Quote: Original post by riruilo

Quote: Original post by Dmytry
I use rsync (run regularly as cron job) to backup my whole work folder with everything to network share on my old PC. (I'm using SSHFS for share)

I also have extra scripts for backing up just the source code to flash drive which I keep with me, excluding all the generated files. When I'll get new website hosting, I may start backing up data there as additional safety measure. (well encrypted of course - I do not want to have to trust third party).
Crypto is much stronger than any safe deposit box btw. You can do encrypted backups to any shit host or to multiple shit hosts and it'll be more secure than in fort knox.

Hahaha.

Crypto is not useful if your home/office gets burned.

how exactly, barring major thermonuclear war, would multiple shit hosts get burned? Or both home and office (unless those are same building ofc)?
You can even get free website hosting nowadays with enough space to store all the source code you write, the only issue is you cant trust such hosts for confidentiality so you gotta use crypto.

Quote: Original post by Dmytry

Quote: Original post by riruilo

Quote: Original post by Dmytry
I use rsync (run regularly as cron job) to backup my whole work folder with everything to network share on my old PC. (I'm using SSHFS for share)

I also have extra scripts for backing up just the source code to flash drive which I keep with me, excluding all the generated files. When I'll get new website hosting, I may start backing up data there as additional safety measure. (well encrypted of course - I do not want to have to trust third party).
Crypto is much stronger than any safe deposit box btw. You can do encrypted backups to any shit host or to multiple shit hosts and it'll be more secure than in fort knox.

Hahaha.

Crypto is not useful if your home/office gets burned.

how exactly, barring major thermonuclear war, would multiple shit hosts get burned? Or both home and office (unless those are same building ofc)?
You can even get free website hosting nowadays with enough space to store all the source code you write, the only issue is you cant trust such hosts for confidentiality so you gotta use crypto.

I would not like online bakcups because the same reasons as davepermen, moreover here in Spain Internet connection is a bit slow, so I guess an online backup system with these connections is not suitable.

Quote: Original post by riruilo
Crypto is not useful if your home/office gets burned.

That's why you should make digital and physical copies of your crypto keys and put them in a safe deposit box.

Also, create a rescue disk for yourself. Not just any regular backup but something that really contains the essentials. Scans of your passports, birth and marriage certificates, mortgage papers, crypto keys for offsite backups, etcetera. The *really* important stuff. Make two copies. Put one in your safe deposit box and mount one on the wall near your door or somewhere easily reachable. Explain to your family that this is the one disk to grab in case of fire.

Same principle applies if you have something like a fireproof box in your house that you keep important papers in. Don't stuff it away in a closet somewhere like most people do. It should be easily reachable when you flee your house in case of fire.

I recently started using IDrive. I looked at Mozy, but wasn't impressed:
* Stores only 30 day version history.
* If you delete files locally, Mozy deletes their backups irrevocably after 30 days.

IDrive stores up to 30 past versions regardless of date (without counting it against your quota), and deleted files never vanish unless you explicitly ask it to delete the offsite backup. They give 2 GB free or 150 GB for $5/mo or $50/year, which is not quite as generous as Mozy. Both services encrypt the files on your machine using a user provided passkey, and then upload over SSL. The backup company can see filenames but they have no way to access the contents. In fact you're SOL if you lose your passkey. (And if you're so paranoid that this isn't an acceptable level of security, unplug your machine from the internet permanently.)

PC Magazine has reviews of a huge list of offsite backup services. They don't make Mozy sound that appealing, although Ars Technica really liked it. PCMag's big complaint about IDrive was very complex software; that seems to have been rectified in the past 9 months.

Given the existence of these services, I'm amazed that anyone would actually think that backups to local drives is a sane solution. Not a bad idea, certainly, but if that's your only backup you're crazy. And if you're backing up to optical media you simply have no idea what the hell you're doing.

Heh... did anyone here actually do backups to "safe deposit box" at bank? Was it daily, weekly, monthly, or usual once-in-a-blue-moon ly ?

Everyone loves to talk about things like that, but nobody actually does it. Networked backups, on other hand, people actually do.

as for keys, thats good point. I just use passphrase which I remember.

Quote: Original post by Dmytry
Heh... did anyone here actually do backups to "safe deposit box" at bank? Was it daily, weekly, monthly, or usual once-in-a-blue-moon ly

I keep a printed copy of my public and private GPG keys there, but that's all. I'm still working on the rescue disk I referred to above (I'm going to do that when I get into my new house in 2-3 months).

Quote: Original post by Sander

Quote: Original post by Dmytry
Heh... did anyone here actually do backups to "safe deposit box" at bank? Was it daily, weekly, monthly, or usual once-in-a-blue-moon ly

I keep a printed copy of my public and private GPG keys there, but that's all. I'm still working on the rescue disk I referred to above (I'm going to do that when I get into my new house in 2-3 months).

I don't use my public/private keypair for anything important (only for passwordless SSH) so I didn't have to do that...

For other stuff I use passphrases that I remember. Can't you generate GPG keys from passphrase?

edit: btw for small data. You can engrave it on metal plate or etch it (using toner transfer. you print page with laser printer, transfer toner to the metal plate, then put whole thing into acid that eats at unprotected areas. Of course very impractical unless you also do electronics and use this method to make PCBs). Clay tablets could do well too, and survive for few thousand years.
edit: another impractical method for small data, which game geeks surely will love: convert to barcode and tattoo it (on back of neck ala Hitman). [grin] Will need 2d barcode for keys of any reasonable size tho.

[Edited by - Dmytry on April 12, 2009 6:57:28 PM]

I forgot another reason against online backup. Who cares about free 2gb backup?

I have 4.5tb worth of data to back up. I don't care about having 0.05% of it save for free. (And I don't want to know how long it would take over the internet to restore in case of a burndown of the house).

The other home-server, I can drive to, restore all the data to disks, and take it back to the new-built house. Back Online in some hours. If I need to go down to Tessin for the other backup (In case of an earthquake for example), Back Online in around a Day or so.


But I'm thinking about saving passwords and all somewhere. Who could imagine, but I could lose my memory, and then my family couldn't access our data possibly anymore.

I'll think about that after switching to two homeservers in sync.

Quote: Original post by davepermen
I forgot another reason against online backup. Who cares about free 2gb backup?

Because most people only have a very small amount of data that they care about enough that they want secure offsite backup. Things like critical documents etc. We're not backing up our collections of uncompressed CD and DVD rips to offsite storage or anything like that.