Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the Internet (if so, for what gain?)

Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over non-Internet methods?)

What type of person stores private data on the cloud?
o Technically astute people?
o Technically non-astute people?

For what gain?

In a recent conversation on the net, some people were arguing both ways
about storing data on "the cloud", where I noticed what appears to be a
trend - but which may or may not actually hold water under public
inspection...
o The less technically astute a person, the more they store on the cloud
o The more technically astute, the more they shun cloud storage (IMHO)

Given this is an apropos question for all common consumer operating
systems, a reasonable adult question is whether STORING data on the cloud
has pros and cons for technically astute people.

Clearly technically non-astute people gain CONVENIENCE by storing their
private data on the cloud - of that concept there is no doubt.

But do technically astute people ALSO store private data on the cloud?

Please note I'm not speaking about SHARING that data (although, I am
speaking about accidentally sharing that data with the bad guys by storing
it on the net in the first place).

Sharing data via the Internet is something that even technically astute
people do all the time, such as sharing email and social media and pictures
and documents and maybe even sharing a public calendar which you _intend_
to share - where "sharing" is not the same as "storing" for the purpose of
this question.

This question is only about STORING data on the Internet, such as
o Your media
o Your documents
o Your passwords, private calendar, app backups, etc.

Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over other less-public methods)?

On 05/06/2019 18.19, Arlen G. Holder wrote:
Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over non-Internet methods?)

Why would I answer? If you don't like my answer you will say I'm a
retard or something disgusting.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 06/05/2019 10:01 AM, Libor Striz wrote:
"Arlen G. Holder" Wrote in message:
Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on theInternet (if so, for what gain over non-Internet methods?)

I only upload stuff I might want to share, mainly photos. I delete all
my email from the gmail site periodically, but I have no confidence that
it's actually gone. HD space is cheap.

--
Cheers, Bev
"Is there any way I can help without actually getting involved?"
-- Jennifer, WKRP

Arlen G. Holder wrote:
Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over non-Internet methods?)

What type of person stores private data on the cloud?
o Technically astute people?
o Technically non-astute people?

For what gain?

In a recent conversation on the net, some people were arguing both ways
about storing data on "the cloud", where I noticed what appears to be a
trend - but which may or may not actually hold water under public
inspection...
o The less technically astute a person, the more they store on the cloud
o The more technically astute, the more they shun cloud storage (IMHO)

Given this is an apropos question for all common consumer operating
systems, a reasonable adult question is whether STORING data on the cloud
has pros and cons for technically astute people.

Clearly technically non-astute people gain CONVENIENCE by storing their
private data on the cloud - of that concept there is no doubt.

But do technically astute people ALSO store private data on the cloud?

Please note I'm not speaking about SHARING that data (although, I am
speaking about accidentally sharing that data with the bad guys by storing
it on the net in the first place).

Sharing data via the Internet is something that even technically astute
people do all the time, such as sharing email and social media and pictures
and documents and maybe even sharing a public calendar which you _intend_
to share - where "sharing" is not the same as "storing" for the purpose of
this question.

This question is only about STORING data on the Internet, such as
o Your media
o Your documents
o Your passwords, private calendar, app backups, etc.

Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over other less-public methods)?



I use LastPass. It stores my encrypted passwords on the internet. I do this
because it allows me to use my passwords over many different devices and
environments.

My iPhone is backed up to the iCloud. This is not merely for convenience,
but also because I don’t completely trust iTunes reliability since I’ve had
a few instances when the cloned backup or the phone port were defective.

My company is encouraging the use of Sharepoint and OneDrive for document
storage in addition to the forced daily backups done by the local data
center. All of that is placing sensitive data on the “internet�.

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 16:19:11 -0000 (UTC), "Arlen G. Holder"
wrote:

Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over other less-public methods)?

Of course, but only after local encryption:
https://www.duplicati.com

Regards

M.

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 19:01:13 +0200 (GMT+02:00), Libor Striz wrote:

Do people of reasonable technical ability
use any kind of internet communication ?

Hi Poutnik,

Thank you for that helpful advice and information, and for your ideas.

In the OP, we mentioned that "communication" is different than "storage".
o In fact, even the US government treats them differently, legally.

That is, as far as I'm aware...
o 30 days or less - it's more protected (as it's "communication")
o 30 days or more - it's less protected (as it's "storage")

In your country, things are likely different.

Most people store there implicitly their social network history.

