"Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability."

If they're actually a backup they can be a good idea. If it's a single source, then yeah, it's asking for trouble. I even backup my GitHub stuff locally because who knows what could happen.

Even if they are just a backup, all these companies scan your data for offensive material and report it to the authorities if their algorithm deems it fit. There have been plenty of cases of parents being investigated by the police just for taking photos of their kids on their phone.

For this I would only consider something client-side encrypted a proper back-up when using the cloud.

It depends on how you want to store it. You could store it encrypted. Any true backup worthy of the title should, in my opinion, be encrypted. Otherwise it's just a copy.

Surely you jest, you joker you. The number of problems with that idea far outweigh the benefits.

Should I go into detail?

Love your profile text, by the way.

EDIT: one quick example is that I’ve lost more data by forgetting passwords than I care to admit. They’ve all been from an age where I thought it was a good idea to encrypt my secret documents, lest prying eyes get to them. Turns out the secrets would’ve been interesting to me, but are no longer accessible. I suspect this isn’t uncommon.

Even if you don't care about all your data being published in the future, and even if you don't care about getting your data deleted (or door knocked in) because of a random content scanner false positive, you still need to encrypt them.

Many cloud storage services try to understand and then "clean up" file types they understand. If you don't believe me, upload and then download a TB or so of images, documents, music, videos, etc. Then, compare the checksums of the original and restored copies.

On top of that, there are services like Amazon Cloud Drive that have content-type restrictions.

The only reasonable litmus test I've seen in this space is "there is a cryptographic proof that some middle manager didn't screw up my backup".

Unfortunately, that means you need to manage the encryption keys somehow. Cloud storage kind of sucks.

> I’ve lost more data by forgetting passwords than I care to admit

This is a you problem. 100 percent PEBKAC.

I've been encrypting every backup, local and cloud, and plenty of other things, for probably 30 years. I've done my share of restores, and have never lost the only key to anything I later wanted back. That's true even though I have forgotten a few passwords, because I had failsafes for that situation.

This requires memorizing only three or four long passwords, which change very rarely, plus a little bit of discipline and occasionally some maintenance of your archives.

On the other hand, putting something somewhere, like some cloud service, without seeing all the implications, is a mistake that's easy to make and hard to clean up. Storing stuff in the cloud in the clear en masse is an insane thing to make into a normal part of your routine.

Many cases where a recovery from backup is needed are due to PEBKAC.

Please go into detail, I'm curious how encrypting your backups has more problems than benefits.

That sounds like a password management problem and not a problem with encryption.

Really? Do you have any source on that?

Do you just push to another remote that you host locally, or are you capturing other github items too? Like, for example, Issues and PR reviews/discussions?

I'm just capturing the code at a specific working version on external media. I'm not concerned about history and discussions since they are all small solo projects with low user bases (I suck).

Wait... You do realise the entire point of git is to store versions? You just git clone and you have everything.

Yeah, I don't want all the history and stuff. I also don't want any sort of upstream connection from it. I just want the code. A snapshot of a working repo with no connections or dependencies to anything.

Yeah, that's literally what a git clone is.

Never forget: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118

It's a little unsettling to see so many people argueing that mass corporate censorship is desirable, especially back in 2015.

As long as your repos are up to date, they are already backed up. Did you mean that or something more explicit?

I'll back my local up to a USB or a drive at a specific working version.

Even if the files are actually a backup it's not a good idea if it also gets your email/etc accounts nuked. Megacorps with many online properties are landmine fields because you can get banned from a dozen services for a BS 'violation' on just one of them.

That idea is true for the rest of those services too. We could just stop using all the services if they are all run by the same Corp and subjected to the same BS rules. If your Google drive got banned for explicit material, it's only a matter of time your Gmail would trigger it because you sent drafts between you and your publisher instead of using Drive.

If it's a true backup, it should be encrypted in my opinion, especially on the cloud. Then it doesn't matter since they can't see it.

They were always a liability.

They were only ever "the smart thing" because they took some hassle away at the point of creating the backup.

They can still be smart for off-site backups in case of local catastrophic issues (like your house burning down). But they are just part of the solution and shouldn't be a single point of failure.

> All of these companies have shown repeatedly that they will cut off your access with no notice for any or no reason and with no recourse.

The average user isn't aware of this. This kind of stories usually do not emerge in mainstream, or user-exclusive spaces.

All your eggs in 1 basket is never good.

Local hard drive + a cloud provider should give you like 99.999999% reliability

Key point is that the cloud provider version should not be your "main" version, it should be used for backup only. If it's not on your physical computer that you have direct access to, it's not -your- data anymore.

