Backing up your computer through a cloud service?

[zinger1457]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum What about keeping a backup drive in a fireproof safe? Does those get too hot to protect the drive? I'm lazy enough about getting the drive out of my safe to do regular backups. If I keep one in a safe deposit box I'm afraid I'd rarely get around to swapping them.

That's what I do, my safe is fire rated for 1 hour for electronics. On the Sentry web site you can select what items you want protected, along with the level of protection, and they will list the safes that meet those requirements.

[Car-Guy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinger1457 That's what I do, my safe is fire rated for 1 hour for electronics. On the Sentry web site you can select what items you want protected, along with the level of protection, and they will list the safes that meet those requirements.

Similar here. I have two external HD's for my full backups and I use USB's for incrementals. All of them go into a fireproof safe.

[MBAustin]

I use Time Machine on my Mac to backup to an external drive - it has rescued me from "oh crap" multiple times. I also use CrashPlan to backup to DH's external drive. Once a month he swaps his drive with the one in the safe deposit box. I rarely do anything on my computer that would be irreplaceable less than a month later, so I view this as acceptable risk.

Side benefit is that for the first time ever I feel like we're getting our money's worth from the safe deposit box!

[photoguy]

Regarding compromised data -- my biggest concern is my laptop, computer, backup disks being stolen as opposed to a breach (either my network or a cloud network). To mitigate this risk I use whole disk encryption (filevault) on any disk that might store financial or other personal data.

If I were uploading to dropbox, crash plan, etc. I would hesitate to upload something like my tax filings without encrypting them.

[bUU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakedog From all of the huge storage needs many folks are reporting, I feel like I must be missing something important that I need to backup. For backup of all files/photos that I care to keep, I use thumb drives and have yet to exceed an 8GB stick. I do keep copies of everything on both computers (MacBook Air and Mac Mini).

We've got about 300 GB total. Much of it is media: Photos and videos we've taken on family vacations. Also: My spouse loves music and so there are many full-bitrate MP3s. My design work also creates some incredibly large files for seemingly little data.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFW_M5 I am much more concerned about my personal data being compromised on some other entities data repository than on my own home system and backup approach , and your comments still do not convince me otherwise.

Different people weigh the same facts differently. Many folks who choose to use cloud services do so after careful consideration of all the information. Claims that cloud services are inherently a more risky choice than the choice you've made are without merit. There are good arguments both ways, especially for folks willing to consistently do all the extra work I've outlined earlier.

[eytonxav]

Quote:

Originally Posted by photoguy If I were uploading to dropbox, crash plan, etc. I would hesitate to upload something like my tax filings without encrypting them.

That is an excellent point!

[outdoorgirl02]

All of my files are in Dropbox which has worked well for me for years. I don't have any files locally on my computer. I think Dropbox is $10/month for one TB of space.

I also like that I can sign into Dropbox from my phone or iPad and access my files if I need to.

[photoguy]

It looks like crash plan has a custom key that only the user knows which would eliminate much of my concern.

Archive Encryption Key Security - Code42

I still have too much data for it to be feasible although I could use it on a subset (e.g. everything but media). There's a family plan at $9/month which I think is competitive with buying hard drives and doing it yourself (considering the extra hassle).

[Chuckanut]

Carbonite. I bought three years for about $45 a year after the multi-year discount and the free months for using Leo Laporte's discount code. It is worth every penny in the piece of mind.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakedog From all of the huge storage needs many folks are reporting, I feel like I must be missing something important that I need to backup. For backup of all files/photos that I care to keep, I use thumb drives and have yet to exceed an 8GB stick. I do keep copies of everything on both computers (MacBook Air and Mac Mini).

I am not a photographer, but my travel photos add up to 53GB. And many of these were taken more than 10 years ago, when digital cameras did not have their present resolution. Even now, I only have point-and-shoot pocket cameras.

And then, I just finished loading up my CDs and cassette collection. That's more than 150GB, even though I use a high but not outrageous bit rate of 320 Kbps.

My software repository is also 150GB, stuff I used back when I was still working and subscribed to MSDN.

And then, there are home videos, which I have not really started to digitize in earnest.

The other day, I was so tempted to go get another 1TB drive, which a local electronics store was selling for $38. I have to keep reminding myself that I have used less than 1/10 of the 12+TB I currently have.

[Ronstar]

I use time machine to backup non photo files to an external drive. I store photos on the external drive and back up to a NAS. But I need to implement an offsite solution. I was strongly considering an external drive in the lock box, but I'm starting to get comfortable with the cloud


Sent from my iPhone (:.using Early Retirement .//82339)

[Lsbcal]

We have maybe 10GB of digital photos. We have a drawer full of old photos and albums. Then there are the 35 mm slides from my SLR days, the 8mm spools from my movie camera days, and also my parents old slides.

