Title: A Bad Moon Rising–An Omniscient Monopoly
Authors: Monica S. Lam, Matthew Nasielski, Michael Fischer, Sudheendra Hangal, Debangsu Sengupta
Submitted to: HotOS XII
Abstract
Based on current trends, this paper predicts that a monopoly will emerge that owns our personal data in the cloud, and discusses ramifications of loss ofprivacy and fair-market competition in the software industry. We argue that atechnically superior alternative would give ownership of the data back to theindividuals based on a distributed, egalitarian design with open interfaces that allow a choice of storage vendors and software vendors. We present an architecture and a prototype that sports some of these features. We urge systems researchers to rise to the challenge to create an economically viable, user-friendly, egalitarian data system. Topping the research agenda is the monetization of privacy, and how companies can make money out of personal data without compromising privacy. Other research topics include creating self-managed personal servers, high-level programming systems to enable easy development of distributed social-networking applications, and techniques to safeguard data confidentiality.
|