The Storage Cloud
Apparently, people are already using the term “Storage Cloud,” and it’s not something I just coined here on my rented couch.
My thesis in this poorly-developed thought here is that NAT and the ISPs’ mafia-style sequestration of everyday users from static IP addresses are two major institutional blockages of personal, encrypted storage clouds, which is my area of interest.
We already have public media-oriented storage clouds in YouTube, all the questionable content on Twango, and the early Web 2.0 products of every other ex-dot-com entrepreneur’s remaining hopes and dreams.
DRM is another institutional blockage, but it’s not a big deal to me, as I don’t really deal in DRM’ed stuff. But to the iPod masses (who don’t…shh!!!…burn their purchased content and rip it back to MP3), it’s a biggie.
NAT and stateful firewalls at the ISP have kept the collective “us” from exposing services to the web. This was, and still is, for our own good as an Internet, but we can get these services running on OpenBSD toasters now that are not going to bet the farm on shaky first-run code (i.e., Windows Home Server, which doesn’t even do anything close to this if you wanted it to).
I need my files everywhere. I want my local mail (stored locally, not on GMail where my “beta” profile, or worse, can get wiped at random). I want them over a very SSL-laced VPN, through a means that transcends the rat maze of private IP address mappings and firewalls.
Maybe VPN is the way to go, but it’s still nice to have a static IP at the server end, which “we” still can’t get without a Faustian contract and an exchange of a firstborn.