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Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

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Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#41

Post by tryptophan »

purespark2 wrote: post #4
jlgaddis wrote: post #3

As long as you encrypt all of your data before uploading it, trust isn't such a big factor.

Is there any software that can do this in a very user friendly way? Ideally after entering a key when installing the software, I would never know that encryption is happening.

The best I have found is "Duplicati" which runs in the background of your computer and can backup to all internet backends(I use it with ondrive and box), a NAS, or a USB stick/attached drive(pretty much anything). It is open source as well! It automatically (locally) encrypts all your files after compression and does it in blocks, making it quite space efficient. It also has versioning. https://www.duplicati.com/

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#42

Post by jlgaddis »

wheelerwj wrote: post #37
jlgaddis wrote: post #3

As long as you encrypt all of your data before uploading it, trust isn't such a big factor.

what do you use?

As far as data that is stored "in the cloud", I primarily use tarsnap (with the data stored on AWS S3) as well as S3 directly.

Most of my (not at home) stuff is backed up to a server (that I own) at $work (ISP), though.

I'm still looking for the perfect solution (for me).

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#43

Post by bo1024 »

needcaffeine wrote: post #39
bo1024 wrote: post #29

Long term, personal, and/or sizeable data, like my photos: my own hard drives, backed up every few months. Stuff I work on daily: sync with a VPS I pay a small monthly fee for, using version control.

What would happen to your personal data if you got burgled?

Good point. One backup is onsite, one is offsite (that one only updated every few months).

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#44

Post by newscracker »

For the specific services listed in the post, I trust them in the order listed, but just these — Apple iCloud and Dropbox. I don't like the idea of Google (or anyone else) scanning my data, even though the security practices may be good.

I store the really sensitive information encrypted using a volume (which appears as a file when not mounted and when uploaded) created by Veracrpyt [1] (a replacement for TrueCrypt). I use a long pass phrase to encrypt this volume. For slightly less sensitive information, like photos, I store them on SpiderOak.

I avoid putting sensitive information anywhere unless it's encrypted before the upload starts (on my end). I also prefer paying for services.

I would strongly recommend using client side encryption, and checking out the options others have mentioned.

[1]: https://www.veracrypt.fr

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#45

Post by daniel_iversen »

daniel_iversen wrote: post #36
rbcgerard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out https://cryptomator.org

Yes that seems quite nice (if you want to go that far). It also works well with the Dropbox (and others) sync engine because it encrypts individual files as opposed to making a large sparse bundle/volume file. Don’t think it allows you to take advantage of delta-byte syncing though because while compression algorithms can now cater for the rsync-like delta sync functionality you find in some cloud storage clients my…

...that said though, I actually do want to say that personally I'm always very conscious of what the tradeoff is.. I like to keep my files in a flexible format that's future proof and to be able to move it around and manipulate them in a fast way. The risk with something like Cryptomator, despite it looking pretty neat and being open source etc, that if people decide to not maintain it anymore then my files are stuck in an encrypted format that one would have to develop code (or use an old OS with an old version of Cryptomator) to access them.. so I'd prefer leaving my files in Dropbox (who encrypts my files on their/our side) and on full-disk encrypted hard drives instead. But each to their own of course!

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#46

Post by mercer »

sanbor wrote: post #35
daniel_iversen wrote: post #30

Dropbox and Apple equally. But I work at Dropbox and I know how much effort goes into trust, security, privacy and compliance. Also for your interest the underlying infrastructure with its security measures etc is common between both Personal and Business products (one of the main differences with the business product is that it allows you to hook into your own enterprise security related systems such as IdM, DLP/CAS…

> I know how much effort goes into trust, security, privacy and compliance Yahoo had a security team that was completely bypassed by NSA by installing a kernel module [1] to get access to emails. With Condi in the board I wouldn't trust them that much. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/08/reuters-yahoo-email-scan...

I find myself inclined to trust Dropbox because they really seem to have their 'shit' together. It's one of the most reliable 'cloud' tools that I've used so far.

But I share the concern about Condi on the board, and I'm curious if others can weigh in on how justified that concern is.

Ideally, of course, I'd like to hear someone from Dropbox to say something about this, but I can understand how they wouldn't touch this topic with a ten-foot pole.

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#48

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Osmium wrote: post #20
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #2

I would point out that right now, you have your data divided across four different buckets, which means no one provider can completely compromise your data. Why would you want to end this arrangement?

P(your data compromised) = 1 - P(storage provider never hacked)^(number of storage providers) All else equal, using more storage providers increases your risk of exposure, not decreases it. And for most classes of sensitive data, the loss of any of that data can still cause problems, e.g. imagine health records... if only 1/5th of your patient data was hacked, that would still be a very bad situation (and before anyo…

I think the issue is that you're assuming storage providers exist that will never get hacked, or that there's a scenario that entails your data being stored out on the Internet and not compromised.

I think we are in a "when, not if" world for security compromise.

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#49

Post by bobwaycott »

danso wrote: post #32
bobwaycott wrote: post #21

I don’t even trust myself with my data. It’s too easy to do something stupid. How could I possibly trust anyone more than that?

No one cares more than I do that I not be horribly maimed or obliterated in a high speed collision, but I trust certain vehicle manufacturers and airlines more than I do their competitors.

You appear to be answering a question of comparative preference, which is neither direct to my point, nor homologous to the question asked. The trust one places in a vehicle manufacturer or airline with one’s life is vastly different from the trust one places in a for-profit corporation with one’s data.

I’ll grant you that I initially read the Ask HN to be a question about personal/private data, rather than what appears on subsequent reading to be a more general kind of data storage question. Either way, it’s still a vastly different level of trust that doesn’t approach the severity of your example (in my mind).

Re: Ask HN: Who do you trust most with your data?

#50

Post by mstaoru »

Stopped trusting Dropbox after they were caught mimicking OS X administrator prompt: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12463338 - no matter how much they talk about good intentions, that shows company core values to me.

Stopped using and trusting iCloud after Apple was forced to pass it to some shady Chinese provider in China (I live in China).

I just run a small home DIY NAS with a simple RAID 6 config for Time Machine and phone backup.

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