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Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

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Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#41
post #22

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

I would like to say that Nextcloud, while it is not trvial to set up, is very very good at helping you set up the server securely. They additionally have a way to testing your server to make sure you did set it up, and helps you to correct issues. I would love to see Nextcloud create a "time machine" type box, where it runs both as your router and as a "home cloud" service. That way it would be much easier to configu…

The only problem is that the server is written in PHP, which has had a history of bad RCE bugs (and an RCE bug in this context means all your personal data is accessible). In addition, NextCloud has had several pretty bad bugs related to authentication (such as bypassing 2FA, by pressing "cancel").

Don't get me wrong, I still use NextCloud, but you can only access my instance through a VPN (or by being on my home network where my server runs). I would suggest that everyone else does the same if you're hosting your own data.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#42

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

Everybody makes mistakes and nothing in the world is black and white.

The only question is, is your cloud provider less likely to make mistakes with your data than you are?

For most people, the answer is going to be orders of magnitude less likely.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use for email over Gmail?

I use fastmail. I'm a happy customer.

It seems from another world when I see people paying with money for products. I don't know why, maybe because I'm very cheap, but I'd never do this when I can pay with my data.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#44

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

That’s a well known fact and they even promise 99.9X uptime in their service.

The usual argument is that Google is less likely to make mistakes than the average Joe managing his own infrastructure.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#46

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

What do you use for email over Gmail?

Not OP, but I use Mailbox.org. They have a neat feature where you can give them one or more PGP public keys and they encrypt the bodies of all plaintext emails to those keys. It's not perfect (you're still trusting them to not be compromised) but it means even if your account gets taken over, your email history remains private.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't work at Google (any more) but I have seen bugs in large-scale production that served one user's data to another user, and both times it had the same cause: a developer stored user-specific data into a process-global singleton because the consequence of some java decorator was non-obvious. When the next user request came along they were served the previous user's information.

This guy injects @ Google.

Guice is evil and should be eradicated, but it's probably easier to get rid of Java itself.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use for email over Gmail?

I use fastmail. I'm a happy customer.

Didn't Australia like pass a bill or something that compels corporations like Fastmail to give the government any and all encrypted communications if they ask?

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#49

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

Everybody makes mistakes and nothing in the world is black and white. The only question is, is your cloud provider less likely to make mistakes with your data than you are? For most people, the answer is going to be orders of magnitude less likely.

this

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#50

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

What do you use for email over Gmail?

Microsoft Exchange Online. $4/month for Exchange push email to my iPhone/iPad/Apple Mail(our Outlook). 50 GB of mailbox storage.

Not blocked by anyone as it's a legit provider. Have been using it for years with my own domain.

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