“The cloud”, the worst form of data storage except all the others?

We all use "the cloud", well most of us at least. But where is it, how safe is it and how does it work?

Recently a reader of the Straight Dope sent Cecil Adams the following question:

The trend in computers is to store all your files "in the cloud." That doesn't mean they're up in the sky; they're in a big hard drive somewhere. But that got me wondering: How secure is the cloud? Are we one good case of sunspots or an electromagnetic pulse away from losing it all?

Read the answer here.