As technology advances quickly, so do security concerns. It stands to reason that new technologies open up new vulnerabilities. But open source is working to combat those challenges in an agile and cost-effective way. Read the latest on the topic in IT World Canada in their story, “Open-Source Project Aims to Secure Cloud Storage.”
The article begins:
“The open source software project named Crypton is working on a solution that would enable developers to easily create encrypted cloud-based collaboration environments. There are very few cloud services that offer effective encryption protection for data storage, according to Crypton. Security has always been the top concern for many enterprise organizations when it comes to cloud services and applications.”
It is reasonable that enterprises are concerned about security when it comes to cloud services and storage. For that reason, many prefer on-site hosting and storage. However, some open source companies, like LucidWorks, build value-added solutions on top of open source software and guarantee security as well as support and training. And while LucidWorks offers on-site hosting as well, those who venture into the Cloud can have the best of both worlds with cost-effective open source software and the support of an industry leader.
Back in 2003 visionary artist Anne-Marie Schleiner wrote an inspiring paper entitled “Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders and Future Artists” describing the future role of online curators as nature's own filter feeders. Anne-Marie is clearly referring to curators to and filter feeder in art world, but her rightful intuitions are equivalently applicable to the larger world of information, data, digital and content curation as well.
But let me explain better.
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First. The term “filter feeders” is used in nature to describe a group of animals which thrives on its ability to filter organic matter floating around them. From Wikipedia: “Filter feeders are animals that feed by straining suspended matter and food particles from water, typically by passing the water over a specialized filtering structure. Some animals that use this method of feeding are clams, krill, sponges, baleen whales, and many fish (including some sharks). Some birds, such as flamingos, are also filter feeders. Filter feeders can play an important role in clarifying water, and are therefore considered ecosystem engineers.” From Wikipedia: “In marine environments, filter feeders and plankton are ecosystem engineers because they alter turbidity and light penetration, controlling the depth at which photosynthesis can occur.[4]”
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Second. If you re-read this last sentence slowly and look at what it could mean if applied to the field of content curation, it would read to me something like this: “In large information ecosystems like the web, filter feeders/content curators and content itself are ecosystem engineers because they: a) directly influence our ability to inform ourselves effectively and to discern truth from false and useless info (turbidity) b) shed light and clarity on different subjects which would otherwise remain obscure (light penetration) c) determine our ability to make sense of our own generated information streams (photosynthesis).” A very inspiring parallel indeed, giving a way to visualize the true importance and role that curation, disenfranchised from the confines of museums and art galleries, could have on the planetary information ecosystem. Anne-Marie writes: “Most web sites contain hyperlinks to other sites, distributed throughout the site or in a “favorites” section. Each of these favorite links sections serves as a kind of gallery, remapping other web sites as its own contents. Every web site owner is thus a curator and a cultural critic, creating chains of meaning through association, comparison and juxtaposition, parts or whole of which can in turn serve as fodder for another web site's “gallery.” Site maintainers become operational filter feeders, feeding of other filter feeders sites and filtering others' sites. Links are contextualized, interpreted and “filtered” through criticism and comments about them, and also by placement in the topology of a site. The deeper a link is buried, the harder it may be to find, the closer to the surface and the frontpage, the more prominent it becomes, as any web designer can attest to. I am what I link to and what I am shifts over time as I link to different sites… … In the process, I invest my identity in my collection – I become how I filter.” Anne-Marie vision (2003), pure and uninfluenced by what we have seen emerge in the last few years, paints a very inspiring picture of the true role of content curators and of the key responsibility they do hold for humanity's future. Inspiring. Visionary. Right on the mark. 10/10
Many large Web companies have failed to adopt a decades-old encryption technology to safeguard confidential user communications. Google is a rare exception, and Facebook is about to follow suit.
Revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance abilities have highlighted shortcomings in many Internet companies' security practices that can expose users' confidential communications to government eavesdroppers.
Secret government files leaked by Edward Snowden outline a U.S. and U.K. surveillance apparatus that's able to vacuum up domestic and international data flows by the exabyte. One classified document describes “collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past,” and another refers to the NSA's network-based surveillance of Microsoft's Hotmail servers.
Most Internet companies, however, do not use an privacy-protective encryption technique that has existed for over 20 years — it's called forward secrecy — that cleverly encodes Web browsing and Web e-mail in a way that frustrates fiber taps by national governments.
Lack of adoption by Apple, Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others is probably due to “performance concerns and not valuing forward secrecy enough,” says Ivan Ristic, director of engineering at the cloud security firm Qualys. Google, by contrast, adopted it two years ago.
Technology is transforming how everybody builds solutions and faster access to the latest technology gives you an unfair advantage. I work in Silicon Valley and we benefit from that unfair advantage. This is because the technology being invented here is not incremental but disruptive.
EXTRACT:
You will notice the inclusion of Guardtime signatures. By signing all objects with Guardtime signatures it means we no longer have to trust the cloud provider – another game changer! A technology that scales so well it has been included in rysylog.
Tesla technologies can revolutionize communications as we know them today. here is demonstrated one example where it outperforms standard electro-magnetic or transverse wave propagation.
A German Electrical Engineer operating under the pseudonym TheOldScientist demonstrates the existence of Longitudinal/Scalar Waves. Classical Electromagnetic-Waves are Transverse and can be shielded through the use of a Faraday Cage. L/S Waves on the other hand bypass all manner of barriers, and have been shown to propagate at superluminal speeds as well. Proper utilization of S/L Waves can open up broad vistas for communications technologies as well as eliminate electro-smog (a byproduct of unharnessed scalar-pollution currently produced by traditional EM-technologies).
