Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

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ochotona
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Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by ochotona » Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:22 am

Hi, I use Google Drive. I know that once I load data there, it isn't quite my own any longer... they can use it, aggregate it with data from others, to develop their business.

Has anyone looked into the privacy T&C of the Microsoft suite... the online Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneDrive storage? Do they do similar things as Google, or do they leave your data alone?

I'm taking a class at the local community college, and I get 1 TB of OneDrive for free, and I'm thinking maybe I just keep everything over there. I only get 120 GB of Google Drive, for which I pay a little bit a month.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by ochotona » Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:29 am

https://www.cloudwards.net/google-drive-vs-onedrive/

Yikes, OneDrive files are encrypted in-transit, but not at rest. Fahgetit.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Libertarian666 » Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:39 am

There's a very simple rule:
Don't upload anything to the cloud that you want to keep private, unless you encrypt it yourself on your own machine.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:55 am

I don't use either. I use the business version of dropbox which costs $100 a year. 1 TB and files are encrypted.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Xan » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:36 am

Tech is right: if you want to keep it private, you have to encrypt it yourself.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:38 am

Xan wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:36 am
Tech is right: if you want to keep it private, you have to encrypt it yourself.
Are you saying that portals provided by investment firms and CPA firms and the like may not be secure?

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Xan » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:54 am

vnatale wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:38 am
Xan wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:36 am
Tech is right: if you want to keep it private, you have to encrypt it yourself.
Are you saying that portals provided by investment firms and CPA firms and the like may not be secure?

Vinny
That's certainly possible, yes. But in general, anybody who has encrypted something is also able to decrypt it. There are forms of encryption where that isn't the case, but it definitely is the case that you don't know exactly what anybody is doing with your data if they have unencrypted access to it, even if they claim to be encrypting it.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:20 am

Xan wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:54 am
vnatale wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:38 am
Xan wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:36 am
Tech is right: if you want to keep it private, you have to encrypt it yourself.
Are you saying that portals provided by investment firms and CPA firms and the like may not be secure?

Vinny
That's certainly possible, yes. But in general, anybody who has encrypted something is also able to decrypt it. There are forms of encryption where that isn't the case, but it definitely is the case that you don't know exactly what anybody is doing with your data if they have unencrypted access to it, even if they claim to be encrypting it.
So, it all comes down to whether or not you have faith in what is promised to you? "We will not....."

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Xan » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:28 am

vnatale wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:20 am
Xan wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:54 am
vnatale wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:38 am
Xan wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:36 am
Tech is right: if you want to keep it private, you have to encrypt it yourself.
Are you saying that portals provided by investment firms and CPA firms and the like may not be secure?

Vinny
That's certainly possible, yes. But in general, anybody who has encrypted something is also able to decrypt it. There are forms of encryption where that isn't the case, but it definitely is the case that you don't know exactly what anybody is doing with your data if they have unencrypted access to it, even if they claim to be encrypting it.
So, it all comes down to whether or not you have faith in what is promised to you? "We will not....."

Vinny
Right. Keeping court orders etc in mind, of course. And of course if the business should fold and it's forced to monetize anything it can. Or it gets sold to new owners who change the terms. Etc.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Mountaineer » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:45 am

I'm thinking my company's advice to "never, never, never put anything in print that you would not want to see on the front page of the newspaper" was a good 30 years before it became really important. However, I'm not sure there is really much of anything that is private anymore - cameras in every hand, satellites that can read a license plate from orbit, google, bing, likely cell transmission interception, crooked employees, questionable ethics by the masses, widely spread value of self vs. others, significant others who have no long term commitment, etc. etc. etc. :(
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Xan » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:49 am

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:32 am
Is there a particular program you guys recommend to encrypt cloud based files? I use Diskcyptor to encrypt local drives, but not sure if/how that would work for individual files that would be uploaded to the cloud.
GPG is probably the default tool for encryption that I would use. I don't have any experience with it on Windows or Mac, but here are what seem to be the installers:
Windows: https://gpg4win.org/download.html
Mac: https://gpgtools.org/

