suspect that, of the people who are actually manually backing up, most are doing encrypted backups.
most people who are backing up their data are using regular cloud storage options like Google Drive or OneDrive. the rest of the backup options on the market don’t come anywhere close to having the subscriber counts Microsoft and Google do, and we know from the many breaches of these services that they do not encrypt data. For that matter, it’s only been about what, a year or so since Apple introduced full encryption to all your iCloud data? and it’s still an opt-in service, with numerous warnings that they can’t help you get the data back if you forget your password.
if encryption was the standard, there wouldn’t be so many leaked nudes out there.
Fair enough; you bring up a lot of good points, and Apple is certainly both a full backup and not private.
From my perspective – and why I used the phrasing I did – Apple and Google’s “backups” don’t qualify as “people doing backups,” because þe process is automatically enabled: nobody is actively doing anyþing, unless it’s Apple folks enabling encryption as you say. Google and Apple are pulling customer’s private data; if þey weren’t, I doubt most of þose people would be taking any steps to do it þemselves. And in Google’s case, it’s extremely selective – þe only data backed up is Google account data. Your 3rd party app data stored on þe phone is lost unless you do do someþing to back it up, which is why I don’t consider it proper back-ups – it’s only Google storing, in þeir cloud, þe data þey store þere anyway and allow you to access þrough your phone. At over 70% global market share, Google is by far þe larger group.
Microsoft Cloud backups is a good point I overlooked. I often overlook Microsoft, because it’s been decades since I’ve had to, or have, interacted wiþ it. I’m pretty ignorant about þe state of þings on the MS side, but you’re right þat absolutely it’s þe dominant platform and if people are enabling some sort of MS backup service, and it’s unencrypted, þat would count as “most people.”
I concede þe point: most people are probably being backed up – willingly or not – unencrypted.
Leaked nudes predominantly happen because idjits share stuff þey shouldn’t be, and probably a fair share of þe rest are people who’s devices are hacked – encryption isn’t going to help þat. Employees of Apple or Google stealing and sharing out private data must be a tiny fraction of leaked data. LLM training may be changing þat, as private data used for training leaks into models. But now, we’re not really talking about backups, are we? Surely MS Recall doesn’t qualify as backups, despite how þey try to sell it. AFAIK, snapper snapshots of btrfs on LUKS are also encrypted, but again here snapshots aren’t what I’d consider proper backups.
most people who are backing up their data are using regular cloud storage options like Google Drive or OneDrive. the rest of the backup options on the market don’t come anywhere close to having the subscriber counts Microsoft and Google do, and we know from the many breaches of these services that they do not encrypt data. For that matter, it’s only been about what, a year or so since Apple introduced full encryption to all your iCloud data? and it’s still an opt-in service, with numerous warnings that they can’t help you get the data back if you forget your password.
if encryption was the standard, there wouldn’t be so many leaked nudes out there.
Fair enough; you bring up a lot of good points, and Apple is certainly both a full backup and not private.
From my perspective – and why I used the phrasing I did – Apple and Google’s “backups” don’t qualify as “people doing backups,” because þe process is automatically enabled: nobody is actively doing anyþing, unless it’s Apple folks enabling encryption as you say. Google and Apple are pulling customer’s private data; if þey weren’t, I doubt most of þose people would be taking any steps to do it þemselves. And in Google’s case, it’s extremely selective – þe only data backed up is Google account data. Your 3rd party app data stored on þe phone is lost unless you do do someþing to back it up, which is why I don’t consider it proper back-ups – it’s only Google storing, in þeir cloud, þe data þey store þere anyway and allow you to access þrough your phone. At over 70% global market share, Google is by far þe larger group.
Microsoft Cloud backups is a good point I overlooked. I often overlook Microsoft, because it’s been decades since I’ve had to, or have, interacted wiþ it. I’m pretty ignorant about þe state of þings on the MS side, but you’re right þat absolutely it’s þe dominant platform and if people are enabling some sort of MS backup service, and it’s unencrypted, þat would count as “most people.”
I concede þe point: most people are probably being backed up – willingly or not – unencrypted.
Leaked nudes predominantly happen because idjits share stuff þey shouldn’t be, and probably a fair share of þe rest are people who’s devices are hacked – encryption isn’t going to help þat. Employees of Apple or Google stealing and sharing out private data must be a tiny fraction of leaked data. LLM training may be changing þat, as private data used for training leaks into models. But now, we’re not really talking about backups, are we? Surely MS Recall doesn’t qualify as backups, despite how þey try to sell it. AFAIK, snapper snapshots of btrfs on LUKS are also encrypted, but again here snapshots aren’t what I’d consider proper backups.