I don’t have a particular view on the risk profile in Germany – however, this seems to me just good common sense when using any third party service, no matter how much protection might be afforded to someone by law! There’s always a balance between convenience and security, and I do try to find that balance – where a service is beneficial to me, I want to find the most secure way of doing it, without losing too much convenience, and then decide whether the balancing act is met. For me, that involves a lot of self-hosting (and the associated reading up on server-side security, locking down machines etc.), and plenty of encryption, although I am not under the misapprehension that this is perfect.

I do often wonder whether, actually, storing with Google or Amazon might be more secure, if only because their network admins will be (or, at least, hopefully are) considerably more skilled than I am in network security. As long as I have my data encrypted, such that third party access to my hosted space does not necessarily mean a compromise of the information, that’s probably just as secure as me hosting the same encrypted data on my own boxes.

My main risk, in my opinion, is of inadvertent disclosure, or an opportunist hacker – if someone *really* wants my data, they’ll find a way to get to it, government or otherwise.

So you would suggest keeping personal data more secure in Germany using the highest encryption available, not disclosing unnecessary information and keeping cloud storage as low as possible?

Absolutely – I deal with law enforcement agencies (across Europe and further) quite regularly on this kind of thing (interception, and access to stored data). In Germany, law enforcement actually seems to have quite a lot of powers!

I agree entirely with what you say, but, for the same reason, prefer that I encrypt data myself, before uploading, rather than relying on supplier-provided encryption

But then again, I am no criminal, I dont think that they would even try to break a 64bit or 128bit AES encrypted file if they searched for something. You always have to see the relation between desire and effort. Why would they want to see my files in the first place? Why would criminals try to break any encrypted file if they can get information for free on facebook?
I am very concerned about privacy, but I also realize that small barriers already help to keep them afar.
Cheers

Superb Review.. I’ve seen many reviews of this phone to buy it.. But ur review is outstanding.. I want you to publish this in Samsung Website..

The solutions you’ve posted don’t look like “cloud” storage to me – just traditional hosted storage, which has been around for ages? Perhaps I’m just not one for buzzwords, but “cloud” does very little for me – I do make a lot of my data available over the Internet, or else remotely via VPN, though.

It is ideal for files you need to be backed up ‘for life’.

Only if you have back-ups with other vendors / other equipment too, in my mind. I wouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket if the eggs were sufficiently important to me.

he guarantees noone has access to the data

So, if law enforcement comes along, they can’t access your files unless you provide the encryption key?

Have you ever found a better app to DateBk5? Contacts5? Bonsai? DayNotez? BugMe? Or ZLauncher? I doubt it, yet you still are content with your iPhone.
I did the switch 4yrs ago, whenever I see my NX70 sitting in the cradle I compare it to my iPhone, Nokia N97 or Google Nexus One and I find absolutely no reason why I switched to them, except for missing online support, the lack of support for newer office files and the poor battery life. Working with PalmOS is not comparable to the newer OSes – in a positive way!

The best replacement in my eyes for the hotsync is Nokias PCSuite: its local, highly reliable and completely automated and integrated with Outlook. Shame Symbian is dead

1) nearly every hoster sells cloud space. It is ideal for files you need to be backed up ‘for life’. Even MS Office word delivers a suitable encryption, which can be opened on my Symbian phone (best replacement for PalmOS). Integration is pretty easy: WebDav makes it possible to access it like a local drive.

2) my hoster sells it for as low as 5 bucks a month, he guarantees noone has access to the data, enrypts them and supports external encryption standards. Should the data get leaked i am insured – all with the 5€ per month.

3) uploading pictures or activating the contact and calendar sync on facebook means u enabled cloud storage. Your contacts are now in the worst kept cloud of man kind.

4) same applies to all big OS provider (except Nokia!). Your very most sensitive data is synced with the cloud! Contacts, calender entries or notes are kept with the biggest software houses of the world – do you think they will listen should some security issues occur? Did facebook revert its unwanted contacts sync with iphone? How fast? Did google even offer you another sync url in the past on unrooted phones? Your email is in the ‘cloud’, so is most of your life.

Just make sure you use SSL/ TLS connections, dont stay with the handset manufacturer, pay for a cheap premium service instead of using a free cloud and be happy about the new freedom. In the long run paying for security is better than being paid off for desaster!