In the OP, we mentioned that "social networking" is different.
o Networking, by nature, is a public communication mechanism.

Most people store there at least their emails, especially if they access them from multiple devices via IMAP4 protocol.

In the OP, we mentioned that "email communication" is different.
o Interesting, AFAIK, the US government treats them in this manner...
1. If it's less than 30 days - it's protected by "communication" laws
2. If it's more than 30 days - it's no longer communication; it's storage.

The US Government, as far as I know, treats email data differently
o 30 days or less - it's more protected (as it's "communication")
o 30 days or more - it's less protected (as it's "storage")

I'm not at all sure how your country treats this, but, as we said in the
OP, email is, by nature, something that is used for "communication", and
not necessarily for long-term "storage" (by technically astute people).

Also, there is a reason to have an extra copy of long term storage data with sentimental or other historical value.

You bring up a good point that having MULTIPLE copies is useful for
important data, where I posit that multiple drives can hold that data,
where you can put a flash stick with encrypted data containers from all
your devices, in a safe deposit box if it's that critical the data.

Local storage has its cons about HW portability and questionable long term reliability.

You bring up a good point Poutnik, that local storage can get lost, while
cloud storage is always there.


Privacy concerns can be addressed by local encryption.

You bring up a good point that local encryption is so readily available to
consumers that it's not an issue - where - for example - any platform can
encrypt and decrypt local container files of almost any size nowadays, for
free - so it's a general purpose solution available to all users on the
common consumer platforms.

Thank you for that helpful advice and information, and for your ideas.

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 11:17:00 -0700, The Real Bev wrote:

HD space is cheap.

Hi The Real Bev,

Thanks for hazarind a response, which, I agree, is an 'opinion' by all of
us, based on our needs and our assessment of our technical skills.

I agree with your point that the fact that local storage is so easily
attained ... is the key point I guess ... which negates any _need_ for the
cloud, for permanent storage ... I would think.

Given storage is cheap, WHY would anyone put permanent storage in the net?
(I can see why "communications" would be on the cloud; but storage?)

If you store locally on removable drives using encryption, if you really
want to, you can lock the storage devices up in a safe deposit box (if
you're that worried about a fire or other catastrophe).

IMHO, statistically speaking, a fire or catastrophe just isn't gonna
happen, statistically speaking, which has to be in the low tenths or maybe
hundredths or even thousandths of a single percentage point, compared to
the presumed statistical chance, IMHO, of your online data being hacked,
for example - which is perhaps far too close to 100% IMHO, over time.

With storage so easy, and encrypted file containers being portable across
the platforms, why would anyone put their permanent storage on the net?

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 19:08:19 -0000 (UTC), "Arlen G. Holder"
wrote:

If you store locally on removable drives using encryption, if you really
want to, you can lock the storage devices up in a safe deposit box (if
you're that worried about a fire or other catastrophe).

In a production environment (dental office for me) data has to be
stored automatically every few hours (or at least daily) out of reach
for ransomware or physical theft. A removable device does not fit.

A backup solution should use several means. Encrypted cloud backup is
one of them, removable drives off site is another one.

Regards

M.

My Gmail and home Provider email are set up to be removed from servers
when I read them on my email program which is the great broken Thunderbird.

I share nothing online except photos in Flicker for items I am selling
or had to display when I sought assistance. When I must send sensitive
files, I use Dropbox then delete after the recipient has downloaded. I
do not and will not use cloud services regardless how many people back
them or how secure they appear.

I don't use any social media sites as I believe they are for the
attention starved users. One exception would be using it for business,
otherwise, to display ones life online, IMO, is asinine. Though, it's
hard to argue with all those great reliable friends people gather over time

No personal file/folders are saved on my PC. I use two external HDs for
all my data, then I back up once a month to another external HD.

On 06/05/2019 12:26 PM, Meanie wrote:
My Gmail and home Provider email are set up to be removed from servers
when I read them on my email program which is the great broken Thunderbird.

I share nothing online except photos in Flicker for items I am selling
or had to display when I sought assistance. When I must send sensitive
files, I use Dropbox then delete after the recipient has downloaded. I
do not and will not use cloud services regardless how many people back
them or how secure they appear.

I don't use any social media sites as I believe they are for the
attention starved users.

I've made my facebook account as much like usenet as possible. I see
only stuff posted by friends (old usenet pals, mostly) and friends of
friends. I block ALL ads using either adblockplus or a hosts file. I
still read all usenet groups I've read for 20 years, but they're pretty
empty now. A sad thing.

