No amount of precautions can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. Hence we need an attitude of problem fixing, not just problem “avoidance”. And it’s true that an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure, but that’s only if we know what to “prevent”. If you’ve been punched on the nose, then the science of medicine does not consist of teaching you how to avoid punches. If medical science stopped seeking cures and concentrated on prevention only, then it would achieve very little of either.

The traditional Enterprise IT world is buzzing at the moment with plans on how to stop Cloud Computing from entering into the workplace. It ought to be buzzing with plans to reduce the security and privacy risks associated with Cloud Computing. And not at all costs, but efficiently and cheaply. And some such plans exist, host-prood hosting[1], for example.

With problems that we are not aware of yet, the ability to put right — not the sheer good luck of avoiding indefinitely — is our only hope, not just of solving problems, but of making technological progress.

(the above is based on a talk by Professor David Deutsch on problem avoidance)

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host-proof_hosting