stupid cloud- Dropbox hacked.

Ed_Gee wrote:

braindead0 wrote:
Trusting third parties who have no hard consequence for their negligence is a really bad idea. DropBox did the right thing by resetting passwords and quickly informing people of the problem.

When I use services like this I always encrypt locally, with the highest security method(s) I have available. Anyone compromises the online service, is going to have to spend a lot of money to access my data.

That is the way to do it! Encrypt your sensitive info stored in the cloud. :)

Be careful how you do it though. The devil is in the details.. I've seen people encrypt files and then leave the key plaintext in the same folder that's being synced to the 'cloud', or leave the unencrypted files next to the encrypted version in the folder being synced to the cloud.. etc..

Or using home rolled encryption, or relying on a cloud client 'Encrypt Data' check box..

There are more ways that encryption can be done wrong that right.

What I would strongly suggest people do is purchase 2 SOHO type NAS boxes that are capable of syncing remotely. I use QNAP however there are others that support this. Setup synchronization between them using SSH with pre-shared keys and install one of the boxes at a friends house.

Then you backup all of your 'stuff' to the NAS box at your house, and every night/week whatever makes sense it'll sync that data to a friend/family members house. If you have a suitable fire safe you can install the NAS box in that as well.

You could also dedicate a portion of the offsite NAS box for use by your friend/family.. or they could get their own and you run theirs.

Setup correctly you have a full backup off site and you'll be vastly more secure than any cloud based system.

That being said it requires a fairly high level of technical know how to setup properly and securely.