[Hidden-tech] Music-video storage in the cloud

[Roger Williams]

>>>>> Kevin Phillips <kevin at kpitconsulting.com> writes:

  > How is the privacy of your files using these services ?

Frankly, weak.  I know of no backup service providers who provide a guarantee
that stored data will not be accessible by its employees nor that the results
of such employee access not be released upon request to courts or interested
law enforcement organisations.  Most providers specifically spell out such
exceptions in their TOS.

Moreover, all of the popular online backup services rely on encryption in the
link (SSL) and cloud (AES usually), rather than encryption with your own key
in the client before it's uploaded.  This means that the data is unencrypted
some of the time on their servers.

So... you shouldn't use one of the consumer-oriented services if you're a
Chinese dissident because it's presumptively insecure against your risks.

More to the point: given the current environment and the likelihood of ACTA
(which as of March includes a provision to require ISPs to provide information
about suspected copyright infringers without a warrant) or similar
legislation, I would be very careful about borrowed or ripped media.
I rip DVDs that I own for playback convenience and protection of the original
media (I have kids), but I won't backup these files up to an online service.

For my business, we've been relying on the traditional model of local backup
to tape (from a local server, which provides primary backup for individual
computers) with off-site tape storage.  We may replace the tapes with cloud-
based storage -- but in this case, the locally-stored backups are already
encrypted with our own keys before we upload them.

-- 
Roger Williams <roger at qux.com>
Chief Technical Officer, Qux Corporation
433 West Street, Suite 8, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
Tel +1 413 253-6400 * Fax +1 508 302-0230 * GSM +1 508 287-1420