Mike Neuenschwander

For all its potential benefits, cloud computing also lays bare a core weakness in Internet-scale distributed computing: how to establish enduring trust among participants? The current toolset for online trust includes a bit of cryptography and several dozen identification schemes--essentially "punting" trust issues to out-of-band efforts such as legal agreements and personal relationships. But the cloud model won't allow trust to be so cheaply or conveniently won. Cloud-based services are poised to contain much of the world's critical data and run many of the world's critical systems--in short, cloud services are destined to become "too big to fail."

But how can we bail out a breakdown in trust? Parties may be able to recover fiscal damages, but how will the industry recover trust in a flawed model? A better plan is for the industry to push for a trust breakthrough. Rather than leaving trust out of the online experience, it's time to build trust--social trust, not cryptographic trust--into the very protocols and technologies that enable cloud computing.

In this presentation, Mike Neuenschwander will discuss how critical pathways to trust can be codified into cloud computing. Mike will also likely throw in a few jokes, maybe a few antics, or smash something to ensure you'll enjoy the conference, even if you get nothing of educational value from the presentation.

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