Wikileaks cutoff threatens cloud?

WSJ blogs: Amazon’s WikiLeaks Response Threatens Cloud Computing

It is all a matter of trust, said Dr. Reger. Clients have been worried about the security of their data by attacks on their provider. Now they have to worry about their data by attacks by their provider.

What a silly statement. Who didn't know this already?

Using a shared, external resource always implies (a) an external provider controls your data, and (b) an unrelated third party event may impact your data. Solutions where a third party manages your data existed long before the current cloud craze.

Using an external, third party provider means your data may be shared with other parties (law enforcement, hackers) without your knowledge. It means your provider might remove service at any time -- cutting off access to your own data.

It's all part of the risk/reward/cost calculus. Having "enterprise class" scalable bullet-proof on-site data storage and compute power impervious to hackers might be so expensive that you choose cheaper, less reliable systems open to other risks.

So, I don't buy the argument that this in any way "jeopardizes the huge potential growth of [cloud] adoption." Nothing has changed. Cloud providers already cut off services to various entities every day (ie. spammers and those who use EC2 for hacking). The possibility for clandestine data observation and theft always exists.