HW 10- Internet Research: Cloud Networks

Cloud Computing; What is it? Is it the Future? Is it the Future of Our Medical Records?

Site #1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

Site #2: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111421072

Site #3: http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202432957427&Electronic_Health_Records_Facing_the_Issues

Site #4: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-healthrecords_14bus.ART0.State.Edition2.4bb476e.html

I had heard about a form of online data storage called "the cloud network" but never really knew what it was. In my research I decided that I would figure out what exactly a cloud network is. I looked at three different online sources. The first was the Wikipedia entry on cloud computing.

1. Wikipedia

According to wikipedia, the "cloud network" is a metaphor used to describe the intangible network used for e-mail storage (i.e. yahoo or gmail), online stores (amazon and ebay), and blogging sites such as blogger. These are all controlled by a single server which operates multiple web pages or web addresses in a sort of "digital cloud". The term cloud refers to the fact that we know it's their, in fact every time we click a link we get proof that it is, but we just can't see it, its not tangible (you know, like the clouds).

As I read the article, I discovered that the idea of a cloud network has a highly significant and unique effect on the capitalist economy. In a cloud network, the companies which choose to register their online stores with a server company such as IBM, they are able to avoid any capital expenditure costs as they don't need to pay any money for the hardware, or space on the server. Basically, what this means is that the online cloud network industry is an industry which relies on providers to take the hit for capital costs, while the other 95% of the industry composed of the merchants, pay nothing in capital other than electric bills.

The downside to this, is that the companies which control these servers have complete access to the data which other companies and merchants compile on their sites which are serviced by the providers servers. For example, lets say you buy a pair of shoes on Amazon, and their server is controlled by IBM (I don't know if it is, but for this example, its irrelevant), all the information that you filled out to have the shoes billed to you through your AmEx card, and your home address goes not only to Amazon, but to the server at IBM as well.

So next time you fill out a "secure form" on the Internet, just consider this; on a digital cloud, how secure can your personal information actually be?

2. NPR

The second website that I visited was NPR. After I discovered what a cloud network was, I wanted to figure out who actually owns that data, and who has access to all of it.

Cloud data is by no means limited to online stores, but is also mainly a service used by email services the likes of google, yahoo, AOL and others. Its been common knowledge since the "patriot act" was passed that the telecommunications companies have had access to our phone conversations and text messages, but who is in charge of the billions of emails sent every day between friends, family and businesses?

Well in the link I was looking at on NPR's website, the data is all controlled by the company who owns the server which you communicate on. For example, if your on gmail, the message you sent legally belongs to google, they have it, and their is pretty much nothing you can do about that. When you click "yes" on the users agreement, you give the owner of that cloud network ownership rights to your emails

Being developed though, is a program to stop these companies from being able to store your email conversations. A program called "Vanish" is being developed so that the only people who posses the emails are you and the person it was sent to, not the companies and not anyone else, once the involved parties have opened the files, the file begins to expire and eventually Vanish so that nobody else will have access to it.

This program is really for highly confidential emails, but can be used for anything you want, provided you don't mind anyone else reading your email.

3. CNET News

Now I knew what a cloud network was, and I knew that the online communications companies like IBM have all our information. Not much of that came as a surprise to me, but was pretty interesting nonetheless. Now I was wondering where else clouds might be used in the world.

It was at that point I remembered my mom telling me that she needed to get to work early last week because the hospitals were switching over from paper records to digital records. Seeing as that would be nothing more than a massive online database, I decided to look into whether the medical records were being converted to a new cloud network. Guess what? IT IS!

I was looking on Law.com in the legal technology portion of the website when I found an article about the Cloud network being used in the transition from paper documentation to digital. What I found was that companies like Dell and IBM are at the forefront of this transition and therefore will be the institutions in charge of all of our medical records. This is kind of fucked up, when you consider that their job will be to simply provide the servers to connect all the data from hospital to hospital. Since their has never been a medical cloud before, what the companies do with that data is for now completely unregulated.

4. Dallas News

In this Dallas News article, the question of who stands to profit from this transition is raised. The idea that this will make the need for much more computer technology in hospitals mandatory is something which almost every company in the tech industry will be clamoring for to get the grant to put their systems in the hands of doctors and hospitals across the country.

After I read this article, I noticed that it mentioned an IT company which will be acting as the managing IT company for the "medical cloud". That company was called "Perot Systems". I looked into related articles on the Dallas News website and found that the company was bought out by Dell for $3.9 billion less than half a month ago. The reason for the acquisition is quite clear, with Perot controlled by Dell, Dell was able to control any competition it would have for IT in hospitals once the transition began to take place.

This is not a good thing, overall, this cloud network in hospitals is definitely an upgrade and if done properly can be much more efficient and improve the American health care system. If done improperly, this will simply become just another way to industrialize our health care. Seeing as this is after all part of Obama's plan, doesn't this seem like something which counteracts the movement towards National Health, and opens up an entirely new way for companies to profit off of the health of the American people?