It supports symmetric encryption (that is, encryption with a password which is used both to encrypt and decrypt) and asymmetric encryption, which uses randomly generated keys. The possessor of the public key can ENcrypt but not DEcrypt. Sometimes handy.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by dualstow » Fri Nov 15, 2019 3:43 pm

ochotona wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:22 am
I'm taking a class at the local community college, and I get 1 TB of OneDrive for free, and I'm thinking maybe I just keep everything over there. I only get 120 GB of Google Drive, for which I pay a little bit a month.
You have Google Suite or something? I use the 15GB of free Google Drive.

Encryption: I use Veracrypt, but for any old fogies reading this -- term of endearment -- you have to jump through a few hoops. I couldn't get my dear dad into it.
search.php?keywords=veracrypt

On phones and tablets, I like the encryption apps by Paranoia Works which are called P.T.E. and SSE depending on whether you're using Apple or Android.

When my relative got locked out of his google account, losing access to all his google docs, I took a few steps:
(1) google takeout: you can download a copy of all your email, docs, calendar, etc. Even the stuff you thought you deleted.
Creepy, I know.
(2) Signed up for protonmail, paid version. I still use gmail, but it's nice to have something alongside it. Gmail-to-gmail is now encrypted, I believe.
(3) I looked into SpiderOak as an alternative to Google Drive, but never took the plunge. I think I have a DropBox account somewhere, but I don't use it. I prefer to burn discs and leave them at relative's houses.

One caveat about Veracrypt: every time you update your OS, you break Veracrypt. I haven't updated my Mac to the latest OS just because of Veracrypt. Eventually, they catchup, but it's another hoop to jump through.
RIP Marcello Gandini
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Xan » Fri Nov 15, 2019 4:06 pm

dualstow wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 3:43 pm
(2) Signed up for protonmail, paid version. I still use gmail, but it's nice to have something alongside it. Gmail-to-gmail is now encrypted, I believe.
Email as it goes from one server to another is typically encrypted, but it's of limited help. If both servers support encryption, it'll work, but usually there isn't a certificate involved, so it's susceptible to man-in-the-middle. Also, a man-in-the-middle could simply pretend to not support encryption, and the sender wouldn't encrypt.

But that's far, far better than nothing, in terms of email in transit. It prevents everything from just being Hoovered up.

For Gmail-to-Gmail I'm not sure this applies at all. Emails sent within an email system never go in transit like that anyway.

The hard things with email are:
1) Encrypting your mail store such that your host can't read it. Regardless of what happens in transit, Google has complete access to all your Gmail.
2) Encrypting your outgoing mail such that only your intended recipient (and not even his mail host) can read it.

1 is hard because most people don't/can't host their own email, and if they don't, then they have to trust the "keys to their kingdom" to some (typically massive and NSA-connected) company.

2 is hard because it's difficult to distribute security keys, and people don't like having to do any extra configuration.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by dualstow » Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:40 pm

I know nothing about certificates, but if I really want to encrypt something, there is that option in outgoing protonmail. Recipient has to enter a password to unencrypt.

Unfortunately, the few times I’ve done this, the recipients usually send me a screenshot and ask, “What the hell is this?” O0
Same result from the gmail option that lets you lock something with a password or prevent the recipient from forwarding (see 🔒 icon at the bottom of the compose page or Google it, Vinny ;-)

Fortunately, I tend to use protonmail with other protonmail users.
And, it’s also nice to send myself notes there in case I ever get locked out of gmail like my relative.
RIP Marcello Gandini
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by InsuranceGuy » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:28 pm

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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by InsuranceGuy » Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:03 am

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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:09 am

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:51 am
InsuranceGuy wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:28 pm
You could always put together a home server or use a cloud VM and run NextCloud. https://nextcloud.com/providers/
Not sure what kind of stuff you guys are storing in the cloud and/or sending by email (except Ochotona, I know it's a bunch of cat pictures and memes O0 ), but some of these ideas seem really over the top and an insane amount of time and effort for an average Joe. Or maybe I'm not sufficiently paranoid... :o
Here is my basic philosophy, which I'm sure many here could point out in many ways how flawed it is.