One exception would be using it for business,
otherwise, to display ones life online, IMO, is asinine. Though, it's
hard to argue with all those great reliable friends people gather over time

No personal file/folders are saved on my PC. I use two external HDs for
all my data, then I back up once a month to another external HD.

I've got 10 partitions on my computer (1 main, 4 rolling backups and the
rest stuff that I've forgotten about but don't want to throw away --
like those mysterious well-worn keys on the keyring) and a number of USB
drives to back up my main partition. If the house burns down I'm
screwed, but anything less than that and I'm pretty much OK.

--
Cheers, Bev
"The primary purpose of any government entity
is to employ the unemployable."

The Real Bev wrote:
On 06/05/2019 12:26 PM, Meanie wrote:
My Gmail and home Provider email are set up to be removed from servers
when I read them on my email program which is the great broken Thunderbird.

I share nothing online except photos in Flicker for items I am selling
or had to display when I sought assistance. When I must send sensitive
files, I use Dropbox then delete after the recipient has downloaded. I
do not and will not use cloud services regardless how many people back
them or how secure they appear.

I don't use any social media sites as I believe they are for the
attention starved users.

I've made my facebook account as much like usenet as possible. I see
only stuff posted by friends (old usenet pals, mostly) and friends of
friends. I block ALL ads using either adblockplus or a hosts file. I
still read all usenet groups I've read for 20 years, but they're pretty
empty now. A sad thing.

One exception would be using it for business,
otherwise, to display ones life online, IMO, is asinine. Though, it's
hard to argue with all those great reliable friends people gather over time

No personal file/folders are saved on my PC. I use two external HDs for
all my data, then I back up once a month to another external HD.

I've got 10 partitions on my computer (1 main, 4 rolling backups and the
rest stuff that I've forgotten about but don't want to throw away --
like those mysterious well-worn keys on the keyring) and a number of USB
drives to back up my main partition. If the house burns down I'm
screwed, but anything less than that and I'm pretty much OK.

Unlike many here I use the cloud for almost all things. With Apple the
security is more than good enough even if no perfect. But then I don’t do
much of anything that is of a nature that someone seeing it would matter.
I use LastPass for password management also. With all my Apple stuff it
just makes sense to use iCloud so all my devices have access to all my
data.

In days gone by, when I was doing different things with my tech gear, it
was mostly all with local storage of one sort or another, some usenet,
email and web. But these days it is various social things, photos/videos
and web browsing. About the only thing I do otherwise is my checkbook
program but it doesn’t have sensitive info in it like account numbers and a
spreadsheet or two. All saved in the cloud, all encrypted. You could get
it, but you couldn’t do anything with it.

--
Lloyd

On Wed, 05 Jun 2019 21:01:47 +0200, Michael Logies wrote:

Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over other less-public methods)?

Of course, but only after local encryption:
https://www.duplicati.com

Hi Michael Logies,

Thank you very much for bringing value to the Usenet poluck
to share with everyone!
o Duplicati https://www.duplicati.com/articles/FactSheet/
"Free backup software to store encrypted backups online
for Windows, macOS and Linux"
https://updates.duplicati.com/beta/duplicati-2.0.4.5_beta_2018-11-28-x64.msi

Given both iOS & Android easily "mount" to the desktop as removable drives,
we can also back up our mobile devices, apparently, using this method
(which may be useful given that iTunes is apparently being deprecated by
Apple in the coming days according to rumors prevalent recently).

I did not know about this "duplicati" encrypted backup product, where I
would have used, oh, offhand, probably Veracrypt Truecrypt containers
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Downloads.html
(which can be encrypted & decrypted on all five of the common consumer
platforms) if I was forced to put my private data on the Internet in a
cloud storage sack.

Luckily, this duplicati engine can handle those truecrypt containers:
https://www.duplicati.com/articles/Way-To-Make-A-Backup/

I think this "duplicati" stuff, on first inspection anyway, looks neat,
where it's something that apparently runs on the local Windows, Linux, or
MacOS desktop which automatically encrypts and uploads your backups to the
cloud provider of choice.
https://www.duplicati.com/articles/Getting-Started/

I noticed that it can back up to the local network so it's something that
works even outside the cloud, which is useful for many of us, where it
seems to handle the fact that Windows rotates removable drive letters:
https://www.duplicati.com/articles/Windows-Drive-Letters/

It can filter the types of files that it backs up:
https://www.duplicati.com/articles/Filters/

And they even have a tutorial for the restoration process:
https://www.duplicati.com/articles/Restore-Process/

They even have a nice white-paper section of tutorials
https://www.duplicati.com/articles/

In summary, thank you for suggesting this Duplicati backup engine, which
can apparently automate the process of both encrypting and backing up data
from your desktop or mobile devices, either to local storage, or to the
cloud provider of choice.

