The scene in the office on that sad day reminds one of sort of a virtual shiva; now-former employees make the last copies of their resumes on the office copy machine, the last paychecks are distributed, the boss signs letters of recommendations for workers, and whatever is left of the office supplies are distributed. And, of course, there’s the last lunch, with employees and managers reminiscing on their time together, and promising to keep in touch.

Then there are the assets. The hardware that the service ran on are often taken by creditors, or the VCs who will not be seeing a return on their investment; the patents are either sold, rented out, or frozen, in the hope that they will be used to innovate on another day. And, of course, the final monetary accounting is taken, ensuring that former employees’ pensions and other savings plans are kept safe.

What about the data? Ah, there’s an interesting question. We would expect the information on hard drives and databases to be wiped; indeed, there would seem to be little use for user data after the service has closed down. Of course, someone could mine the database for email addresses and sell them, but the reputation of the company – and especially the management, and super-especially the CEO – would be severely tarnished. It’s hard to imagine an internet startup whiz, who was able to raise millions of dollars to fulfill his or her vision, would stoop that low – or be that hard up for cash.

But there might be other information that could come in handy – depending on the nature of the service. Here is a quote from a well-known internet service, where you can store information, documents, and ideas, for yourself or for others. “By submitting to [service] any ideas, suggestions, documents and/or proposals… you acknowledge and agree that… your contributions automatically become the property of [service] without any obligation of [service] to you; and you are not entitled to any accounting, compensation or reimbursement of any kind from [service] under any circumstances.”

I’m intentionally not naming the service, because in truth this terms of service (TOS) agreement is not unique; Gmail’s, for example, says that they have a right to use your information in all sorts of ways. Gmail, the classic cloud application, stores all your information online, and nowadays many people are using Gmail for their main mail account – meaning that they transmit all sorts of sensitive information right to Google’s waiting claws, which the company can theoretically use for nefarious purposes.

But I’m not worried about Gmail; any company whose stock price is in excess of $600 doesn’t need the petty business ideas and thoughts we may send through and store on their servers. Whatever we can come up with, I’m pretty sure the Google people have already thought of, and they either have a pilot program going based that idea, or have rejected it as not being applicable to their business model.

But what about a service that stored information like Google does – including sensitive spreadsheets, business plans, communications, thoughts and ideas – shares of which are not trading at $625 a share, and in fact are no longer trading at all, because they’re bust? Could one of our business ideas – a really good one – end up the property of an ex-CEO, or to whomever said CEO or the board of directors sells the intellectual aspects of the former service provider?

Concerns over computer application and internet service TOS  are nothing new, and there have been many celebrated cases of user TOS protests – such as the one against Facebook, where users got nervous when Facebook claimed the right to use any user content posted by anyone, in any way they wanted to. According to the TOS that every user agrees to (but few bother reading before agreeing), the Facebook people have a perfect right to take your photos and sell them to an advertising agency. By clicking “yes” on a page that links to an agreement that says that “You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)” and use in any way “any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service,” you’ve given them all the permission they need to use you in a “Don’t let this happen to you!” style ad campaign!

Partly as a result of the protests, Facebook has updated its privacy settings, making it easier to opt-out of any potential use of your content for purposes you didn’t intend them to be used for. But what are those Facebook-posted photos and updates worth anyway? It’s not like the company is going to auction off your photo to an ad agency for millions – and if your image is worth that kind of money, you’ve probably beaten Facebook to the ad agency and made your own deal, anyway.

But Facebook and Google are in leagues of their own; besides the fact that they’re wallowing in cash already, both companies would have far more to lose if they were caught selling, renting, or otherwise profiting from user content. As both companies make clear on their  websites and in numerous blogs, the legalese in the TOS agreements is for their protection, such as when data gets cached (and used) on a server not under their control, and ends up being linked to by an undesirable website. Numerous articles of mine, for example, are linked from the Jerusalem Post server to sites of less than savory individuals (anti-Semites and the like), but it’s clear that I couldn’t hold the Post responsible for that.

But when it comes to smaller web services whose future is iffy, beware. We want the convenience of the cloud, but not all cloud data and information storage services are created equal. I’m sure no CEO would be the type to want to rip off an innovative business plan or idea I posted/stored on his or her service/servers. And under normal circumstances it’s almost impossible to conceive of such a thing happening. But when the chips are down and said CEO is down and out, it’s entirely possible that his/her next Big Idea will be the very same one you jotted down and posted in your (private) account – an account on a site where the TOS says that “your contributions automatically become the property of [service] without any obligation of [service] to you.” It hasn’t happened yet (to my knowledge), but on the day it does, that fluffy white Cloud will turn dark and angry, and become the harbinger of a hurricane.

