On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Graham Smith <myotis...@gmail.com> wrote: > Thanks Liviu, > I have used Spider Oak in the past, and it was fine and more flexible that > Dropbox (but Dropbox has improved) and every so often I think about using it > for cloud backups,and keeping Dropbox for syncing. > Yes, I also tend to do this. But I'm hoping that SpiderOak can improve its handling just a tiny little bit (all is needed is adding an optional 'SpiderOak' category that behaves like the Dropbox folder), so I'll be able to drop Dropbox for good.
> And as an aside, Dropbox does use encryption for their servers: from > http://www.dropbox.com/help/27 > > "Dropbox uses modern encryption methods to both transfer and store your > data. > > Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption > Dropbox website and client software have been hardened against attacks from > hackers > Public files are only viewable by people who have a link to the file(s). > Public folders are not browsable or searchable > My memory (or eyes) must have played a trick on me. From what I've read, however, in the Dropbox case this is irrelevant. They have a permanent record of your password, meaning that a government officer with a subpoena (or a misbehaving employee) would have ready access to your data. They know how to and can decrypt your data: don't store anything sensitive on the Dropbox servers. In the SpiderOak case, they don't know your password (unless, temporarily, you log onto their website), and encryption happens consistently on the client side. This means that SpiderOak employees cannot access your data at any moment, even if they wanted to (anyways, this is according to their published policies). You lose your password, you permanently lose your data. The Economist's Babbage blog has a nice discussion on this topic [1]. Regards Liviu [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/05/internet_security > Dropbox uses Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) for storage, which has a > robust security policy of its own. You can find more information on Amazon's > data security from the S3 site or, read more about how Dropbox and Amazon > securely stores data. " > > I don't know enough about it to know "how" secure this is, but it doesn't > suggest the data are in simply in plain view on their servers. > > Graham > > >> >> Then use SpiderOak [1]. (I also mention it in [2], section 1.3.) It's >> a cross-platform alternative, somewhat more flexible and with slightly >> more overhead when it comes to syncing, but it keeps past versions >> indefinitely (while they---the diff parts---count towards your quota >> of 2GB) which requires some periodic clean-up. It has a steeper >> learning curve than Dropbox, but if you put one hour worth of effort >> then you'll be quickly up to speed. >> >> A last point is that it treats privacy seriously: your data is >> encrypted on your computer and kept encrypted on their servers, while >> they don't have a record of your password (don't lose it!). Dropbox >> uses encryption only for transfer, meaning that all your data are >> stored in plain view on the servers. >> >> Regards >> Liviu >> >> [1] http://alternativeto.net/software/spideroak/ >> [2] >> http://wiki.lyx.org/uploads/LyX/tutorials/essentials/LyX_Essentials.pdf > > -- Do you know how to read? http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader Do you know how to write? http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail
