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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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No Privacy on Amazon’s Cloud Drive

By | March 29, 2011, 9:02am PDT

Summary: Amazon Cloud Drive sounds great, if you don’t mind giving Amazon the right to do pretty much anything they want with your account and files.

Who couldn’t love the idea of the new Amazon Cloud Drive? You get at least 5GBs of free cloud-based storage, and its trivial to get 20GBs of free storage on Amazon Cloud Drive. Used in concert with the Amazon Cloud Player you get a fine cloud-based music player that can be used either from a Web browser or on Android tablets with the Amazon MP3 App. The new Amazon consumer cloud service also works well. It’s just too bad that you have to give up all privacy to use it.

Don’t believe me? Read the Amazon Cloud Drive Terms of Use for yourself. In particular, take a glance at: Section 5.2:

“5.2 Our Right to Access Your Files. You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files: to provide you with technical support and address technical issues; to investigate compliance with the terms of this Agreement, enforce the terms of this Agreement and protect the Service and its users from fraud or security threats; or as we determine is necessary to provide the Service or comply with applicable law”

Wow. Amazon can do pretty much anything they want with your files Like say let the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) inspect your music files for any signs that you haven’t pay full price for them. You remember the RIAA; they’re the ones who want $75-trillion from LimeWire for allowing 11,000 songs to be illegally shared.

As my pal, Jan Wildeboer, Red Hat’s EMEA Open Source Evangelist put it, “I suspect that continuous inspection is part of the deal to get the music industry accept these offerings–IP radicalism at its best.”  He’s almost certainly right. In return for the “right” to play your music from the cloud, you have to put up with Big Brother.

I like Amazon’s services, but I don’t like it well enough to put up with this nonsense. Besides, there area already services out there that offer similar services without such draconian privacy violations. For cloud-based music, there’s SoundCloud and Mougg. If it’s just cloud-based storage you want, Dropbox is still my cloud-storage service of choice.

Nice try Amazon, but you’ll excuse me if I don’t give you the right to access, retain, use and disclose my account information and my files.

See Also:

Amazon launches Cloud Drive: An easy to use tablet play that takes AWS consumer

Test drive of Amazon Cloud Drive for MP3s


Amazon launches Android Appstore


Is Amazon Set to Go After Apple in the Mobile Space?

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Privacy, Amazon.com Inc., Storage, Security, Hardware, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system

Disclosure

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a freelance writer. He does not own stocks or other investments in any technology company.

Biography

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system; 300bps was a fast Internet connection; WordStar was the state of the art word processor; and we liked it.

His work has been published in everything from highly technical publications (IEEE Computer, ACM NetWorker, Byte) to business publications (eWEEK, InformationWeek, ZDNet) to popular technology (Computer Shopper, PC Magazine, PC World) to the mainstream press (Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, BusinessWeek).

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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
mike4ty4@... Updated - 24th Nov
@Heck if I Know Though they seem to think that complaining about this is an obsession so all-consuming it leaves no time to worry about "bigger" problems... odd...
View in thread
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
Droid101 29th Mar 2011
Waaa! Privacy! Waaaa!

Really? It's a list of MP3's. Who cares?
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It's not just MP3's
oncall 29th Mar 2011
@Droid101

You can upload other files as well.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
thofts 29th Mar 2011
@Droid101

Not a list, but the actual files containing metadata and checksums that can be compared against known pirated music files. Amazon must be in cahoots with lawyers looking to make money.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
Droid101 29th Mar 2011
@thofts
The presence of a pirated file does not implicate piracy.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
pwatson 30th Mar 2011
@Droid101 - The presence of a Lamborghini in the storage unit you rented suggests that you got it from somewhere.

We are losing it...
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Droid101 is just acting as any good servant of the system would
BlueCollarCritic Updated - 15th Jun
@thofts & pwatson

Droid101 is exactly as the name implies, just a droid and so he's going along with whatever the system commands is the norm. Should it say you must give us copies of keys to your home then he will do so and will dutifully mock anyone who speaks out in opposition like a good little servant.

Its not that we're losing it but that enough brain dead TV obsessed zombies are now fully programmed to do as the system commands and so its now time for the next phase; elimination of the protections (Freedoms, rights & privacy) that were what made this country great. After all if you want to take down a population you have to enslave them mentally before you can physically put them in chains.

