Julianna Yau’s blog

A little while ago, a friend of mine sent me a call for conference and art project submissions for the Futuresonic international conference and the Social Technologies Summit.  If you look past all of the typical techno-innovation type jargon, the conference is essentially focused on social networking with some interest in how art/artists relate to it.

The conference takes place in Manchester, and although entry to the conference is affordable for me, travel and accommodation is not. Even with their submission allowance, I don’t think I would have time to follow through with a conference topic with everything I have going on right now. I’ll just have to sit this one out. Besides, I should probably try to make it to one of the ISC’s conferences first!

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A few months ago, one of my Ma.gnolia contacts bookmarked the article No More Hard Drive! 100 Free Software Apps to Go Online-Only. At first, I was excited by the concept of being able to use any computer to not only access but to actually work with my data. But then I wondered: is that really a good thing?

The most obvious concerns are of privacy, security and reliability.

Currently, I keep everything on my computer and create backups religiously (after one expensive and ill-timed experience with data loss). With this I may be susceptible to loosing everything if anyone steals my computer, but I’m also empowered to employ any degree of paranoid precaution to safeguard my data. My sensitive files (including the information of my patrons) are encrypted, and the computer is under physical lock & key.

By using these services, I would be at their mercy. Do I trust them to hold all of my information? The services all have privacy policies, but it’s not uncommon for companies to have difficulty enforcing their privacy policy. Companies are just as susceptible to computer theft as individuals, and are probably a bigger target because they hold the information of so many people (too many examples to link!).

I wonder, too, whether using the internet as a computer is all its cracked up to be. Sure, there are many instances where I would want to access and manipulate my files without having to take my computer with me everywhere…but for each of those circumstances, there’s a counterbalancing circumstance where I wouldn’t have access to a computer other than mine, or even to an internet connection. These infrastructural issues will probably be overcome in the future, but how long will that take? Nearly 8 years lapsed between the time I wanted a laptop and the time an affordable, reliable and truly portable laptop was a reality for me. Will it be another 8 before I can use the internet to replace my hard drive? Will I even want that option when it’s finally available?

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