Comments on: Google Docs suffers privacy glitch

The search giant notifies some users of Google Docs that some of their documents weren't as private as they should have been.

[fahdoos]

This is what worries me about sas.

[dargon19888]

You mean saas not sas. ; -)

And its an issue of saas done wrong. On the quick and cheap.

With respect to google, why do you think that they provide this saas for free? ... ;-)

[BtmnHatesRbn]

Well...take that risk with keeping everything online instead of localized.

[uusirna]

You don't have to take that risk - there are companies that encrypt user data.

[billswan17]

I am a huge proponent of cloud computing but customers need to understand that cloud vendors have people ? just like we have our own in-house IT ? that sometimes make mistakes. The difference with the cloud is that ?human error? can impact an entire service or part of it or disclose information ? but globally.

As long as we all eventually agree to a customer ?Cloud Bill of Rights? at least expectations can be set:
? The Cloud is run by people ? that can make mistakes (i.e., downtime)
? Human error in The Cloud can be considerably greater in its impact
? Trust ? With the possibility of downtime, security breaches, etc., the leading #1 ?feature? I want from my Cloud vendor is Trust.

[soluto]

Catch my CARTOON and comment on
http://www.pcdisorder.com/2009/03/google-leaking-like-sieve.html

[codynews]

spam much? No one cares about your cartoon or plea for comment. If you want someone to see your cartoon just post a URL to the .jpg rather than fishing for comments.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Enterprises cannot afford to have their critical and private documents on a system that exposes them in such a manner, even by mistake.

This sort of issue is one of the big minefields of cloud storage on anything but your own dedicated network. Sure, it sounds good, but only until you discover it's no longer your data anymore.

[EDunigan]

What if the individual who had previously shared the document with is no longer an employee of your company? It seems Google has tried to downplay the issue by saying it only applied to a small percentage of Google Docs users.

As an employee of a SaaS company, I don't think you can justify any breach of access as a minor issue. What caused the glitch in the first place?

SaaS is great for collaboration but user permissions should never be compromised that is why we have such granular permission leves at our online database.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Perhaps this will be the next criminal hacking / exploitation target of cloud systems. With browsers from all the big names fairly easy to modify, I can see cloud systems being a valid target. Forget going after desktops, go for the big shiny golden egg in the sky where one hacked browser takes advantage of a vulnerability on the cloud service. Unlike a desktop model where you have to go after all those individual systems, with a cloud service you only have to find one exploit that opens up the entire service to you- and every database/document storage on the entire system from every company that hosts with it.

It should get patched faster, but it seems like a bigger and easier target to go after now.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Hopefully Obama and the NSA don`t use Google Docs !

[obsydian]

I agree with many of the comments here - however we don't ned to accept the status quo - there are ways to protect documents/emails/records even credit card numbers in databases using encryption - so that even if there is an exposure whether by mistake or malicious intent, the actual souce information cannot be used. Of course this requires the integration of technology that is already out there and a seperation so that a breach in one system does not immediatly cascade into another. I think the onus is on the users to demand this of the coud service providers - like the "Bill of Rights" idea - and the cloud service providers need to integrate this type of capabiity - at the very least it will differentiate themselves.

[ferretboy88]

Nothing about Google is private.

[aka_tripleB]

That's not entirely true. They seem to keep their hidden agenda pretty private.

[gggg sssss]

This is only teh first tip of teh iceberg. Wait till people start putting credit card and medical data up there. ROFLMAO

[forever4now]

I have read that "one in ten laptops will be stolen during their lifetime". That not only risks lost data, but the cost of a potentially expensive laptop.

The nice thing about the netbook/cloud architecture is the netbooks are relatively inexpensive and only a small amount of data is put at risk, if/when it is stolen (since the majority of the data is in the cloud).

As mentioned by other posters, encryption can help safeguard data. If you want to share a sensitive document, you could potentially exchange encryption keys. If an employee leaves a company, all of their encryption keys could be revoked.

In any case, cloud services are evolving and the best technology and practices for using them will also evolve.