@Droid101 Please reply back with the Conspiracy Theory system approved standard response so I have justification to list examples to back up this stance.
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No privacy on ANY cloud!
kd5auq 29th Mar 2011
@Droid101
Like storing your financial information at the city library. Convenient? yes. Secure? Heck NO!
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
Tinman57 30th Mar 2011
@Droid101 Apparently you don't have the intelligence to understand the repercussions of this. But I suppose if your a teeny-bopper without any worries in the world as your reply suggest, then no, you don't have anything to worry about until the RIAA comes knocking at your door wanting $75000 of your parents money.....
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
jgm@... 31st Mar 2011
@Tinman57 If you don't have stolen music, you don't have that problem. You certainly don't have that problem if what's stored on the Amazon Cloud Drive is the music you're buying from the Amazon MP3 store.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
info@... Updated - 16th Jun
@Droid101...don't be an agent of insanity...it's more than a framework for convenience...it's a surveillance grid to watch you. Just because you don't have anything to hide doesn't give another thing the right to spy on you.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
zlgtr 29th Mar 2011
DropBox runs on Amazon Web Services. SoundCloud may run on AWS as well. If you want privacy on AWS use something like JungleDisk that allows encryption with keys controlled by the user.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
gwconnery@... 29th Mar 2011
@zlgtr DropBox may run on AWS but it encrypts the files it stores there using your password. Dropbox employees can't even access your files.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
zlgtr Updated - 30th Mar 2011
@gwconnery

If you carefully read what they say and read the forums you'll realize that they don't encrypt your files with your password. They actual encrypt the data with their own master key. They only say "Dropbox employees aren't able to access user files". Remember also that you use this same password to logon so it is stored in some form on their servers and it can be reset! If you read https://www.dropbox.com/help/28 they explicitly state that they don't support private encryption keys and discuss a workaround using Truecrypt.

"Dropbox currently does not support the creation of your own private keys....While not officially supported, some users have reported success mounting truecrypt volumes in their Dropbox. Truecrypt allows you to create your own private volume complete with your own private keys."

Compare to JD:
"Be careful when enabling encryption [i.e. using custom key]. If you forget the encryption key you select you will not be able to retrieve your files in the future....If you lose your key neither Jungle Disk nor Amazon can help you retrieve it." I.e. real encryption: only you have the key and if you lose it, your data is toast unless you used a really bad password.

Most cloud storage doesn't implement proper encryption. Good systems encrypt the data using a key only you know before it leaves your PC and then send it to the server through an SSL tunnel. On the server it is encrypted and doesn't matter who gains access to the data because only you have access to the encryption key. If JD is a bit demanding, SpiderOak is another service worth checking out: See https://spideroak.com/blog/20110109191539-fbi-wants-your-data-part-deux
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
tom@... 31st Mar 2011
@gwconnery@... But how do you actually KNOW that? Because it says so on their site? Gimme a few minutes to adjuct my Home Page and I'll have a new cloud for you to use. Care to suggest a new name for it?
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
overnout 31st Mar 2011
@gwconnery@... Just to back up what zlgtr said with an anecdote: I set up Dropbox for my dad (to sync between his main desktop and an easier to handle laptop). Of course, he lost his password, and I hadn't saved it anywhere. I did, however, regularly do all his backups, so I was ready to help him simply setup a new account... but for the heck of it, we tried the "forgot your password" routine at Dropbox, and I wrote up the email message from my dad's email account. Minutes later, the password was reset, a new one selected, and files re-accessible.
In other words, 1) I could have been any bozo impersonating my dad (no security questions, nothing) and 2) Dropbox can do anything they want with the files, if they so please (or get an offer they can't bring themselves to refuse).
I still use Dropbox all the time, but I'm under no illusion about the security it offers and take proper precautions (backups, encryption).
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well... it is in the definition of "cloud".
pupkin_z 29th Mar 2011
it is a stupid problem, really stupid. Why would one even want to create such a problem?
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That's probably Apple's sticking point with cloud music
thofts 29th Mar 2011
Who on earth would allow their files to be access or RETAIN your files??? Amazon is even more evil than Google is.
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How are these services different from MP3.com...
x I'm tc 29th Mar 2011
...Which was shut down oh so long ago?
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Anti-cloud
olafohman 29th Mar 2011
There is one really anti-cloud could application that I use daily. It can sync like a cloud but is not a cloud. Check it out
http://jointlogic.com/b-folders/2/
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
james347 29th Mar 2011
Put your data in the Cloud at YOUR OWN risk!
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
ALISON SMOCK 29th Mar 2011
Unfortunately this is similar to all other service ToS where they claim that a) all content must be legal and b) they can access the content to enforce a).
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
gwconnery@... 29th Mar 2011
@ALISON SMOCK No it isn't. I just went through the DropBox ToS and it doesn't give them the rights to access your files in any way unless you put them in a shared folder. The other folders in your account are yours and yours alone and they don't maintain any right to examine them.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
zlgtr 30th Mar 2011
@gwconnery

