Every Friday here on In The Personal Cloud we’ll be presenting a roundup of links highlighting popular and rising news stories from the world of the cloud and online security. Everything from news regarding hacking and how to be secure to advancements in the field of cloud computing. Stay tuned to In The Personal Cloud each Friday to remain up to date on everything you need to know.

Mozilla Slams CISPA, Breaking Silicon Valley’s Silence on Cybersecurity Bill – Silicon Valley has been quietly taking sides either in support of or against the government’s latest proposed cybersecurity bill. However, Mozilla has come forward as the most vocal, stating that although they support a more secure internet, they can’t support a bill that seems to ignore privacy laws already in place. [Forbes]

How to spot dangerous links before you click them – Once again readers, a little vigilance now can save you from a lot of heartache later. Here are a couple of quick and easy ways to not just spot dangerous links, but to put a little more faith into that leap ranging from installing plug-ins directly into your browser, to simply mousing over the link to see where it plans to take you. [CNET]

First Drive-By Malware Sites Discovered for Android – If you have an Android device and use it as your primary source of surfing, pay very, very close attention to the advice offered in this write-up. There are now sites out there that can detect not only whether or not you’re using an Android device, but are then capable of invisibly installing malware on it. Good news though, the fix is easy and it’s free. [Gizmodo]

Skype security hole shares Internet addresses – Looks like a new hacking tool has surfaced with the ability to capture a Skype user’s last known IP address. This can be used to send malware directly to the user or to help launch a denial-of-service attack. Fortunately, the fix is pretty quick and simple. [Technolog]

Facebook teams up with security vendors, offers free antivirus software – Although you may be limited to one security app download per Facebook account, you get six months of security updates for free. Not bad. [ITWorld]

Google Drive: Hybrid of Cloud Storage and Cloud Computing – This Huffington Post writer took Google’s latest product for a spin, and concludes that although it may take some getting used to, it seems to be a step in the write (pun intended) direction. [The Huffington Post]

Google Drive: Watch out, cloud computing in the U.S. like ‘Wild West’ – It wasn’t all that long ago that law enforcement needed a warrant to gain access to your personal computer. The reason for that being that they had to actually enter your home to seize it. Nowadays, with cloud computing on the rise, they really only need access to the server your data is stored on. And depending on the company you store that data with, that could be quite easy. [Prospectus News]

Growing Up Google: How Cloud Computing Is Changing a Generation – 7 Year olds creating workarounds is only the beginning. This article highlights how Google might be more than a trend, it might be positioning itself as the norm. [Mashable]

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Every Friday here on In The Personal Cloud we’ll be presenting a roundup of links highlighting popular and rising news stories from the world of the cloud and online security. Everything from news regarding hacking and how to be secure to advancements in the field of cloud computing. Stay tuned to In The Personal Cloud each Friday to remain up to date on everything you need to know.

Infected PCs may lose Internet service in July – …and for my next trick – looks like hackers have caused a bit of a detour between several hundreds of thousands of computers that could leave them without the ability to access the Internet in just 3 months time. During a recent raid, the FBI confiscated servers that supported malware, but quickly realized without the servers themselves, for the infected, their Internet was as good as broken. [WTSP]

The Internet’s Political Voices Are Lining Up To Smash CISPA – Looks like the US Government might be 0-2 with regards to cybersecurity legislation. Several university professors have written an open letter to Congress calling upon lawmakers to oppose the latest cybersecurity bills e.g. CISPA and SECURE IT because of their ability to turn any service that relays or receives internet traffic into a potentially invasive surveillance system. [Forbes]

CISPA isn’t ‘son of SOPA’ – On the other hand, this blogger warns that after such a monumental defeat with SOPA, we need to be careful not to immediately put down subsequent bills that could potentially and genuinely make the internet safer. [POLITICO]

Cyber arms race will be next step in computer warfare, says F-secure’s Mikko Hypponen – Yesterday’s nuclear arms race is slowly turning into today’s cyber arms race. It appears as though China and the US are engaging in a series of “war games” where the other is trying to predict what the other will do if things should escalate. Chief Security Researcher, Mikko Hypponen warns that any future crisis will involve cyber elements. [The Inquirer]

