[problems]

Most cloud backup services are worse - they do no client side encryption, your files are freely available to the service provider or anyone who can break in.

I'd be much more comfortable with this personally. Trust the math, not the people.

[dillonb]

Absolutely, but having another layer blocking access to your data is definitely a good thing. It's a good idea to encrypt your files yourself before uploading them to a public cloud.

[therealmarv]

agree!

[therealmarv]

Exactly. I rather trust well proven math more than people or infrastructure. One famous example nowadays is Bitcoin ... nobody was able to break the fundamental math behind it.

[throwaway7767]

> Exactly. I rather trust well proven math more than people or infrastructure. One famous example nowadays is Bitcoin ... nobody was able to break the fundamental math behind it.

Well, there was the integer overflow bug years ago where someone could essentially create money out of thin air. But that's the only one I know of and it's a pretty amazing security track record for such a high-profile and lucrative target.

That said, this is just me being pedantic, I agree I'd much rather trust solid crypto than a promise from a person somewhere, even if that promise is in writing.

[organsnyder]

Depends on how long you want your data to be private, though. There's no guarantee that the encryption won't be broken in a decade or three. And, even if it's not mathematically broken, increased computing power (quantum?) could make brute-forcing fairly trivial.

[therealmarv]

We are all doomed if this quantum computer works and can break stuff. I also say never ever ;)

[ycmbntrthrwaway]

> quantum

irrelevant to symmetric crypto

[aaronmdjones]

Not irrelevant, it is my understanding that it can still cut the effort required considerably.

If you are using only a 128-bit key, a quantum computer can cut the brute-force effort required to 2^64, which is feasible today.

[naiyt]

Or you could just use Tarsnap, where you can trust the math and have private backups for cheap.

[problems]

True, Tarsnap is pretty on-point there, but it's also not cheap. $0.25/GB is much more than S3 ($0.023) or B2 ($0.005) - the tarsnap dev says it's because he does blocking and that makes it so much more valuable. But and there are other tools that can do encrypted backups with blocking like Duplicati and can be used with cheaper services. With this considered, Tarsnap is 50x the price of B2 - and that's without counting bandwidth.

Or if you're a cheap fuck like me, you want even lower and you go to OVH Hubic which is $50 for 10 TB for a year, with no additional bandwidth cost.

[j_s]

Just as a heads-up, I believe $60 all-you-can-store Amazon Cloud Drive is currently the cheapest offering for large amounts of personal data.

[problems]

Does the "personal data" bit restrict me from doing automated backups of business data?

[j_s]

Previously: business use typically comes with expectations that tend not to align well with consumer grade products (specifically: availability and performance).

Edit: Turns out the answer is yes, no commercial use.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

1.2 Using Your Files with the Services. You may use the Services only to store, retrieve, manage, organize, and access Your Files for personal, non-commercial purposes using the features and functionality we make available. You may not use the Services to store, transfer, or distribute content of or on behalf of third parties, to operate your own file storage application or service, to operate a photography business or other commercial service, or to resell any part of the Services.

[naiyt]

True, I guess it's seemed cheap to me because I store relatively little data on Tarsnap. (In fact, I don't think I've added any funds to my Tarsnap account in like 2 years.) If you're dealing with larger quantities of data I could see how other options would be the way to go.