Speaking after a performance of Mike Daisey’s one-man Steve Jobs show, Steve Wozniak says he foresees nightmares caused by data stored in remote servers.
“I think it’s going to be horrendous.”
This is how much Steve Wozniak is sitting on the fence, when it comes to the cloud.
Somehow, the idea of storing all his data on remote servers over which he has no control appeals to him about as much as the producers on “Dancing With The Stars” once did.
Joining Mike Daisey on stage after his one-man show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” in Washington, Woz offered his usual breezy honesty when answering questions.
According to Agence France-Presse, Woz laid bare his feelings with uncalculated concern: “I really worry about everything going to the cloud. I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years.”
Some might imagine the five-year prediction is a touch optimistic. Just this weekend, as Gizmodo had its Twitter feed hacked — after one of its former writers, Mat Honan, had his cloud penetrated by the nefarious.
It seems that over the next 5, 10 or even 20 years, any attempt to gain personal technological security will be futile when pitted against those who simply think more deviously than we do.
It’s a little like athletes doping. They get tested, of course. But they find new fast-acting testosterones that somehow manage to keep them out of the clutches of the well-intentioned testers. They’re always ahead of the game.
Woz explained just how the legalities of the cloud would make human beings’ lives even more painful: “With the cloud, you don’t own anything. You already signed it away.”
He added: “The more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we’re going to have control over it.”
But isn’t that what so many modern tech companies enjoy at their core?
They make people feel at home and in control, while taking everything those people do, storing it, tabulating it, even reading it and, rather often, selling it on to the highest bidder.
We all want to believe we’re in control. But we are but mere pawns on the imaginative chessboard of those in the nerd herd who take their pleasure in gaining access to your digital life.