Data Clouds (satire)

After reading that the Chinese government said Ubuntu, Windows and Android are not safe, I went to Google "EU and computer security Ubuntu" to see what I could learn to confirm this.

According to what I found, UK's security branch says Ubuntu is secure, and the Dutch concur.

However, data stored on cloud servers is vulnerable to US Patriot Act. See this article for more information: http://askubuntu.com/questions/58821/how-safe-is-eu-based-ubuntu-one-cloud-data

IMO the safety depends on the OS used.

Android is as safe as the smartphone owner wants it to be, without the complication of entering a throw-away password everytime I boot up my Linux PC. I don't rank securing my data on my smartphone as high as I do on my PC.

As for Windows, a weekly backup onto an external hard drive is recommend from the My Documents folder.

My security trick is I never save pictures I did not create unless it is related to a post on G+, and rely on G+ to store my photos safely. When Photos gets full, I look for the oldest pictures to back up. Sometimes I even purge old pictures if necessary.

Yes, I use G+ as backup for my photos. Drive could be used to archive the oldest album when I run out of space. Since Drive is a Google cloud, I consider it as a temporary file storage area to store these files until I need to store it on a flash drive or on CD-R or DVD-R disc.

However, I am not concerned because it's not full yet. Also, I can always start from scratch in the case of Google+ losing my pictures. That was the reason why I used G+ to backup my photos.

Of course, when I last upgraded my system in December, I used a partition I have created for the purpose to backup almost everything in my user directory. Currently that consists of about 25 MB on my current installation.

Now is the time to backup to format my backup partition and begin the long process of backing up my pictures.

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References:

Results for Googling "Eu and computer security ubuntu":
https://www.google.ca/search?q=Eu+and+computer+security+treaty&oq=Eu+and+computer+security+treaty&aqs=chrome..69i57.13893j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=Eu+and+computer+security+ubuntu

Chinese Government Says Ubuntu Windows and Android Are Not Safe; Launches New OS:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Chinese-Government-Says-Ubuntu-Windows-and-Android-Are-Not-Safe-Launches-New-OS-418452.shtml

TIPS TO SECURE YOUR NETWORK

1) DESIGNATE YOUR IT PERSON
You need one person who knows how to secure your network, whether
s/he is the only one who knows what packet inspection means or you
already budgeted for your IT person.

2) WRITE UP A SECURITY POLICY FOR YOUR NETWORK
This policy has to state clearly what your employees may and may
not share with the rest of the world. This should cover what they may
download and how their business email address will look like, as well
as whether you have a VPN for them to access company data from
home.

3) BUY A FIREWALL THAT IS SET UP TO INSPECT PACKETS
if you don't know what that means, then ask your designated IT person.
Block P2P unless your company is a P2P service, All IMs like AIM, LiveChat,
YahooChat, etc. need to be blocked, too. Social media that is to be blocked or be
checked for rogue ActiveX and Javascript applets: Facebook. Social media that's
usually benign: Twitter, GooglePlus (replace Internet Explorer with Chrome)

4) AUTOMATE A NIGHTLY VIRUS SCAN OF ALL COMPUTERS ON YOUR
NETWORK.
This means worker's network access should be scheduled for 6AM to
10 PM. Set the scan on all the computers to 1AM. The antivirus software should be
able to report to the network server and store the results for each computer.

5) AUTOMATE BACKUPS FOR WEEKLY BACKUPS.
Backup to tape drives, and use the software that comes with it to
do a backup of the file server. Schedule this for 2AM to back
up in increments to the tape drive.


6) PREPARE FOR POWER OUTAGES
That means a UPS for the file server (200 W), and a UPS for every five
workstation (500 W) or ten (1 kW) assuming each workstation and monitor consumes
100 Watts. YMMV

7) IF MOST OF YOUR STAFF KNOW HOW TO USE A BROWSER AND OFFICE SOFTWARE, THEN
IT IS EASY TO UPGRADE TO LINUX
Consider Fedora 17. IF you buy a license for it, you get free support.
SELinux and Open