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Will you trust your private stuff with iCloud now?

As it appears that iCloud has been hacked and private nude photos of celebrities and I am sure many others who may not be celebrities stolen, should we all stop using such storage for our private stuff? Go back to the dark ages?

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Reply 1

silentshadows

Backing up private stuff online was always a no for me. I'd rather run the risk of it being lost or erased rather than let other people get their hands on it.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

Dez

Trusting any sort of cloud service with private data isn't a particularly great idea. iCloud may never get hacked again or it may get completely exposed in the next 12 months, there's no way of knowing. Same applies to Dropbox, to SharePoint, even to Facebook.

Stick with offline storage for the sensitive stuff. Ideally offline storage in a locked safe or similar.

Reply 3

Alfissti

If something is private then it shouldn't be on an electronic device that is accessible through the internet.

Not sure why anyone would think any differently.

Reply 4

secretmessages

I didn't trust it before anyway. You never know how secure a service is, or even how secure the technology behind it is (e.g. heartbleed). I always disable/stay away from anything cloud-related if at all possible.

Reply 5

Kvothe the Arcane

Original post by Dez

Would you say the same about private cloud storages people have that only exist on their home network?

Reply 6

NowAndThen

Original post by Arithmeticae

my favourite part about the internet is that people use it like a safe

you lock things away in it that you would never want to share with anyone in the public domain

then you take that safe and you put it on the road outside your house

moral - don't put private stuff online, keep hard copies if needed but never on the internet

Posted from TSR Mobile

haha, great analogy … that's why I have not subscribed to iCloud yet. I think it was created with the CIA in mind, lol.

Reply 7

Dez

Original post by keromedic

Would you say the same about private cloud storages people have that only exist on their home network?

You mean like a NAS drive? They're be better than using online cloud storage I'd say, but I don't think I'd want to be storing bank statements on there, personally.

Reply 8

NowAndThen

How is it that this risk was not obvious to most people? Just because it was Apple behind it?

Reply 9

Kvothe the Arcane

Original post by Dez

You mean like a NAS drive? They're be better than using online cloud storage I'd say, but I don't think I'd want to be storing bank statements on there, personally.

Yep!

Similar things are gaining popularity. People often have multiple devices at home and it's good to be able to sync media across them all.
And of course! :smile:

Original post by GandalfWhite

How is it that this risk was not obvious to most people? Just because it was Apple behind it?

Well I doubt it's Apple specific but people in general tend to have confidence that big companies will ensure the safety of their data.
Also, many aren't aware that certain things are auto synced to some cloud backup service.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 10

Dez

Original post by keromedic

Yep!

Similar things are gaining popularity. People often have multiple devices at home and it's good to be able to sync media across them all.
And of course! :smile:

I don't tend to count media as particularly private data so there's not really a problem with storing that in the cloud (any cloud). My music tastes aren't that shameful. :p:

Reply 11

Kvothe the Arcane

Original post by Dez

I don't tend to count media as particularly private data so there's not really a problem with storing that in the cloud (any cloud). My music tastes aren't that shameful. :p:

Fair enough :smile:

Spoiler

Reply 12

NowAndThen

Original post by Dez

I don't tend to count media as particularly private data so there's not really a problem with storing that in the cloud (any cloud). My music tastes aren't that shameful. :p:

Whilst we should remember not to save sensitive stuff in a way that may be uploaded automatically …. sometimes 'accidents' happen.

Question - once it is uploaded, does it mean you can never erase it forever? I mean we can delete it but it may still be there somewhere. Any expert?

Reply 13

karmacrunch

Although I've got nothing to hide, I wouldn't trust any of my 'personal' photos or files with large online storages. I use Skydrive sometimes when I forgot my memory stock which is okay for me. However, recently I found out that Google Drive has taken the pictures from my phone and put it into the app. :erm:

I'm not happy with that and I'm looking to find a way to get them off it because I don't know what could happen to them. It's probably safer to back up on a CD or some other storage offline...

Reply 14

Doomlar

Surely just using an external hard drive is a much better option than using cloud storage if you're trying to store things in a secure manner; you could even encrypt it.

Reply 15

Dez

Original post by GandalfWhite

I know Dropbox keeps deleted files for a certain amount of time 'cause you can restore them using their website. With backups and stuff I expect data could be left lingering for a very long time in certain circumstances.

Of course, data can only go so far without metadata. If you have a photo of your naked bum saved somewhere, but there's no filename left identifying it as "GandalfWhite's naked bum.jpg", the picture itself isn't going to do any harm.

Reply 16

NowAndThen

Original post by Doomlar

Surely just using an external hard drive is a much better option than using cloud storage if you're trying to store things in a secure manner; you could even encrypt it.

Yeah, I would stick to hard drives too, now that it is so cheap for huge storage.

Reply 17

Doomlar

Original post by GandalfWhite

Yeah, I would stick to hard drives too, now that it is so cheap for huge storage.

Much more space than on the cloud for a much cheaper price :biggrin:

Although, I suppose your hard drive could fail and then you could lose all stored data :s-smilie:

Reply 18

tal_08

I'm fine with cloud storage, but then again i am 17 and don't really have that many sensitive documents i would want to keep private (except for my GCSE and AS grades lol)

Reply 19

NowAndThen

Original post by Dez

haha, they may not care whose naked bum it is as long as it is some naked bum - they can search images now, right? even without any identifying descriptors ...