# Do you trust cloud drives with your personal information? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 17, 2019, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245 "2019-03-17T03:21:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/21 "2019-03-19T13:52:35Z")
I don’t use cloud storage for sensitive data. Quicken isn’t backed up to the cloud. I back it up at home. The cloud only has video, audio and photos. Photos are also backed up at home. The rest can be replaced if the cloud loses it. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/22 "2019-03-19T14:53:17Z")
It’s absolutely dangerous. Even if they start with excellent encryption and security and honest employees, that can and will change over time. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/23 "2019-03-19T16:52:47Z")
> [@WolfpackJeep](#): > > I view my cloud accounts as an easy way to sync files between otherwise difficult-to-connect computers or devices, and also as a sort of off-site backup. I think that’s the intended use of most cloud storage sites. You sync your local storage with the cloud, allowing the cloud to back up your data and copy it to your other computers. Except maybe on smartphones and tablets. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/24 "2019-03-19T17:48:41Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > It’s absolutely dangerous. Even if they start with excellent encryption and security and honest employees, that can and will change over time. I don’t necessarily disagree but that means that every ERP vendor, Oracle, SAP, etc is putting their client’s data at risk as they all are pushing their customers to the cloud. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/25 "2019-03-19T18:38:06Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Preventing unauthorized access is only one part of information security. It also needs to be reliably accessible for authorized users, and it needs to be protected against loss. On the latter point, this showed up in the news today: > > [Myspace apologizes after losing 12 years’ worth of music](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/us/myspace-lost-12-years-music-uploads-apology-intl-scli/index.html) > > Now imagine Microsoft is migrating servers for their OneDrive system, and they accidentally lose your last 12 years’ worth of family photos. Oops, sorry about that. You’d like to think Microsoft won’t ever fuck up like MySpace just did, but there’s no reason it couldn’t happen. [It already did](https://www.infoworld.com/article/2629952/microsoft-loses-sidekick-users--personal-data.html). > [@GuanoLad](#): > > I don’t trust the cloud with anything. They are under other people’s control and anything could happen at any time from any quarter. Too many ways it could be compromised. How do you feel about keeping your money in a bank? Or handing your credit card to a waiter? ---
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/26 "2019-03-19T18:45:22Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > [It already did](https://www.infoworld.com/article/2629952/microsoft-loses-sidekick-users--personal-data.html). That was a long-ass time ago, with a different company (Microsoft purchased Danger, it wasn’t an original MS project), with a completely different system and a completely different product. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/27 "2019-03-19T18:52:08Z")
> [@Cleophus](#): > > That was a long-ass time ago, with a different company (Microsoft purchased Danger, it wasn’t an original MS project), with a completely different system and a completely different product. And, the data was recovered (at least mostly according to the wiki page). ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/28 "2019-03-19T19:05:57Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > [It already did](https://www.infoworld.com/article/2629952/microsoft-loses-sidekick-users--personal-data.html). > > How do you feel about keeping your money in a bank? Or handing your credit card to a waiter? If the bank gets robbed or burns down, my account balance can be reconstructed. Unlike my personal photos, one dollar is just as good as another dollar. If the waiter goes on a shopping spree, a phone call to the issuing bank makes all those charges go away; my dollars aren’t at risk. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/29 "2019-03-19T19:28:27Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > I’m currently uploading a lot of my parent’s financial information to a Google drive and I’m telling myself that it’s safe. If it were to be stolen, it wouldn’t be pretty. Curious, are you including login names and passwords to financial accounts on this google drive? If not, then I’m unsure what could really happen. Even account names and numbers can only get you so far. It is really difficult to steal assets with only a name and account number. Most financial institutions have pretty good security and without specific login and passwords, you’d get shut down pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/30 "2019-03-19T19:40:33Z")
> [@Cleophus](#): > > That was a long-ass time ago, with a different company (Microsoft purchased Danger, it wasn’t an original MS project), with a completely different system and a completely different product. But still, it was a trusted custodian of data and it let people down. It isn’t about the probability or technology, it’s about “it can happen even if you trust them.” > [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > If the bank gets robbed or burns down, my account balance can be reconstructed. Unlike my personal photos, one dollar is just as good as another dollar. But if someone hacks into your bank’s system, or an insider steals its data, you could be subject to identity theft that could take years to unwind. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/31 "2019-03-19T19:45:03Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Curious, are you including login names and passwords to financial accounts on this google drive? If not, then I’m unsure what could really happen. Even account names and numbers can only get you so far. It is really difficult to steal assets with only a name and account number. Most financial institutions have pretty good security and without specific login and passwords, you’d get shut down pretty quickly. No. I keep those in keepass. I keep financial statements, copies of birth certificates, Medicare cards, social security cards, etc. As a result of this thread, I’ve changed the account password to a pass phrase that is ridiculously long, has almost certainly never been uttered by a human before, and contains special characters and numbers. It does not reference batteries, horses, or staplers. I also have 2 factor authentication on but that’s not new. ---