> Local hard drive + a cloud provider

This has been my general strategy for personal data. I have also been trying to figure out if there was a reasonable way to get long-term very-cold storage (e.g. backups of family pictures). Something that would last decades just sitting in a fire-box somewhere (reasonable temps, no moisture). Been considering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC, but interested to know if anyone has other ideas...

Don't quote me on this, but Bluray is apparently supposed to be long-term stable. I haven't explored the claim.

I actually use three local hard drives in rotation plus a cloud provider to hopefully cover the "building catches on fire and I don't even have time grab a drive" scenario.

Maybe a second cloud provider would also be good. I'm going to think about this.

Cloud backups are cool, it's the storing all eggs in one basket that's not cool. Whether that basket a cloud service, a hard disk or a pendrive.

> Cloud backups used to be a smart thing to do. Now they are a liability.

It’s not a backup when it’s the primary (and only!) copy.

Terraria's dev being (temporarily) burnt by this was the catalyst for my de-googling. There are high-quality alternatives for everything.

Don't write your smut on someone else's computer. If they're American, at some point the puritans will come knocking at the door.

That take has a "victim blaming" vibe going on. Those texts were not lost, they were deleted. Yes, backups are a good idea, but we shouldn't just accept that kind of behaviour.

Sure, to us technically minded types who work in the industry.

Do you think the average erotic fiction writer is keeping abreast (lol) of cloud data access + integrity news?

Worse, these cloud storage providers actively mislead users into thinking their files are safe and durable when stored on their services. Google Drive and Apple iCloud advertise themselves as a safe place to keep all of your data, and will nag users of Android and iOS devices respectively into enabling their storage services, setting them as the default storage provider for documents, and enabling automatic deletion of local copies to "free up space". They want users to rely on them for all of their photo/note/mosc documents storage and synchronization needs, it's good for their business if they do. But they also don't want to store anything questionable and be held legally responsible, so they automatically scan all of the "safely stored" documents, and purge users who get flagged. So their business incentives align such that they - coerce as many users as possible to become maximally dependent on their services - retract those service that users depend on for any slight or potential liability and if business incentives say you do something, you do it, and no amount of techies informing the masses is going to outperform Google or Apple's messaging. So how do we fix this? We change the incentives; if you delete someone's data you should be punished. They trusted you with it, they may have even paid you to store it. If you break that agreement then you deserve some heavy fines at a minimum.

I imagine the overwhelming majority of them barely even know how to use a computer and just use Google Docs because it's convenient and they can access it on their iPad or their laptop. Most people, even most tech-savvy types, value convenience more than privacy, security and even reliability of the service. People are also in denial and believe that arbitrary account suspensions or other arbitrary moderation decisions can't happen to them.

No. Dennis Cooper lost work this way years ago. They need to be aware of this and let some of their followers help them.

I’ve always argued that we need regulation that prevents large companies from just yeeting your data.

At most they should be able to put it in RO mode to let you take it out.

Why bandaid fix it at the government level, when you can solve it right now by yourself: stop creating single points of failure. Store backups in multiple locations.

Because we all know that 99% of users aren't going to do that.

Because actually some problems need a regulation based solution.

Keep it on there in an encrypted volume! Cloud backup AND privacy in one.

Wouldn't be surprised if "too much encrypted data" also triggers a ban because it'd stand out as unusual and a potential liability.

I suspect that large tech companies are going to be increasingly relying on AI moderation to identify "unusual" behavior and ban accounts for it.

Failing to proactively ban a tiny obscure account posting illegal or extremely unpopular content just sets you up for political attacks either in the form of hostile new laws or of activist groups contacting your advertisers to convince them to stop doing business with you. Outlier users are definitely potential liabilities.

Rather than a ban, that would probably be "you're acting like a business, so you need to switch to this much more expensive plan".

I don't necessarily disagree, but I feel it's important to call out every time I see it in a tech community: this is a reasonable sentiment for the less than 1% of cloud storage users who are sufficiently tech savvy. For the other 99% who have little more than marketing material to direct their understanding, the cloud is Fort Knox for your data.

Richard Stallman has entered the chat...

> ll of these companies have shown repeatedly that they will cut off your access with no notice for any or no reason and with no recourse.

And yet people never learn. Every couple of months you see someone begging for help on HN because Paypal, Stripe, Google and so on cut their access

It's not cloud backup if it syncs two ways.

My family use a mix of Office 365, Exchange Online and Google Workspace for email, documents, etc. Add to this the required Microsoft Account for Windows logins and OneDrive.

I use a Synology NAS and they have packages to backup all these kinds of accounts, including versioning.

Even if an account is closed their files and emails live in our NAS.

If someone's life depends on anything digital, backup is a minor inconvenience or cost.