This is why any data you want to remain private needs to be encrypted with private keys. If any of these services gets a subpoena they'll cough up whatever user data they have.
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Then don't pirate files
betelgeuse68 29th Mar 2011
And send them to Amazon. Or better yet (if the specter of the RIAA haunts you), don't even use CloudDrive.

Given the 4500 songs I have on my iPhone 4, CloudDrive is not exactly something I'm dying to somehow leverage. I never listen to radio in my car after I put in a stereo that directly connects to my iPhone allowing me control of playback. Beyond that, I always carry my ear buds to listen to music wherever I may find myself. In short, CloudDrive may be a "nice to have" in some cases but that's about it.

-M
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
thetwonkey 30th Mar 2011
@betelgeuse68 The whole cloud concept is pretty useless to me, in that the basic issue of not having physical control of the information is enough of a reason not to use it. If you want to put your stuff out there and hope it will still be there in ten years, you're welcome to. I have seen enough data loss incidents in my life to know that the cloud providers aren't going to do any better a job protecting your data than your average novice user will.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
rynning 30th Mar 2011
@thetwonkey

I agree with your points as of NOW, but in the future as we move toward ubiquitous network access, faster and faster speeds, and more robust services, who's going to need a 160GB or even 20GB iPod? The future is coming, and Amazon seems to be getting there first so far...
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
rgcustomer@... 29th Mar 2011
What's free about storage that uses my internet connection, when I have to pay by the gigabyte uploaded/downloaded? This service is already DOA. The privacy issue makes me glad it's DOA.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
snoop0x7b 30th Mar 2011
@rgcustomer@... If you have Verizon and have unlimited data, like smart consumers do, you don't have to pay per gig.... 30$/month.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
gwconnery@... 29th Mar 2011
Thanks Steven,

Appreciate the legwork here. Made me examine the DropBox ToS as well, and since that is just way way better in terms of my rights, I've gone and deleted some pictures I had uploaded to Amazon's Cloud Locker service. It wasn't going to be that useful to me anyway given that it doesn't work on my iPhone and only has 5GB of storage (I have way more music than that, sorry).
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
dsw0@... 29th Mar 2011
The privacy policy sucks and that is why I wont put anything of importance out there. I just wish Dropbox had better plans.
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The author and others are terribly naive about these storage services
eglivincent Updated - 29th Mar 2011
I'm surprised that anyone believes data will be kept completely private and secure at an online service provider. Every, I mean EVERY service, including the author's beloved Dropbox, retains this right in some form or fashion which generally applies to unlawful activity including, of course, copyright infringement. Amazon happens to be more clear about their rights.

To the author, gwconnery and anyone else using remote storage solutions, YOU HAVE NO PRIVACY FOR YOUR DATA. If you want privacy, don't use third party services.

For example, per Dropbox's TOS: "Dropbox will have the right to investigate and prosecute violations of any of the above, including intellectual property rights infringement and Site security issues, to the fullest extent of the law. Dropbox may involve and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in prosecuting users who violate these Terms of Service."

Of course the Dropbox privacy policy also permits sharing YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION to respond to subpoena's and the like. Guess what, RIAA or other rightsholder will be knocking on your door with Amazon AND Dropbox supplied evidence.

