personally i do as well. but that’s probably because we’re better at #1 and #2 than some people. especially #2. going from concept to producible file may seem impossible to some. #1, well, that varies greatly for everyone. sometimes great ideas come at the first sketch. other times you have to bang your head against the wall a lot and sleep on things a lot.
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Here here!! Couldn’t have said it better.
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It’s only paranoia if you’re wrong about everyone being out to get you.
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Okay yes we are all out to get your designs, but let’s be honest, you could hand over all your design files to me, and I still couldn’t come close to your end results.
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Thanks but I wonder what OP Is thinking now that this thread went way off the rails. @mikecarrick, Did you get any ideas about the state of GF and whether it will work for you or not?
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In response to the question about whether any of us are concerned with cyber security. Yes, it is something I considered when choosing a cloud-based machine. The bottom line is I am not creating anything on my GF that would pose an issue for me. If I were cutting things that I was concerned about getting into other hands (not artwork, but other secure information), I would likely not choose a cloud-based machine. I have yet to come up with something I’d want to laser that would need a high level of security, but I imagine if I were creating items of that caliber, I’d be able to afford a pricier machine.
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I pretty much give all my stuff away anyway, so it’s a non-issue for me. 
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Hah. “Come and take it!”
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There is good reason in the fashion world that nothing but your logo can be copyrighted. That is why folks who spend a lot on advertising hardly mention the design at all, but only the classiness of their logo. In the virtual world like Second Life there is nothing at all but the design and so there is very evolved means of protection, and still all is on the web, and still much is stolen.
As has been noted the design, even with the SVG file, is a small part of the work involved. @evansd2 often has designs that would be easy to copy or make your own but I have never come close to his detail quality and look and often go more complex as compensation.
Even back to my AutoCAD days, I used a lot of Lisp programming that I was often accused of stealing, but all I needed was to know what it did and it would be faster to write from scratch than to clean up the other work if I had it. This was true even of those published by Autodesk with the programs. Still the results I got were no more than anyone would get taking the same approach. You might just as well copyrighted binary numbers.
With so much historical and open designs on the Web, such craft work is approaching the fashion case and for the same reason that it is not much you can do that has not been done and probably better with only your workmanship to distinguish it.
There was a quote I recall “if you cannot recognize it as mine it isn’t”. I have seen folks note my own work in totally different media as my work even though there was no part I could point to and aside from remembering making them could not tell they were the same artist, and I expect that would be true of everyone here as well . Just look through the gallery.
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I don’t put anything ITAR sensitive or company proprietary into the GF.
Other than that I don’t have any worries. It is just a toy for me to make both useful and useless things for myself, friends, and co-workers.
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Should we demand that GF get the webapp FedRAMP certified? 
I’m a former CISO and for what I do with my machine, I have zero concerns about the storage of my projects. My personal information safeguards are a different story.
We don’t always read this section, but I do like to lurk. 
Mike, I just checked on your case. I see your email on Nov 1; we sent a reply the next day. I hope it got to you! It was just a short answer to your question about if you could read our cybersecurity plans, to say that we don’t currently publish them.
To your other question about assurances, they’re in our terms and conditions, and state that the data you upload to private areas of the service (meaning the app, not the forum) are confidential, and will be treated the same way Glowforge’s own confidential data is treated.
We encrypt information between the client and our servers, which are hosted in Google’s cloud. We have an experienced team who’s vetted our architecture directly with their former co-workers at Google. At the same time, we recognize that the bad folks are sophisticated too, and companies much bigger than we are have been hacked, so we make no additional promises.
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Ok.
Could you post the Terms & Conditions link?
The remaining trepidation was with respect to Open Source software, and the ability to work offline. So any news about that would let me conclude this long term transaction with greater certainty.
Thanks.
The company has never announced anything about adding that ability, and in fact it seems contradictory to what we do know of their design philosophy.
There is no reason to think that a Glowforge will ever work offline, at least not with the manufacturer’s direct support.
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It is the Achilles heel, then. Companies go under for all kinds of reasons. I’d be just as happy running this on a Linux docker instance if that were to happen. Meaning it would be the BEST outcome if this were to happen.
Meanwhile, I appreciate the tip to minimize my exposure by removing files promptly. That being said … Thank You all for the discussion.
That’s not the last of my concerns, but it is the last showstopper concern. I have requested delivery now.
/m
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