Writers: Maybe Don’t Do Important Work in the Cloud.
I’m a fan of Dropbox - as a backup and convenient way to share docs with other machines and people. But I’d never use a cloud-based writing program like Google Docs, and I’d never rely on the cloud as my file source. This story from Digg explains why:
“There’s this favorite tweet of mine. In January of 2014, Ice-T tweeted his refusal to connect to the cloud. How weird and funny that Ice-T is mad online about cloud computing services, which is, clearly, the future.
“Folks, Ice-T was right. On Tuesday, a Google Docs algorithm went wild and erroneously flagged a number of documents as in violation of their Terms of Service. Some of those documents were mine. One of which was an important feature I’d been editing for the better part of a month.
“For the longest time, Google Docs seemed like the future. All you need to access it is a web browser. It automatically tracks versions. Commenting is nicer to look at. It’s just way less of a pain compared to industry-standard Microsoft Word.
“Now, I’m not so sure. I mean, yeah, I’ve passively consumed warnings about the inherent risks of relying on servers you don’t own to store your stuff. On Tuesday it actually happened. Not because I was doing anything malicious, or I was a victim of an attack, but because of a dang bug. By pure dumb luck I was locked out of hours and hours of work.
"Maybe, I, too, now refuse to connect to the fuckin’ cloud.”
Same here, Steve Rousseau.