The results are, based on a quick skim of the product just now:
a. Backup automation
b. Encryption at all times
c. Local or cloud storage

Thank you for bringing ideas of value to the Usenet public potluck!
o I will _test_ out this solution for Window, Linux, iOS, & Android.

On 6/5/19 1:26 PM, Meanie wrote:
My Gmail and home Provider email are set up to be removed from servers
when I read them on my email program which is the great broken Thunderbird.

I share nothing online except photos in Flicker for items I am selling
or had to display when I sought assistance. When I must send sensitive
files, I use Dropbox then delete after the recipient has downloaded. I
do not and will not use cloud services regardless how many people back
them or how secure they appear.

I don't use any social media sites as I believe they are for the
attention starved users. One exception would be using it for business,
otherwise, to display ones life online, IMO, is asinine. Though, it's
hard to argue with all those great reliable friends people gather over time

No personal file/folders are saved on my PC. I use two external HDs for
all my data, then I back up once a month to another external HD.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Only one person is responsible for there personal private and sensitive
data, and that is the user/owner of the data. If you place it on the
web, I don't care whose hands it's in, if it gets hacked and/or stolen,
you have only yourself to blame.

I will stipulate, those, that for business purposes you may want to have
some info on the cloud, but you don't need your whole life there.


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article ,
says...

Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over non-Internet methods?)

What type of person stores private data on the cloud?
o Technically astute people?
o Technically non-astute people?

For what gain?

In a recent conversation on the net, some people were arguing both ways
about storing data on "the cloud", where I noticed what appears to be a
trend - but which may or may not actually hold water under public
inspection...
o The less technically astute a person, the more they store on the cloud
o The more technically astute, the more they shun cloud storage (IMHO)

Given this is an apropos question for all common consumer operating
systems, a reasonable adult question is whether STORING data on the cloud
has pros and cons for technically astute people.

Clearly technically non-astute people gain CONVENIENCE by storing their
private data on the cloud - of that concept there is no doubt.

But do technically astute people ALSO store private data on the cloud?

Please note I'm not speaking about SHARING that data (although, I am
speaking about accidentally sharing that data with the bad guys by storing
it on the net in the first place).

Sharing data via the Internet is something that even technically astute
people do all the time, such as sharing email and social media and pictures
and documents and maybe even sharing a public calendar which you _intend_
to share - where "sharing" is not the same as "storing" for the purpose of
this question.

This question is only about STORING data on the Internet, such as
o Your media
o Your documents
o Your passwords, private calendar, app backups, etc.

Do people of reasonable technical ability store their private data on the
Internet (if so, for what gain over other less-public methods)?

I keep copies of basically everything locally. I do not trust someon
else to properly handle my data, just look at all the various problems
companies have with their cloud infrastructure. I also do not like that
they can or even must (if legally asked) examine my info. I also don't
like thet can retain a copy for as long as they like. Burned DVD's and
external hard disks you keep yourself seems much more solely under my
control.

And this from someone does no social interaction on the net at all, e.g.
no Facebook, Twitter or the like. As an example, I deleted my Facebook
account about 4 years ago now. Anyone want to bet if I go to their site
and try to use old credentials it'll "Welcome Me Back"? When I delete
mail in Hotmail any bet it's still on some backup they keep?

pjp wrote:

I do not trust someone else to properly handle my data, just look at
all the various problems companies have with their cloud
infrastructure.

Do you have a credit card? Do you go to the doctor? Do you pay taxes?
Does your car have license plates? On and on and on. Unless you live in
a cave your life is already in the cloud.

I also do not like that they can or even must (if legally asked)
examine my info.

True for all of the above.

I also don't like that they can retain a copy for as long as they
like.

True for all of the above.

I deleted my Facebook account about 4 years ago

Bet it's still there.

When I delete mail in Hotmail any bet it's still on some backup they
keep?

Yup.

So since you're already hanging out in the cloud (big time) why is so
terrible to also keep your backups there?