Well, there is a different between The Cloud and "A very particular kind of privately owned Cloud". Cloud storage or services don't mean you have to rely on private companies to store or syncronize your data. You can run a substancial set of the same services on your own trusted hardware.
Do you need email ? Do not rely on gmail to store your email or you, use your own server, IMAP and a webclient such as roundcube when you are on the go.
Do you need calendaring? Use Ical and a webdav server.
Do you need file synchronization? Use rsync over ssh to your home machine instead of dropbox. (that's exactly what I do to back up my Android phone), do you want that to be completely automated? Call rsync from a crontab.
My last pictures? a gallery on my home server rather than using flikr or facebook.
Do you need to be reachable by phone from overseas? That's very tricky, since you don't control the phone numbering system, but I am doing really well with my home asterisk server, my android SIP phone and a bunch of SIP providers in a several countries. When I want to talk something with my tech savvy friends, I can use Sip 2 Sip directly (not skype).
It's susprising the amount of stuff you can do when you are running your own services on a trusted environment. Just a ssh + screen session is more than enough for me to do most of my daily tasks. In case I get increasingly paranoid of the goverment I could you just ship a box overseas or use a cheap controled VPS on a different country. I may not have freedom of movement (since immigration is definitely not a friction-free act), but my data surely has. I am not saying this is a perfect solution, but definitely it's much better privacy wise.
The only think I lose with this approach is the 'social' aspect of cloud services. People's attention span is short enough to force them to go to my personal services or my blog to check for my personal updates. Facebook success is that it offers a one single place where you can get a glimpse of how are your friends and beloved ones doing. That's why It's so important to invest on open distribution formats (a la RSS) we can trust and control.
Do you need email ? Do not rely on gmail to store your email or you, use your own server, IMAP and a webclient such as roundcube when you are on the go.
Do you need calendaring? Use Ical and a webdav server.
Do you need file synchronization? Use rsync over ssh to your home machine instead of dropbox. (that's exactly what I do to back up my Android phone), do you want that to be completely automated? Call rsync from a crontab.
My last pictures? a gallery on my home server rather than using flikr or facebook.
Do you need to be reachable by phone from overseas? That's very tricky, since you don't control the phone numbering system, but I am doing really well with my home asterisk server, my android SIP phone and a bunch of SIP providers in a several countries. When I want to talk something with my tech savvy friends, I can use Sip 2 Sip directly (not skype).
It's susprising the amount of stuff you can do when you are running your own services on a trusted environment. Just a ssh + screen session is more than enough for me to do most of my daily tasks. In case I get increasingly paranoid of the goverment I could you just ship a box overseas or use a cheap controled VPS on a different country. I may not have freedom of movement (since immigration is definitely not a friction-free act), but my data surely has. I am not saying this is a perfect solution, but definitely it's much better privacy wise.
The only think I lose with this approach is the 'social' aspect of cloud services. People's attention span is short enough to force them to go to my personal services or my blog to check for my personal updates. Facebook success is that it offers a one single place where you can get a glimpse of how are your friends and beloved ones doing. That's why It's so important to invest on open distribution formats (a la RSS) we can trust and control.