On several levels, we are not supposed to use our work email for personal matters. One of the levels is that your work administrator has full access to them and, presumably, they are getting backed up constantly and, therefore, are living forever with your employer.

At home I get probably 400, 500 emails a day. All of them get filtered into various folders. There are only a handful of those folders wherein I even review the Subject titles, let along taking the next step to open them and read them.

So, clearly I cannot handle ALL my own personal email. Different story for work email where each one gets opened and read.

My philosophy is that my employers' IT administrators are so overwhelmed with just trying to do what they HAVE to do, leading me to believe that their looking at my (or anyone else's) email as being at the absolutely bottom of their list of priorities.

I know some people will able to point out all that can go wrong with this philosophy but...

I also think that physical keys and, especially, computer passwords end up consuming far more time than the problems that they prevent. I understand the concerns of the banks in this area but I avoid dealing with our organization's local bank regarding these matters because whenever we absolutely have to it is extreme time consuming tortuous process.

Vinny
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Mountaineer » Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:25 am

Vinny, just out of curiousiy and if you care to share, what categories are those 400-500 email/day (Friends, junk mail, etc.)? That is perhaps the most I've heard of an individual receiving in a personal account. Just wow! :o
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:00 am

Mountaineer wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:25 am
Vinny, just out of curiousiy and if you care to share, what categories are those 400-500 email/day (Friends, junk mail, etc.)? That is perhaps the most I've heard of an individual receiving in a personal account. Just wow! :o
Some of them are:

Computer News
Boston Celtics
Digital Camera / Recorder
eBay
Freecycle
Friend with whom a ton of emails go back and forth between us
Softball / Basketball
Emails to me from my work account
New York Yankees
Personal Finance
Vanguard
Folders for businesses I work with
Consumer
Employment
Credit card
Health
LinkedIn
Music
Books
News
Political News
Facebook
Personal
Solar
Web Hosting Provider

The ones in bold are the ones I always pay particular attention to. I try to have nothing in my IN box, constantly creating new filters to get anything new sent to a folder.

I also have two email addresses. One is for people I actually personally know. The other is for anything commercially oriented where potentially they are going to pass my email address on to others.

That arose out of an unpleasant experience. I first got on the internet in 1995 and was assigned an email address.

Then one day in 2007 (12 years later) I got an email from the provider telling me that they'd sold their domain and, therefore, I had to change my email address from what I had to a new one they assigned to me. And, the tone of the email was like that was no big deal!

Not only did I have to go to all the places that had my now former email on record to notify them of the new address, I also had 50 eBay ads running, each of those ads having my email address in them four times. That required me to go to all 50 ads to, by hand, make 200 changes.

I vowed that that would never happen to me again for the rest of my life. So, I bought my own domain to enable me to forever control my email address, i.e., it would NEVER be changed again. And, that then led to creating an email address that would be used for anything that could possibly be commercially oriented and I'd guard my main email address for mainly personal use. It has worked out quite well in the subsequent 12 years. I get few junk emails directed to my main email address. Almost all of them go to the "commercial" email address. That allows me when I'm in my office to use my ancient iTouch to just check on the email directed to my main email address without having to wade through all the commercially oriented email that comes in. And, finally, my definition of commercial includes anything public that subjects my email address to a wide audience. Therefore, any email discussion groups that I join. My main vulnerability is when someone who I personally know gets hacked and my email address is one of the ones that gets harvested by the hacker. But this really does not seem to have happened all that often as I get almost no unwanted emails at my main address.