Only use these services if you store completely legal content.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
zlgtr 30th Mar 2011
@eglivincent

I agree. I had a lengthy response to gwconnery's response to me but it got flagged as spam for some reason. Dropbox and most of these services don't encrypt data in a way that they can't access it. You have to read what Dropbox actually says very carefully. There are a few services that do it properly: JungleDisk and SpiderOak, I think. You create a private key on your PC that never leaves your PC, the private key is used to encrypt the data before it leaves, it passes through an SSL tunnel and lands on their server. It is unreadable on their server as they have no access to your key. On Dropbox and other services you can sometimes accomplish the same effect by using Truecrypt i.e. you sync an encrypted Truecrypt volume into the cloud.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
robertoberhoff 30th Mar 2011
hmm ..only if upload files to Amazon Cloud Drive you don't have too isn't like Dropbox which I use and Love Cloud player is just MP3tunes I use and mspot too . I love my music and collect and buy all the time .. I used to Mobile DJ work couple years ago ..some Music service want you give them your music for free like few services I see start up and didn't up my music collection and not get paid of it and same with Amazon Cloud Drive could if you upload your own music they might make money off the songs you don't buy from Amazon or have your computer
SoundCloud and GrooveShark too just to name few . I am audiophile .
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
Grayson Peddie 30th Mar 2011
I can't see my post that I've made. I'm using rekonq 0.6.1 (KDE 4.6.1 Kubuntu Backport PPA in Ubuntu 10.10 if that helps).
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To provide you with technical support and address technical issues
ryanmcdonough 30th Mar 2011
Did anyone read that part?

"to provide you with technical support and address technical issues."

Before you start kicking off, read the actual terms.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
illdini Updated - 30th Mar 2011
I plan to only use it for mp3s I buy from amazon.com for 2 reasons:

1. Those will be indisputably legal.
2. They won't count towards my storage allotment.
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Dropbox runs on S3...
icefyre127 30th Mar 2011
Since Dropbox is actually running on Amazon's servers the same terms applies for all the files you save using Dropbox. If you want to use S3 without worrying about this get JungleDisk. Jungledisk encrypts all files locally before they go up to S3 and decrypts them locally as needed. It is a very cheap program and is definitely worth the price for the security it offers. (Also has Sync capabilities just like Dropbox). You can access your files anywhere using the jungledisk portable application. (can't just log in to a website like dropbox because all of your files would look like encrypted garbage...)
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Reality Check....please
spdrcrtob Updated - 30th Mar 2011
Really, I think everyone is making something out of nothing here (FUD and chicken little talk). They state this to cover themselves ultimately, you would too if providing these services.

Insert reality check here.

If you are concerned about "draconian" measures for someone to go snooping through your "pirated" or "sensitive" files then don't upload it, pure and simple. You have to be an idiot to do that first off....anywhere. Doesn't matter if its DrobBox, yousendit, Amazon, etc, etc whatever. All it takes is a subpoena anyhow.

Think about it. Take it from someone that has had some not so nice interactions with the RIAA.

If you have some precious files that shouldn't end up on wikileaks or be leaked out anywhere why in the hell would you upload them ANYWHERE! You have got to be a complete dolt to upload anything that you want to stay secure, so honestly I think everyone is making this out to be a big deal when it shouldn't be for the scope of what the service is targeting (i.e. the FUD talk).

I'm not saying be ignorant, but do a "checksum" on your head and thought process here before jumping to conclusions about the "sky is falling" because Amazon put a disclosure in their ToS that in "providing tech support" they may access your files. Really people, if you are uploading music or using it for entertainment purposes should you be concerned about someone sifting through your music or other media? There's bigger concerns at stake then the Govt, RIAA, and Amazon seeing what's in your workout playlist. Are they really going to build a bio on you because you listen to Disturbed and U2, and deem you a threat to national security based upon this? Oops, I'm sorry I think I just freaked out the lot of you being scared the world and government are after you.

Cmon, let's be real here. But its good to know they have that in the ToS and thanks for pointing it out, but nothing to really freak out people.

Just don't store something that can A) get you in trouble or B)"be considered sensitive materials".

As I stated earlier there's more at stake in the world then this, maybe you should be more concerned about the people suffering in Japan then about what Amazon will find in my playlist or files I willfully submitted to the cloud.

