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Is Dropbox/other cloud storage safe?

G

G73S

Senior member
I've been using Dropbox for about 3 years but now since they check the file hash tags and prevent you from sharing copy righted material, I am thinking, is it really worth it to keep your stuff in the cloud or is it better to just rely on old school external HDD backups and get rid of all cloud crap?
 
That's a pretty vague question. It all depends on what you mean by "safe", what you're storing, and what goal you're trying to accomplish.

Are they safe as in "am I definitely the only one with access to the account?" That answer would be no, every major consumer cloud storage player has had a data breach or major security flaw discovered in the last few years.

Are they safe as in "do they meet federal regulatory compliance for my industry?" That depends on the service, but 99% of them do not meet the requirements for things like HIPAA/HITECH and SOX and you legally cannot store protected data on them.

Are they safe as in "do they use encryption for transmission and file storage?" Again, depends on the service but most do not.

Are they safe as in "are they going to work with law enforcement should they request access to my data?" Then again, the answer is no. They'll give you up in a heartbeat, so I wouldn't store my pirated music collection or secret terrorist plans on Dropbox 🙂

That being said, it's not like there's no value to these services as long as you understand that your data, not the service, is the real product here. They're giving you 5GB for free because they're absolutely datamining the stuff you have up there and selling it to marketing and demographics companies. You have no expectation of privacy and if you read the fine print once the data is uploaded they can do whatever they please to it. They're great tools for sharing quick notes or backing up your family photos. If you're looking for a free vault for your illicit materials, you won't find it here.
 
It's my data... I'll take care of it myself, thank you very much. I don't even use iCloud for my iPhone...

To that end, I have 2 portable externals, 1 external, and 1 internal HDDs I use to backup and secure my data.
 
Charlie98 said:
It's my data... I'll take care of it myself, thank you very much. I don't even use iCloud for my iPhone...

To that end, I have 2 portable externals, 1 external, and 1 internal HDDs I use to backup and secure my data.
Click to expand...

Wife has multiple movies and photos either on her iPhone and/or the Cloud. She watches the movies while traveling.
How would you recommend that I get them to a non-Apple PC for backup without having to rely on the cloud.
 
Mushkins said:
That's a pretty vague question. It all depends on what you mean by "safe", what you're storing, and what goal you're trying to accomplish.

Are they safe as in "am I definitely the only one with access to the account?" That answer would be no, every major consumer cloud storage player has had a data breach or major security flaw discovered in the last few years.

Are they safe as in "do they meet federal regulatory compliance for my industry?" That depends on the service, but 99% of them do not meet the requirements for things like HIPAA/HITECH and SOX and you legally cannot store protected data on them.

Are they safe as in "do they use encryption for transmission and file storage?" Again, depends on the service but most do not.

Are they safe as in "are they going to work with law enforcement should they request access to my data?" Then again, the answer is no. They'll give you up in a heartbeat, so I wouldn't store my pirated music collection or secret terrorist plans on Dropbox 🙂

That being said, it's not like there's no value to these services as long as you understand that your data, not the service, is the real product here. They're giving you 5GB for free because they're absolutely datamining the stuff you have up there and selling it to marketing and demographics companies. You have no expectation of privacy and if you read the fine print once the data is uploaded they can do whatever they please to it. They're great tools for sharing quick notes or backing up your family photos. If you're looking for a free vault for your illicit materials, you won't find it here.
Click to expand...

I store everything on Dropbox since I have 70 Gb of FREE space

Documents
Pics
Software

My concern is, in my documents folder, I have all my serial numbers for my paid software there. Shall I be concerned?
 
cabri said:
Wife has multiple movies and photos either on her iPhone and/or the Cloud. She watches the movies while traveling.
How would you recommend that I get them to a non-Apple PC for backup without having to rely on the cloud.
Click to expand...

Rip them to the non-Apple PC, then just move that file to the phone... it's what I do. :biggrin: My iPhone only has 16GB memory... so I'm lucky if I can store 1 or 2 movies at any one time, so I just swap them in and out off the PC.
 
Well, anything can get stolen, even physical assets. This is why I buy $50 laptops and live a simple life playing free games and programs on a free (gratis) OS. Most I can lose is $50.
 
ninaholic37 said:
Well, anything can get stolen, even physical assets. This is why I buy $50 laptops and live a simple life playing free games and programs on a free (gratis) OS. Most I can lose is $50.
Click to expand...
what kind of a laptop is a $50 USD laptop????????? 😵
 
When you are using any cloud storage you have to consider that:
- Its stored on some servers somewhere and its a big target and it will be hacked, your files and data may very well be copied and stolen.
- Dropbox specifically has its employees having the security keys necessary to view your data, so employees of Dropbox can steal what you have stored there.
- They could go out of business, they could get shut down with litigation, their datacentre could be destroyed by a tsunami. Plenty of ways you could loose the data in an instant.