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/32 "2019-03-19T21:22:35Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > But still, it was a trusted custodian of data and it let people down. It isn’t about the probability or technology, it’s about “it can happen even if you trust them.” > > But if someone hacks into your bank’s system, or an insider steals its data, you could be subject to identity theft that could take years to unwind. I guess I don’t really understand the significance of what you’re saying, if not to impeach Microsoft’s services. Your data isn’t safer from loss if you don’t use online storage, as the average person’s backup habits are at best poor and more often nonexistent. Likewise, your money isn’t safer if you avoid banks. Quite the opposite, actually. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/33 "2019-03-19T21:47:57Z")
I trust that Google, Apple, and Dropbox are going to do a lot better at (a) not losing my data and (b) not leaking my data than anything else I could come up with short of lengths like keeping all my data in hard copies or multiple off-site air-gapped computers. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/34 "2019-03-19T21:59:41Z")
Google and Amazon already have my private medical records, financial records, and pretty much everything else. It’d be a little short-sighted for me to be overly concerned about the security of my own personal documents housed in a similar fashion. And yes, I get that it doesn’t mean that those things are safe. But, we’re all collectively rolling the dice that we’ll manage to operate our society in this way without nefarious people succeeding in bringing it to a screeching halt. I choose to use 2 factor authentication, trust in the big players, and not worry about worst case scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/35 "2019-03-19T23:00:36Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Now imagine Microsoft is migrating servers for their OneDrive system, and they accidentally lose your last 12 years’ worth of family photos. Oops, sorry about that. You’d like to think Microsoft won’t ever fuck up like MySpace just did, but there’s no reason it couldn’t happen. My OneDrive files are also on my computers. I also back them up to CrashPlan. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/36 "2019-03-19T23:12:53Z")
I voted “safe,” but that’s because anything I put in the cloud that is important is encrypted. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/37 "2019-03-20T01:27:19Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > How do you feel about keeping your money in a bank? Or handing your credit card to a waiter? Good luck getting out of the banking system, so deeply ingrained after hundreds of years. Banks have proven reliable, so I don’t overly worry about them, though I am still concerned about new ways my details and funds could be compromised. If it really does seem as big a risk to keep my funds in a bank as not, then I’d probably consider changing, but as is, odds are good. But with the cloud, it’s new, it’s proven unreliable from the get-go, and I can’t see that changing all that much. One day even Google will be dead and replaced, and it will be sooner than you think. Facebook already seems to be on a downturn, and nobody would’ve predicted that happening so quickly. It’s not that I don’t trust them, I am no conspiracy theorist, it’s that they are unreliable. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/38 "2019-03-20T02:21:58Z")
I have a file server that syncs to a Dropbox Pro account. One copy on the file server in case AWS (where Dropbox is hosted) goes titsup. One (well… multiple) copies on Dropbox in case the house burns down. I know enough about the underlying storage infrastructure that Dropbox uses from my own professional experience to be reasonably confident in the security and durability of the data I put out there. If somebody manages to crack the crypto on S3 buckets, my vacation photos and tax returns are going to be pretty far down the list of loot. The local file server makes a decent enough backup, but it’s mostly for speed of access for devices that don’t have local copies of the Dropbox repository. Also so we can watch movies if my ISP goes down. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245/39 "2019-03-20T03:39:04Z")
> [@Cleophus](#): > > I guess I don’t really understand the significance of what you’re saying, if not to impeach Microsoft’s services. Your data isn’t safer from loss if you don’t use online storage, as the average person’s backup habits are at best poor and more often nonexistent. Likewise, your money isn’t safer if you avoid banks. Quite the opposite, actually. My point about the data loss was not to impeach Microsoft in particular but to simply point out a fact in response to “You’d like to think Microsoft won’t ever fuck up like MySpace just did, but there’s no reason it couldn’t happen.” My point about banks was in response to “I don’t trust the cloud with anything.” I raised the question of banks, because if you don’t trust the cloud with anything, I don’t know how you can trust banks with anything, or anything with anything. There is nothing magical about banks that make them impervious to hacks compared with a big cloud service like AWS, who runs federally certified cloud services. The significance of my comment was that avoiding cloud storage is the data equivalent of storing your cash in a mattress. It might seem like I’m playing both ends against the middle but the bottom line is that no company hosting your data in the cloud is infallible or impenetrable, but they’re still better than trusting your own single hard drive and maybe your one backup drive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-trust-cloud-drives-with-your-personal-information/831245.md?page=1)