![](bg4.png)
Connected with a user’s easy-to-use attitude is a
general negligence (or sometimes impossibility) to
wipe out personal information or data. In most cases
the original data pertain “for ever”, and mostly also
without the explicit consent or knowledge of the
owner of the data. Recent observations from Social
Media sites have revealed that deletion of user data
does not entirely mean deletion from the server.
3.7 Security and Privacy Concerns
The full range of security and privacy issues apply
for most of the cloud applications, mostly arising
from multi-tenancy and concurrency issues. Data in
the cloud are shared between multiple tenants. The
same resources, e.g. a database, may be
(unknowingly) shared among several users. It is
obvious that risks regarding security and privacy
concerns will arise (Jeffery and Neidecker-Lutz,
2010). What if we envisage a software failure during
data restoration (from a commonly shared)
database?
Moreover the location of data is potentially not
known. For legal purposes it could be extremely
difficult to identify a country-specific legal basis in
case of a dispute.
3.8 Exploitation of Data
Known business models of cloud-service providers
or cloud-computing applications revealed the
massive use of information and data provided by
individuals for the purpose of commercialisation.
Multi-facetted user-provided data can be re-shuffled
or aggregated in many different ways thus creating
assets of interesting commercial value.
Data are “handed over” to external stakeholders
who, in principle, can read, copy, and exploit them
commercially. Though data protection principles
would usually apply within cloud computing
contracts, there is little control over potential ex-
ploitation of citizen-own data. Modern social media
platform even are deliberately exhibiting user data to
more or less defined online communities.
Risks deriving from this way of exploiting user
data are of a new dimension and will have to be
thoroughly assessed and discussed with ongoing
research.
4 DISCUSSION
The aim of the current research is to look into the
qualitative and quantitative dimensions of citi-zens’
vulnerabilities while interacting in the digital world,
and in particular to cloud-computing appli-cations.
Therefore, this position paper investigates on the
application of classical risk analysis concepts to the
particular field of citizen’s digital interaction.
Research will define what the single constituents
of the classical risk formula (hazard, vulnerability,
exposure) mean in the new context; current research
should also give hints on how these concepts will be
classified and quantified. In a further step the risk
formula concept will be applied to a number of com-
mon scenarios out of the cloud-computing world
which can affect the citizen’s assets in general.
Ongoing research will postulate the necessity of
detailed classification and subsequent quantification
of all risk affecting factors or parameters: incidents
for hazard quantification; types of vulnerabilities
including individual resilience; types of exposure
and possible degrees of exposure.
In a different step, it is planned to apply known
risk analysis methods, for example FMEA (Failure
Mode and Effects Analysis) or FTA (Fault Tree
Analysis); eventually results will be produced that
would help to generate a clear statement on the
individual risk a citizen takes while navigating in the
cloud.
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disred/rdr.htm .
Wright, D., Safeguards in a World of Ambient
Intelligence, Chapter 4: Threats and Vulnerabilities.
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Jeffery, K., Neidecker-Lutz, B. (eds.): The Future of
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Parnell, B.A., Millions face Megaupload data deletion by
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Parnell, B.A., Microsoft’s Azure cloud down and out for 8
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