[Discuss] Cloud-backup solutions for Linux?

Rich Braun richb at pioneer.ci.net
Thu Sep 24 14:37:26 EDT 2015


Edward Net Harvey questions SpiderOak:
> I personally feel it's deceptive marketing
> "... When accessing your data via the SpiderOak website or a
> mobile device, you must enter your password which will then exist in the
> SpiderOak server memory for the duration of your browsing session."

I'm actually OK with that one; the above sentence is taken a bit out of
context in that it's describing a particular feature that few of us would
actually ever use.  This "Instant Access From Anywhere" feature allows you to
log into their site, "access your data remotely", and decrypt it on their
back-end.

This is not something I'd ever really expect a backup-software vendor to
enable me to do, and it's not something I'd find myself wanting to do.  My
use-case will always be to download the encrypted bits and perform decryption
upon restore, using my private keys (not a passphrase).

The vendor then goes on to say use of this feature "represents the only
situation where your data could potentially be readable to someone [else
besides you]". That's a strong claim and their lawyers would have to be pretty
darned confident before allowing publication: if any breach ever happens, then
they basically lose their franchise.  Seems pretty assuring to me.

-rich





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