On Wed, 3 Apr 2013 07:24:26 +0100 Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk allegedly wrote:
On 2 April 2013 20:23, mick mbm@rlogin.net wrote:
architectural/usability issue of having to have a fast internet connection always available. 50Gig of store is no damned good to me at the end of an ADSL
That's definitely an argument against cloud *storage*, but not really against cloud *sync*. Since you only access your files locally most of the time the speed of the connection isn't so important, unless you want to store large files there.
You mentioned that you had a 50Gig store with your 'phone. That's a lot more than is needed for "sync" alone and points to a use case different to yours. I think the assumption by dropbox (and others) here is that you /will/ store more in the "cloud". Look at the otherwise really tasty looking laptop developed by Google - the Chromebook Pixel - it's "storage" spec says: "One terabyte Google Drive cloud storage for three years and 32GB solid state drive".
Thanks, but no thanks.
My use case is normally playing with scripts (eg my ongoing efforts to pick up some Python skills); storing the .py scripts in my Dropbox folder means I can edit them and play with them there directly on my PC, but when I get home they're in my Dropbox folder at home to continue playing with if I choose.
Stick with that use case. :-)
[...] Here Dropbox are one of the worst offenders. They lied about applying AES 256 bit encyption of the data at rest (they later admitted that they would pass the data /unencrypted/ to a federal agency on receipt of a court summons.
- How does that work then?).
I don't know the details, but if they encrypt but also hold the keys then surely it's quite possible to do this? The point of-course being that this is why encrypting your own data is so important.
Sure, but dropbox claimed that no-one could access locally encrypted data. So the assumption was that the key was somehow related to your dropbox password. It later transpired that the keys were likely really stored on the dropbox server and only policy prevented decryption. See Miguel de Icaza's commentary at http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Apr-19.html
The thing is, nothing is ever completely "secure".
Agreed. But I like to be in charge of my own destiny. I see a drift away from local autonomy towards contractual arrangements with (very) large corporates. If you in turn are a large corporate, then you may have some leverage with the supplier and may be able to influence contractual terms. For the rest of us I worry.
Mick
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