Put those smartphones away: Google adds anti-copying measures to Drive for Work Google has rolled out five new functions aimed at beefing up the security, administration and sharing features of its Drive for Work cloud business suite and the equivalent education package. Youtube video "Since we launched Drive for Work 9 months ago, we've watched as more and more businesses moved to the cloud - and seen …
the more I am convinced it's more secure than traditional systems.
Take a look at Sony Pictures hack, it propagated by idiot users emailing files around, giving passwords to other people and so forth. It was a house of cards. Pretty much every company works like this (sadly).
Take a full cloud solution where email, documents are all done in the cloud. No longer do you send files around (it might look like it to end users), it's sending links to files under the covers. Until it's taken from the cloud, it only lives in one place. Delete it, it's gone everywhere. You sack Johnny, and close his account, so goes it access to the file.
Combine this with enforced group poilicy 2 factor authentication, so you know who is supposed to be accessing things, is, and you have a far more secure setup than you have in the current wild west of Windows, Microsoft Office and USB sticks and 2 gazillion copies of the same file in everyone's inbox...
You seem to be missing the obvious - you are then sharing EVERYTHING with Google and therefore are under Uncle Sam's laws.
Oh yes, and if you get in to any sort of contract or IP/DMCA-style dispute they can make your business vanish in a stroke.
Well, you're correct that an ideal cloud setup would probably be more secure than slapdash wild west IT, where every man's got a USB drive in his boot and every woman can fire off an email attachment faster than Annie Oakley, but---
The people who actually have the knowledge, money, and desire to implement your ideal cloud, are the same people who have the knowledge, money, and desire to not handle their traditional IT setups with just a wheelgun and a whiskey. So all things being equal I'd take the option that doesn't let Google eat your data.
"Security" is important, sure, but is nobody worried about the probably-none-too-distant day when Google requires you to pay to renew your subscription to access the documents they're holding for you? To say nothing of the premium for whatever SLA you can be mugged for.
I smell "diversion".
As El Reg astutely notes, "copying/saving" restrictions are often worked around in practice, accompanied by ritual swearing from the users who are forced to resort to these hack jobs. (I guess the restrictions make management feel better, though I'd like to see some research into the time cost imposed on users by them.) If I were Google I'd have screen capturing and freehand-note-taking features on my product roadmap by now, to make sure users are still using Google systems when they do this...
Yup, the SLA is soft and absorbent...
You obviously need a good fast connection to use this, so bugger-all use in a lot of rural areas.
And as with any "partnership" with a huge company they care damn-all for you. If something is broken or not the way you need it, you will get F-all help. We use Google's service for our email and some minor hosting and while it is generally OK it has some problems that they just won't fix. We actually have had replies (quick ones, to pretend the SLA is meaningful) along the lines of "try posting that on our forum and maybe someone will look at it later".
Being a Google service, you can expect two things:
1. There will be near zero customer service in the event of a problem;
2. It will be shut down no later than 7 years from today.
Their prior track record on anything other than advert-driven surveillance does not inspire confidence.
Dropbox really has nothing to fear from Google. Their real competitor is AWS, their own host service.
So, a user's account gets taken over or a baddie gains temporary access and shares a file with an external email because of these wonderful security features and the files can be protected or denied access to after can they? I doubt it. I thought the point of security was securing things not making them less secure.
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