4 ms·

These days I don’t understand why people don’t sync their important files to cloud. Dropbox has a free layer that’s perfectly fit for a theses.

Chocola 5y ago
Maybe because not everyone likes to share their most important files with a third party? Or because of providers scanning files or stuff like: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
- kube-system 5y ago
  If you seriously consider a state actor to be a threat, then you likely make many other compromises to your ability to conveniently perform disaster recovery. There is not much overlap between these use-cases: * I need an easy way to recover my family pictures because I didn't make backups and * I have state actors interested in my data If you really have state actor threats, you probably like that M1 Macs are very hard to perform data-recovery from.
  - Chocola 5y ago
    If you are a state actor you probably love M1 Macs. You literally can't restore them without phoning home. Everone should consider state actors as a threat because they are. They maybe are not specifically after you. But every now and then some big box gets popped leaking all kinds of personal information (including yours) and the actors are probably state sponsored. Also it is not state actors scanning your data, many cloud providers do so. If you have a state actor as threat model you probably want to remove iCloud backups (see link): "Apple’s iCloud, on the other hand, can be searched in secret. In the first half of last year, the period covered by Apple’s most recent semiannual transparency report on requests for data it receives from government agencies, U.S. authorities armed with regular court papers asked for and obtained full device backups or other iCloud content in 1,568 cases, covering about 6,000 accounts."
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Your concerns are not unfounded, but there is a very significant functional difference between being generally concerned about data privacy posed by any third-party bad actor, and having a threat profile that includes specific state actor threats. If you think it is a realistic scenario that the US would serve a warrant against you, then yes, your iCloud backup will probably be disclosed to the authorities. But if this is a real concern of yours, then you probably have much bigger things to worry about than whether your SSD is soldered to the board or not.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    It feels like you're using "state actor" as a motte and bailey. It usually means targeted espionage affecting very few, with strong motives for why security services are interested in them specifically. Whereas that article is ultimately talking about a dragnet surveillance system, which is technically a state actor but affects literally everyone.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I don't mean anything special by "state actor", I plainly mean: actions taken by a state. Whether you consider those actions to be a threat would depend on an individual person's or organization's assessment of the impact of those actions.
      - mindslight 5y ago
        Using your loose definition of "state actor" means that every single person who uses mainstream cloud solutions has "state actor" as a threat, whether they acknowledge it or not. It's not just the occasional person super focused on security as you're making it out to be - in fact people less in touch with security have a larger threat from their system being hijacked and used to distribute contraband bits, thereby running afoul of cloud scanning.
        kube-system 5y ago
        No it doesn't mean that, because threat assessments consist of multiple variables, including the footprint, probability, and impact of a potential threat.
        mindslight 5y ago
        That's a fancy way of saying "I've got nothing to hide".
        kube-system 5y ago
        No it's not. Consider the risk that a street criminal could throw a rock through my window and steal my computer off of my desk. Do I put bars on my window? No. Why? Because I have nothing to hide? No, because I don't consider that attack vector to be a high enough priority that I need to take steps to mitigate it. Threat assessments are purely an engineering exercise. This is orthogonal to the ethical, philosophical, and political discussion of civil liberties. If you have ethical, philosophical, or political concerns about this topic, those are something to be addressed in their respective realms. It is naïve to believe that engineers have power to protect anyone from abuses of civil liberties. Apple hardware engineering team is neither capable nor equipped to be addressing these concerns in their designs.
- notimetorelax 5y ago
  That’s fair but if someone is concerned about it they should invest into backups. It’s unconscionable to entrust days of someone’s work to a single device.
- losvedir 5y ago
  Then use tarsnap or Arq or some other client that encrypts locally and backs up the encrypted files to the cloud.
stocknoob 5y ago
Seriously. It's 2021, you should have a remote backup. Use backblaze, tarsnap, anything. SSD failure is one of a thousand ways you can lose access to files on your laptop.

Chocola 5y ago

Maybe because not everyone likes to share their most important files with a third party? Or because of providers scanning files or stuff like: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

kube-system 5y ago
If you seriously consider a state actor to be a threat, then you likely make many other compromises to your ability to conveniently perform disaster recovery. There is not much overlap between these use-cases: * I need an easy way to recover my family pictures because I didn't make backups and * I have state actors interested in my data If you really have state actor threats, you probably like that M1 Macs are very hard to perform data-recovery from.
- Chocola 5y ago
  If you are a state actor you probably love M1 Macs. You literally can't restore them without phoning home. Everone should consider state actors as a threat because they are. They maybe are not specifically after you. But every now and then some big box gets popped leaking all kinds of personal information (including yours) and the actors are probably state sponsored. Also it is not state actors scanning your data, many cloud providers do so. If you have a state actor as threat model you probably want to remove iCloud backups (see link): "Apple’s iCloud, on the other hand, can be searched in secret. In the first half of last year, the period covered by Apple’s most recent semiannual transparency report on requests for data it receives from government agencies, U.S. authorities armed with regular court papers asked for and obtained full device backups or other iCloud content in 1,568 cases, covering about 6,000 accounts."
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Your concerns are not unfounded, but there is a very significant functional difference between being generally concerned about data privacy posed by any third-party bad actor, and having a threat profile that includes specific state actor threats. If you think it is a realistic scenario that the US would serve a warrant against you, then yes, your iCloud backup will probably be disclosed to the authorities. But if this is a real concern of yours, then you probably have much bigger things to worry about than whether your SSD is soldered to the board or not.
- mindslight 5y ago
  It feels like you're using "state actor" as a motte and bailey. It usually means targeted espionage affecting very few, with strong motives for why security services are interested in them specifically. Whereas that article is ultimately talking about a dragnet surveillance system, which is technically a state actor but affects literally everyone.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I don't mean anything special by "state actor", I plainly mean: actions taken by a state. Whether you consider those actions to be a threat would depend on an individual person's or organization's assessment of the impact of those actions.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      Using your loose definition of "state actor" means that every single person who uses mainstream cloud solutions has "state actor" as a threat, whether they acknowledge it or not. It's not just the occasional person super focused on security as you're making it out to be - in fact people less in touch with security have a larger threat from their system being hijacked and used to distribute contraband bits, thereby running afoul of cloud scanning.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        No it doesn't mean that, because threat assessments consist of multiple variables, including the footprint, probability, and impact of a potential threat.
        mindslight 5y ago
        That's a fancy way of saying "I've got nothing to hide".
        kube-system 5y ago
        No it's not. Consider the risk that a street criminal could throw a rock through my window and steal my computer off of my desk. Do I put bars on my window? No. Why? Because I have nothing to hide? No, because I don't consider that attack vector to be a high enough priority that I need to take steps to mitigate it. Threat assessments are purely an engineering exercise. This is orthogonal to the ethical, philosophical, and political discussion of civil liberties. If you have ethical, philosophical, or political concerns about this topic, those are something to be addressed in their respective realms. It is naïve to believe that engineers have power to protect anyone from abuses of civil liberties. Apple hardware engineering team is neither capable nor equipped to be addressing these concerns in their designs.
notimetorelax 5y ago
That’s fair but if someone is concerned about it they should invest into backups. It’s unconscionable to entrust days of someone’s work to a single device.
losvedir 5y ago
Then use tarsnap or Arq or some other client that encrypts locally and backs up the encrypted files to the cloud.

stocknoob 5y ago

Seriously. It's 2021, you should have a remote backup. Use backblaze, tarsnap, anything. SSD failure is one of a thousand ways you can lose access to files on your laptop.