Vinny
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by dualstow » Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:58 am

+1 Just unsubscribe

Gmail has great filters, but it looks like you already use them. Just not to delete.

I have lost a few email addresses over the years. Mailshell, which went all-business. That was a painful one, because I lost contact with some overseas friends, old students. My fault for not reaching out to them in time.

I lost fastmail dot fm through my own neglect.

Whatever.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:14 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:05 am
Dude, seriously, wtf?

1. Open a gmail or hotmail or yahoo mail account. You will never need to change it unless you want to.

2. unsubscribe from all of the commercial crap you aren't going to read anyway.
I don't want anyone holding my personal emails. I want full control of them in every way. What if something ever happened with any of the ones you suggest? Not likely, but also not impossible. I NEVER want a repeat of what I went through.

I use Eudora (the same as I have since 1995). ALL my emails are on this computer (and, the innumerable backups) I make of them.

2. You must have skipped over when I self-disclosed that I am a hoarder. There MAY be some time when I want to look at what is in those folders. And, it take up far less physical space to hoard in the e-world than the physical world.

It's my personality which is not going to change.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:16 pm

dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:58 am
+1 Just unsubscribe

Gmail has great filters, but it looks like you already use them. Just not to delete.

I have lost a few email addresses over the years. Mailshell, which went all-business. That was a painful one, because I lost contact with some overseas friends, old students. My fault for not reaching out to them in time.

I lost fastmail dot fm through my own neglect.

Whatever.
I will never unsubscribe because I'm actively requesting them to come my way. And, with my filtering system I don't have some any appreciable time dealing with them as they come in. My appreciable time is dealing with those arriving in my IN box that I then label as Junk.

And, again, I don't want to repeat my experience or the ones you described above. And, I never will as long as I keep renewing my personal domain.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by drumminj » Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:13 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:30 pm
Lesson: never let anyone else "manage" your domain for you. Register it yourself.
Isn't this true of most things in life? No one else is as invested as you are, as is likely to mess it up.

I keep a personal domain for email, and use KolabNow as a host. One day I'll just set up my own mail server, but KolabNow is at least privacy-minded and runs opensource software. I then use gmail or yahoo accounts for the stuff that's likely to spam me (online retailers, message forums -- sorry Xan :), etc)

It's a shame PGP isn't easier to set up everywhere, and get folks to install your keys.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by Xan » Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:11 pm

drumminj wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:13 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:30 pm
Lesson: never let anyone else "manage" your domain for you. Register it yourself.
Isn't this true of most things in life? No one else is as invested as you are, as is likely to mess it up.

I keep a personal domain for email, and use KolabNow as a host. One day I'll just set up my own mail server, but KolabNow is at least privacy-minded and runs opensource software. I then use gmail or yahoo accounts for the stuff that's likely to spam me (online retailers, message forums -- sorry Xan :), etc)

It's a shame PGP isn't easier to set up everywhere, and get folks to install your keys.
Is the forum spammy? I notice that we've been blocked by AT&T again. I'm considering some other options for managing the outgoing mail.
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Re: Privacy terms - Google Drive vs OneDrive

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:59 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:30 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:05 am
Dude, seriously, wtf?

1. Open a gmail or hotmail or yahoo mail account. You will never need to change it unless you want to.

2. unsubscribe from all of the commercial crap you aren't going to read anyway.
I have a hotmail account from a long time ago, which gets very little use, mostly as a backup when my web hosting company is messing up.
Other than that, I won't use any of those services. I know the NSA has all of my email but I don't feel like giving it to anyone else that I don't have to.
Oh, and my original personal domain was stolen from me, so I had to get another one.
Lesson: never let anyone else "manage" your domain for you. Register it yourself.
I believe that I am registering my own domain but maybe I'm not and someone else is "managing" it instead. If so, something I definitely would want to avoid. How do I determine what is my status regarding this?

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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