What Is More Secure: Cloud Storage Of Your Computer Files Or A U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex?

SisterRiceAnswer: It’s your computer files. In February, 2014; Sister Megan Rice, an 84 year old Roman Catholic nun was sentenced to 3 years in prison for breaking into a nuclear weapons complex in Tennessee and defacing the secure area of the complex with anti-war slogans that she painted on the walls. The complex in Oak Ridge holds the U.S. government’s principal supply of bomb-grade uranium. Although heavily armed security guards patrolled the front gate, the elderly nun was able to enter the control center by going in an unguarded and unlocked back door labeled ‘Do Not Enter’, which private contractors apparently felt was adequate to prevent unauthorized entry. The contractors have since been fired. The government prosecutor asked the judge to sentence Sister Rice to 30 years in prison, but the judge sentenced her to just 3 years instead due to her advanced age, history of good works, and the fact that she didn’t take any uranium or plutonium out of the facility. Sister Rice’s story has been closely followed by the press in the Middle East. I think that if I was in Al Qaeda, I would find this story very interesting!

 

Box.com. 8 years ago, my nephew Aaron Levie, started a cloud storage business in my back yard, Box.com. (Aaron is actually my first cousin once removed, but I tell people that he is my nephew because I don’t want to have to explain to people what a first cousin once removed is.) Box.com has become the 800 pound gorilla in the corporate cloud storage market, with over 95% of Fortune 500 companies using it. Like a lot of successful dot-coms, Aaron started up on a shoestring, which is why he and his partners were living and working in my backyard cottage  for 10 months, from January to October, 2006. It was their first office as well as their home. I am sure that Aaron’s business would never have gotten off the ground if Box.com was as secure as Oak Ridge. So Yes, it does appear that cloud storage is a lot more secure than the government’s nuclear weapons arsenal.