[CS-FSLUG] Apple and Amazon security lapses exposed after writer has 'entire digital life' destroyed by hackers in minutes

[Timothy Butler]

On 2012-08-07 23:36, Fred A. Miller wrote:

>  Backup AND stay OUT of "the cloud."

Well, I'm not sure I'd go that far. I'm pretty dependent on several 
clouds floating around for me and it makes my life vastly easier because 
of it. My documents all go on Dropbox, which ensures that I can get to 
what I need whether I'm on my laptop, I'm at my office at church or my 
office at the university where I teach (or my iPhone). Mac OS X makes it 
super simple to create encrypted disk images if one needs to ensure that 
Dropbox can't view it.

I use iCloud to keep my contacts, calendar and bookmarks in sync 
between my computers, my iPhone and my iPad. This is really essential, 
since I'm far too absentminded to remember to keep my contacts and 
calendar in sync the "old fashion way." (I might move to a self-hosted 
ownCloud for this.) iCloud also streams all the photos I take on my 
iPhone straight to Aperture and all the photos I import into Aperture to 
my iPhone and iPad.

And then, of course, my e-mail is all cloud based using IMAP or 
Exchange servers (my self-hosted e-mail addresses are IMAP, the college 
and the seminary both use Exchange).

In any case, I think the Cloud is here to stay. But, one can still 
protect one's data just by backing it up offline too... The nightmare 
described by the journalist could not happen to me unless someone broke 
in and stole my physical backups...

Blessings,
Tim