today. It’s coming soon and the Australian Communications and Media Authority wants to know if we’re ready for it.Philip Branch, Senior Lecturer in Telecommunications, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/488862015-10-09T05:12:35Z2015-10-09T05:12:35ZWho watches the watchers when the watchers use Wickr?<p>The latest controversy over Malcolm Turnbull’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-09/malcolm-turnbull-continues-to-use-non-government-email-service/6839684">use of Wickr</a> should provoke questions about accountability in the age of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/cloud-computing">cloud</a>. </p>
<p>It’s an age where use of private messaging systems by a digital <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/who-are-the-1-percenters/2011/10/06/gIQAn4JDQL_blog.html">1%</a> – an elite that is well connected and powerful – is eroding expectations about oversight by journalists, official monitors and ordinary people. To adapt the words of writer <a href="http://www.davidbrin.com/about.html">David Brin</a>, a privileged “Them” know a lot about us and increasingly “We” know less about them.</p>
<p>Governments have always sought to keep some communications secret, whether by using technologies (everything from special couriers to encrypted fax, email and voice communications) or by relying on face to face meetings and “old boys” networks. </p>
<p>In doing so, they’re like the private sector, but with greater resources than most Australian enterprises. Understandably, Australia’s national government has not published a blueprint of which tools, such as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/australia-news-blog/2015/mar/02/wickr-the-secret-messaging-app-of-the-party-unfaithful">Wickr</a>, are being used by parliamentarians, officials, members of special inquiries and others who deal with information that is politically sensitive or official. </p>
<p>People who are aware of how the tools are being used are typically reticent about disclosing specifics, whether because of a sense of responsibility or because of secrecy provisions regarding particular agencies.</p>
<p>One implication is that we need to trust that the government knows what it is doing, i.e. it has been properly <a href="http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/ism/index.htm">advised</a> by experts in bodies such as the <a href="http://www.asd.gov.au/">Australian Signals Directorate</a> about what’s secure and what isn’t.</p>
<h2>Freedom from information</h2>
<p>Another implication is uncertainty about accountability.</p>
<p>Ministers and public sector agencies are distinguished from the private sector because they are meant to be accountable. That accountability is broader than the <a href="http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-information/freedom-of-information">Freedom of Information</a> and <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/strategic-information/standards/records-and-legislation/index.aspx">Archives</a> legislation, which are aimed at ensuring citizen access to government information. </p>
<p>Accountability is enshrined in judgements by Australian Courts recognising that knowing what the government is doing is the foundation of the liberal democratic state. A salient example is the statement by <a href="http://www.hcourt.gov.au/justices/former-justices/former-justices/michael-hudson-mchugh-ac-qc">Justice Michael McHugh</a> in the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UWALawRw/1989/8.pdf">Spycatcher Case</a> (where Turnbull was a barrister) about responsibility.</p>
<p>In principle, use of tools such as Wickr for official communications by ministers, other MPs and officials is directly covered by the <a href="http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-information/about-freedom-of-information">FOI Act</a> (access to contemporary communications) and the Archives Act (historic material).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97886/original/image-20151009-23880-axp6g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wickr offers private communication between two parties, unlike SMS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those enactments feature broad exemptions that reflect legitimate concerns regarding personal privacy, commercial confidentiality and national security. Only utopians, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/julian-assange">Julian Assange</a>, who want the state to evaporate would want total transparency.</p>
<h2>Who’s watching?</h2>
<p>In practice the use of external – essentially private – services and devices has a fundamental impact on the FOI and Archives regime. Irrespective of whether you are an archivist, a journalist, a potential litigant or another MP, you are very unlikely to access and preserve a communication if you have no way of determining whether that communication has taken place. </p>
<p>You cannot rely on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (<a href="http://www.oaic.gov.au/">OAIC’s</a>), the complacent agency that has been grossly <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-slow-death-of-the-office-of-the-australian-information-commissioner-20150826-gj81dl.html">underfunded</a> and has undergone regulatory capture. </p>
<p>The government remains committed to abolishing that watchdog, irrespective of the OAIC’s lack of vigour and recalcitrance about FOI applications regarding that agency’s own operation. </p>
<p>The Prime Minister has not condemned recurrent statements by Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd that FOI is “<a href="http://foi-privacy.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/new-low-point-for-foi-as-public-service.html#.Vhc45D_5M0E">pernicious</a>” and has gone too far, a signal from the top that bureaucratic convenience is far more important than accountability.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://naa.gov.au">National Archives</a>, still alive but seriously underfunded, faces the same challenges as its oversees peers in preserving electronic records, i.e. the email, Microsoft Office and other documents that are “born digital”, are readily deleted and are less robust than paper. </p>
<p>If the organisation is struggling with mundane email, it’s not going to cope well with messaging systems based on encryption, and which users claim involve private communication. A diligent scholar can identify the archiving protocols for email within many government agencies. Don’t be optimistic about voice calls, particularly calls by an important “Them” using services that promoted as sidestepping the archivist or FOI applicant.</p>
<h2>Freedom from oversight</h2>
<p>Wickr-style services will grow. In thinking about government use we should recall that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/tpp">Trans-Pacific Partnership</a> Agreement – the details of which are still secret – appears likely to prevent Australia from prohibiting offshoring of data and thus limiting the cloud. </p>
<p>We should also recall that neither the government nor opposition has resiled from warrantless access by a wide range of agencies to whole-of-population telecommunications <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/metadata">metadata</a> that is mandatorily retained by telecommunications companies. </p>
<p>We might be optimistic, and decide that leaks within and around Cabinet will provide us with everything we need to know, irrespective of whether a meeting takes place at the Melbourne Club or someone used Wickr. </p>
<p>However, a realist might wonder whether such tools mean that “free speech” is a privilege of a digital 1%, those rare people who are free not to be observed, and whether ministers should be reminded that FOI does not mean unaccountability through a freedom from oversight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48886/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Baer Arnold does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The use of private messaging apps that bypass government IT raise troubling issues for oversight and freedom of information.Bruce Baer Arnold, Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.