In the ongoing case regarding the recent hacks against Google and possibly a couple more of technology companies, one thing becomes clear, harm now comes cloaked in tech disguise.

Seeing the headlines about Google vs China, first thing that came to mind was 'tantrums' and readily dismissed them in favor of a real world event such as the one in Haiti.  Afterall, it is quite known that foreign web companies were toast in China for obvious reasons that "they like to keep to themselves and their own affairs". Plus language and culture barriers. End of story.

Reading further and looking at the Twitter feeds, I came across one that vaguely connects cloud computing to the debacle, which really isn't a surprise given the paranoia around cloud adoption.  Moreover, that Gmail was a known target and add to that more names of other IT service companies and you can all chalk this up as another death blow to the cloud.

However, and fortunate that is, to have expert opinions set things straight before fallacy becomes accepted fact and blown out of  proportion.  As Sam Johnston would share, "the connection between google/china and #cloud is tenuous *at best*. same would apply to legacy or hosted solutions."  Put simply, it's a web thing.

Still, it would be unwise for cloud companies to sweep this under the rug and breathe a sigh of relief that current systems are acceptable.  The fact is that currently, mainstream cloud perception is still foggy at best and PR jobs aren't likely to solve privacy and security issues.  Vigilance and continuous research and code development from both companies and open community will.

For all we know, this is just a portent of things to come.  And for cloud service providers - representing the certain future, to think otherwise, will be a blow to life and liberty.