You put it on the cloud anywhere...you are subjecting those files to some kind of scrutiny if you are up to no good.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
Heck if I Know 30th Mar 2011
@spdrcrtob

Finally, someone with a functioning brain. Well said!
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
mike4ty4@... Updated - 24th Nov
@Heck if I Know Though they seem to think that complaining about this is an obsession so all-consuming it leaves no time to worry about "bigger" problems... odd...
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
zlgtr 30th Mar 2011
@spdrcrtob

True enough. I'll add that this problem isn't specific to the Cloud. People walk around with USB drives, laptops, smart phones with all sorts of data that should be encrypted but isn't. Nice example from the news today: an employee at BP lost the SSNs and other PII on 13,000 persons claiming damages as a result of the BP oil spill in the gulf. Now that's adding insult to injury.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
mike4ty4@... Updated - 24th Nov
@spdrcrtob Problem here is that people talk about clouds making PCs and other local storage devices "obsolete". If that happens, you'll have NO choice but to put your data up for snooping.

"As I stated earlier there's more at stake in the world then this, maybe you should be more concerned about the people suffering in Japan then about what Amazon will find in my playlist or files I willfully submitted to the cloud."

Just because there are bigger problems out there doesn't mean the smaller ones are not problems. And like everyone complaining about this must be spending every minute of every waking hour of theirs obsessing over it... sheesh...
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Encryption?
knot44 30th Mar 2011
Yup. As soon as it was announced, I went through Amazons ToS and help files, looking for any mention of encryption. None found. Sorry, Amazon. You won't be getting my business for this option unless you build decent encryption into the product. I'll stick with JungleDisk.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
BB9193 30th Mar 2011
How is this any different from all other Cloud services? At some point, the vendor managing your data will have to have access to it (technical support as mentioned) in some manner or form. If you're going to use the service this is something you have to accept.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
Grayson Peddie Updated - 30th Mar 2011
I use my own personal cloud server. It's called SSH (Secure Shell) and SCP (Secure Copy). The industry will need to know my password before they can have access to my music files. Fail2Ban against the music industry as both require encryption and authentication!!! grin
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
yellowtieguy Updated - 30th Mar 2011
Why would it be wrong for RIAA to try and collect on 11,000 illegally shared songs?
If I pay for the music contained in my cloud, why would I have a problem with the RIAA having the ability to confirm that?

www.alchemicalrecords.us
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
jeverettk 1st Apr 2011
@yellowtieguy
Who knows why you don't care? I don't want ANYONE knowing that I sometimes listen to Justin Bieber, not even the RIAA.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
tom@... 31st Mar 2011
"
Nice try Amazon, but you?ll excuse me if I don?t give you the right to access, retain, use and disclose my account information and my files.
"
But, but ... how do you know your "fav" doesn't just do the same thing or even more? Policies are easily created, written by who knows, and meaningless in the long run. Perhaps it is Amazon that is being "honest"?
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Ludicrous: commercial music junkies want Cloud privacy!
billfranke@... 31st Mar 2011
If all you commercial music junkies weren't such refractory consumption addicts (you could learn how to make your own music, you know), you wouldn't have to worry about having Big Brothers Amazon and RIAA snooping around your publicly stored aural drugs. The idea that there is any such thing as privacy in the world today is ludicrous, especially when dealing with people who lose money (viz., avaricious corporations) and control (viz., supercilious government officials) when your actions are private and anonymous. None of you live in the real world, it seems, only in a world that you believe used to exist when humankind had just emerged from its evolutionary egg as homo sapiens sapiens, the noble and benevolent savage who spoke and wrote perfect English and treated Gaia (and family members) with the respect that Al Gore thinks she deserves. Kick the commercial music and movie habit, accept the reality that you are always being tracked and investigated by the government or by businesses that want to sell you even more than you have now, and learn how to entertain yourselves without having to contact your puppeteer junk suppliers.
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RE: No Privacy on Amazon's Cloud Drive
zlgtr 4th Apr 2011
@billfranke@...

Amazon's storage isn't just for music.

Privacy isn't a natural feature of the world. It's something people establish as a social value or give up.

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