Its the same problem you have with Google mail, with facebook and with every other online service. You store your stuff with them its basically publically accessible, and if it isn't right now it will be in the near future. Its just the reality of todays firms and their security, your privacy isn't a priority for them, infact they make money out of your data that is their business model. You are their product and dropbox isn't really any different.
 
G73S said:
My concern is, in my documents folder, I have all my serial numbers for my paid software there. Shall I be concerned?
Click to expand...

Yes, you should be concerned. Dropbox has had privacy issues and user data leaks before. Someone could get into that account and copy those serial numbers.
 
G73S said:
ok! no more dropbox then
Click to expand...

If you want to secure your data you need to consider every internet service you use as compromised, because they basically all have been. A week doesn't go by when a big company hasn't leaked everyones passwords after getting hacked. Its simply inevitable that anything you put online even under a so called private place will potentially get out. Isn't any privacy out there on the internet.
 
HA! HA! The Fools! That is why I make intentional errors in all my documents I store on Dropbox! I transpose the tablespoons and teaspoons! Their souffle will never turn out! Ha Ha ha!

But seriously, there is all sorts of data that it is useful to store in the cloud that there is no real reason to be worried about privacy. That is the best use of cloud services, to hold all those miscellaneous notes and tidbits of information that you want to have handy, but are not exactly important.
 
Charlie98 said:
It's my data... I'll take care of it myself, thank you very much. I don't even use iCloud for my iPhone...

To that end, I have 2 portable externals, 1 external, and 1 internal HDDs I use to backup and secure my data.
Click to expand...

Copy that, all of that!!!! (Cept I do only one internal drive, I have very little data on any, so this is perfect option.)

In this endeavor, I trust....ME. It also saves time!!!

Why make something this simple complicated?
 
BrightCandle said:
If you want to secure your data you need to consider every internet service you use as compromised, because they basically all have been. A week doesn't go by when a big company hasn't leaked everyones passwords after getting hacked. Its simply inevitable that anything you put online even under a so called private place will potentially get out. Isn't any privacy out there on the internet.
Click to expand...

Nothin but net!
 
SpiderOak stores everything encrypted, and they can't decrypt it, or know what's being stored. I keep semi-sensitive data with them, and gpg encrypt very sensitive data. I use Dropbox for notes, and other things I don't care much about. I used to use UbuntuOne for sharing files, but since that's going under, I guess I'll use Mega.
 
I don't really care if anyone sees my vacation photos or old college papers. Anything sensitive that I don't want in the cloud stays on my local drive and a backup to an encrypted thumb drive. Storing general documents on services like onedrive and Gdrive have saved my bacon more than once.
 
How about creating true crypt containers and uploading those to a dropbox? Heck you could even archive it and repassword protect it for another measure of safety 😛
 
SuLyMaN said:
How about creating true crypt containers and uploading those to a dropbox? Heck you could even archive it and repassword protect it for another measure of safety 😛
Click to expand...

Any encryption would probably do. Lets face it, your documents are not valuable enough to justify anyone using any brute force decryption on them. Just don't name them anything like Offshore Accounts.xls 😉
 
Don't put anything on the cloud you wouldn't want the NSA to look at. Not sayin' they would, just that they could. I am not counting on the folks who run Dropbox, or Box, or Google Drive to protect my privacy. Go ahead and encrypt them, but big brother may see that as a reason to decrypt them.
 
I used to have a professor who told us that the only sure way to keep your data safe is to unplug your computer. Anything less then that and you are taking the risk that someone will decide they want your data, and given enough time and effort they will get it.
Computer security is a matter of making the time and effort not worth the reward.
 
I use CrashPlan to fulfil my off site backup requirement and I mainly chose it as it was reasonably priced, had apps for most platforms and most importantly allows a custom encryption key to be used:
http://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/Latest/Configuring/Archive_Encryption_Key_Security

I like that it is encrypted prior to upload and CrashPlan only get to see the key if you access your files via the web browser interface; they state it will be deleted soon after if you do and not retained by them.

At the end of the day cloud data services do require you to put your trust in the provider but I'm happy putting things on CrashPlan I wouldn't put on OneDrive or DropBox without encrypting them first in another program.

Other things like software serial numbers and passwords are stored with a 2-factor protected, mega long master pass worded LastPass account.
 
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