iCloud Insecurity

Security is -- or at least should be -- a concern of everyone roaming the Internet. It is one thing to have to protect oneself from malicious hackers, dishonest merchants, and, sometimes, one's own naivité. What we shouldn't have to do, however, is protect ourselves from those who maintain they are providing services in our own best interests. Yesterday an article appeared in 20 Minutes Online that reveals just how insecure Apple's iCloud is.

According to Apple's terms and conditions, they can not only look at your data, they can also use it in ways other than you intended and they even demand the right to pass this data on to third-parties without your knowledge. This is bad enough for private users, but think about all the unwitting business people who due to lack of organizational resources perhaps (for example, small or medium-sized businesses who have to rely on commercially available services for inter-connectivity) have decided to use this technology to make themselves more effective in our increasingly global world. These conditions are reason enough to avoid Apple at any rate. Of course, to be fair, Google isn't any better.

There are deeply rooted data-protection issues that need to be addressed, not just at the organizational, but more vigorously at the political level. The Internet can be an exciting, helpful, and effective tool, for everyone, but not as long as some folks think they deserve more rights than others.