I don't really look at this stuff. Somehow the spirit rebels. Still I keep adding to the hoard.

[target2019]

This is a top-ten list of cloud security issues from https://resilience.enisa.europa.eu/c...ation-security. Below I've summarized each point from page 7. The article is long, but probably raises issues you may not have considered.

You can assess the risk for yourself. I don't see that one can come up with a definitive answer. Just as it is only a matter of time before each user loses data, it is only a matter of time before a cloud backup service has the same occurrence. As with your personal at-home loss, the loss in the cloud may be extensive, or just one flipped bit.

1. Loss of governance - You are giving control of uploaded data to the cloud provider (CP). Carefully read your agreement.
2. Lock-in - There is no standard for format, and you're probably wedded to that one CP. Ideally, you'd like to be able to transfer your backup to another provider, or download it yourself before deleting your account.
3. Isolation failure - This raises availability issues which center around the actual backup site and how it is maintained. For example, if the CP service is housed within Amazon server farm, and attack on Amazon is effectively an attack on your CP.
4. Management interface compromise - This type of failure point is difficult to control. Someone who accesses the interface has potential access to exploit the resources.
5. Data protection - This is about the integrity of data, how it is backed up to mirrors, and the procedures for ensuring the uploaded data remains accurate.
6. Insecure or incomplete data deletion - Very interesting topic, as I am currently looking at this issue with drives I want to sanitize. What is deleted is not necessarily gone!
7. Mailicious insider - Take a look at Snowden and other offenders. The damage that one insider can inflict is astounding.
8. Customers' security expectation - Are you making assumptions about the information security the CP is providing?
9. Availability chain - Access depends on your local internet connection, and everything beyond, such as your local gateway. Things fail at the worst possible time, I've found.

[photoguy]

I would add

10 -- your cloud storage provider goes out of business before you can find an alternative

[Lsbcal]

Nice summary Target2019. Giving access to an outsider seems like a big security issue to me.

I might not have the lingo quite right but it seems to me that one issue is pull versus push. Dropbox is a push method i.e. user pushes data to a server that he wants to access someday. Other continuous automated backup plans are pull technology i.e. user's data is accessed by an outside server that has been granted permission to take the data. That granted access is a security issue.

Seems to me that Dropbox has the advantage for me. I am in control of what is in put in the cloud since I put it there. No access for grabbing data has been granted to an outsider. The burden is on me to update the data but I'm fine with that. Weekly is all I would need. There are only a few files that I might be doing a lot of hours work on.

The rest I can backup and store in a bank safety deposit box every 6 months or so to remove the worry of burglary or fire. Weekly local backups are to an external (hidden) hard drive and/or memory stick.

[target2019]

Too much pushing and pulling. Ever dare to look at all the processes running at startup on any computer? Mind-boggling!

I have dropbox and used it to share with other developers/customers. But only used it occasionally.

I did find it useful to auto-sync iphone photos to, and then sync with my pc for permanent copy to photo library. So you can use it manually (push), or sync (pull).

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 This is a top-ten list of cloud security issues from https://resilience.enisa.europa.eu/c...ation-security. Below I've summarized each point from page 7. The article is long, but probably raises issues you may not have considered.

You have a point. Some of these problems can be avoided if one encrypts sensitive data on the home computer and merely uploads the encrypted file to the storage site.

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut You have a point. Some of these problems can be avoided if one encrypts sensitive data on the home computer and merely uploads the encrypted file to the storage site.

Spideroak (mentioned in my post above) does the encryption on your computer before uploading the data.

[bUU]

Backup, by definition, is an image of what is stored locally. If Carbonite goes out of business, people don't magically lose the data - it is still stored locally. They can, at that time, adopt even one of the other backup approaches or engage another backup service provider. It would be akin to having your physical backup in your vault at the bank stolen (and it is just as likely that that will happen as Carbonite going out of business tomorrow without any foreknowledge apparent).

Some people abhor the idea of trusting others with their security. Perhaps they'd also have concerns about giving a key to neighbors "just in case" - a very common practice in the United States - or checking their valuables in the hotel safe when they're on vacation. Everyone has different priorities.

[RonBoyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bUU Backup, by definition, is an image of what is stored locally.

This is a very important distinction. A "backup" is a MIRROR IMAGE and not a copy of your files. (Particularly significant if your "backup" program requires the use of that program to retrieve those files.)