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Readers will have certainly read this story (http://tinyurl.com/6mcjbq), a Jerusalem Post scoop, describing serious security breaches on Facebook. IDF soldiers have posted details of their bases, weapons they have worked with, and personal information about who they are and what they do in the IDF. A special IDF unit, the article says, has been searching Facebook for months trying to identify and, hopefully, eliminate the information, which could potentially be used against Israel in a future war.

It’s the same on Google Earth; terrorists have, by their own admission, used information on GE to target Israeli sites (http://tinyurl.com/3agqb7):

“Members of the Aksa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, say they use the popular Internet mapping tool to help determine their targets for rocket strikes. ‘We obtain the details from Google Earth and check them against our maps of the city center and sensitive areas,’ Khaled Jaabari, the group’s commander in Gaza who is known as Abu Walid, told the Guardian. Abu Walid showed the Guardian an aerial image of the Israeli town of Sderot on his computer to demonstrate how his group searches for targets.”

All this, in addition to the insult and injury both Google Earth (http://tinyurl.com/5vazkc) and Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/5pzttm) cause us as a nation and a people.

But what’s good for the Israeli goose is good for the Iranian and Syrian gander. They, too, have military secrets that are “out there,” and a discerning Web surfer could find out a thing or two about how Israel’s enemies are preparing for war. Much information of use to terrorists anywhere in the world is publicly available on the Web. Many shopping malls, for example, have detailed information about the way the building was constructed, the plumbing or air filtration system, or similar details that an ambitious terrorist could take advantage of.

And there are also sites that have useful tidbits and nuggets about security procedures, weapons and other interesting information for almost every country in the world (it helps to be multilingual, though). Even local map sites have interesting and useful information that maybe shouldn’t be there. I found a couple of what I thought were “questionable” items on a well-known Israeli map site (I won’t mention what or where, for obvious reasons, but I did e-mail the site).

What’s good about services like Google Earth and Facebook is that they’re “concentrated” – everything you need is on one site, if you know what you’re looking for. And no country is safe; finding out “secrets” is often more about human error (as in the case of the IDF soldiers and Facebook), or intelligent people putting two and two together.

Intelligence experts in Europe last week noticed something different on a satellite photo taken in Iran recently, and determined that Iran was developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe (now they know how it feels).

Of course, anybody with access to a multimillion-dollar satellite that can take high-resolution photos from space of objects two feet off the ground (http://tinyurl.com/5s8j4w) can pull off the same trick. But you don’t need to spend a lot of money on satellite photos to figure out what the Iranians are doing. All you need is a quick eye on Google Earth, like the person at http://tinyurl.com/5bmg55. While the hi-res photo didn’t reveal the specific site in Iran where the missile development is taking place, comparing the hi-res photo with older images of Iran on GE, the poster of this information figured out where the new facility was – right down to the building:

“Entering the coordinates N 35 13 19, E 53 53 41 reveals a Digital Globe satellite image of the facility taken earlier than” the one cited by Jane’s (the site was referred to in the article as “a previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230 kilometers. southeast of Teheran”).

Another intelligent guess on intelligence regarding Iran can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/59xvh2, where the author extrapolates what Iran would do with the the S-300PT SAM system it purchased from Belarus (it got two from Belarus and two from an “undisclosed source”). The author of this blog cites his source as Jane’s, and discusses several other weapons and defensive systems Iran has acquired recently.

Being apparently less innovative than Israel in how its weapons are deployed, the author makes a case for a scenario in how the systems would be used to defend strategic Iranian interests, including Teheran and the country’s nuclear facilities. Attached to the analysis are images of Google Earth, marked up with diagrams showing how the missile systems (to be used for defensive purposes, the author said) would be deployed, as well as the most logical locations for the systems, given their known capabilities.

GE has also helped reveal to the wider world the “secret” of Syria’s nuclear weapons deployment in the North of the country. The Ogle Earth site (http://tinyurl.com/5vwjva), which is where GE geeks go to share ideas, analyzes the satellite photos of the September 6 raid (officially, we still don’t know who was behind it), and based on information quoted in the name of a “senior US official,” pinpoints what the site believes to be the “single spot” where the facility could have been. The building where the facility was being built for the last six years, according to intelligence reports (http://tinyurl.com/63dgbf), should have shown up in GE – and indeed it does, following the coordinates based on the analysis listed.

Of course, Israel’s security is a lot more important to us then Iran’s or Syria’s – and Israelis, as citizens of the nation with the highest per capita amount of computer ownership in the world, have more opportunities to make mistakes. (It’s hard to imagine Syrian troops forming a club on Facebook.) With greater opportunity comes greater responsibility, of course – but it’s nice to see that the system can work in our favor sometimes, too!