One in Five Mac Carry Windows Malware – And it doesn’t even have to be harmful to the Mac user. It turns out that Macs are becoming hotspots for Windows viruses. The virus finds its way onto a Mac and just waits to come into contact with an unprotected PC that it can infect. [IB Times]

Eugene Kaspersky: ‘Apple ten years behind Microsoft in terms of security’ – We already know OS X is not the impenetrable force it’s long since been rumored to be, but it turns out that may be due in part to the fact that their security patches – lately – have been few and far between. [Macgasm]

Cloud computing leads training priorities – Not only do the majority of organisations believe their IT staff will require training in cloud computing and virtualization, but they’ve also allocated a great deal of their budgets towards it as well. [IT Web]

Google Adds Drive to Cloud Computing Options – Google’s latest foray into an already crowded space may find itself on top quicker than anyone thinks. Their primary target? Dropbox. At more than twice the storage and half the price, Google has made its consumer cloud intentions known. [HispanicBusiness]

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How artists are using cloud computing to create, collaborate and share their work.

By Ryan W. Neal

The Ancient Greeks believed that artistic inspiration came from the Muses. These goddesses would descend from heaven and bestow mortals with ideas for science, literature and art.

Now, artists are actually putting their work back into the clouds. Cloud computing not only gives creative types a digital space to save their work; it opens up new possibilities for creation, distribution and collaboration with other artists around the world.

On April 23, Adobe unveiled its new Creative Cloud: a subscription-based service they say will be a game-changing hub for making, sharing and publishing for design, Web and video professionals. Adobe says the Creative Cloud will allow users to download and install Creative Suite 6 – which features the latest versions of their popular programs like Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat and Flash – and store their projects in the cloud for easy sharing and integration with mobile applications like Photoshop Touch. Adobe is also introducing new tools for HTML5 design, Adobe Edge and Adobe Muse (a nod to the Greek goddesses of divine inspiration), that they say will make it easy to create apps for mobile marketplaces and publish, manage and host websites from anywhere.

“The urge to be creative is universal, and harnessing the creative spark – in everyone from school children to creative pros – has never been more important,” said Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s president and CEO, in a press release. “Wherever and whenever inspiration strikes, Adobe will be there to help capture, refine and publish your ideas.”

The step may be a gamble for Adobe, as users will now have to pay $50 each month to access the CS6 apps on up to two different machines. But the membership fee also comes with 20 gigabytes of online storage that allows users to store and share up to five projects on Adobe’s servers at once, and access them from anywhere. Adobe says users can also adjust permission levels, allowing colleagues to make edits while clients can only view the projects.  These features alone might make it worth it for many on-the-go media professionals.

Another service, hitrecord.org, is taking over the job of the Muses by hosting works of art in the cloud and encouraging artists to collaborate with each other. Owned by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt of Inception and 50/50 fame, the website describes itself as an open collaborative production company.

“Hollywood can be, you know, a bit exclusive,” says Gordon-Levitt in a video explaining the website. “There’s so many great artists around the world doing great work, so this is my way to work with them.”

HitRECord considers itself more of an online studio where people make things together. As the director, of sorts, Gordon-Levitt starts most of the collaborations between artists, although any user is free to start a project at any time. Users upload their original music, movies, writing, or art pieces, and other users download them to remix, sample, edit, and then re-upload them as new content. Unlike online exhibition sites like YouTube, Vimeo, or Tumblr, most of the content on hitRECord is incomplete, and intended to be worked on by other artists.

“Remixing isn’t theft,” says Gordon-Levitt. His website actually requires users to give up exclusive rights to anything they upload. “Its just how we work together.”

Since 2010, hitrecord has had over 200,000 contributions from about 50,000 different artists. Last year, they released an anthology of the website’s work as book, CD and DVD package. They have also released The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, and have a deal to create two more volumes. HitRECord also has plans to turn the tiny stories into tiny movies. If a project turns a profit, hitRECord keeps half of the money and divides the rest among the contributing artists.

In a more literal sense than the Greek poets could have ever imagined, works of art are more and more coming from the clouds. Although the Muses may now be digitized, artists have never been more equipped to express and share the inspiration they receive.

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