Back up of personal information on web

Tomnod · 21 March 2005 at 12:41AM

Has anyone any experience of using a web based back up for personal information such as passport numbers, insurance details, inventory for insurance purposes such as mylifesafe.com promoted by Zurich?

adam1987_2 · 21 March 2005 at 1:16AM

looks like a mad idea, i would say its safer to write it down and hide it somewhere.

Rex_Mundi · 21 March 2005 at 9:34PM

Seems like a bonkers idea to me. If they are ever hacked. ALL your personal details will be available in one place. They may claim this will never happen, but the nature of computers means that no company can make this claim.

Far better to keep it all on paper and store it somewhere safe. Maybe keep copies with a family member or trusted friend in case your house burns down. This can't be hacked, and it will cost you nothing.

Garret · 22 March 2005 at 8:07AM

You could try using a google mail account which gives you a gigabyte of email storage for free. It accepts attachments so you can send yourself scanned documents. I think yahoo gives you 250 Mbytes for free. I wouldn't use hotmail - they seem to delete everything if you haven't used the account for more than 30 days (not that I know the google and yahoo policy on this).

Garret

NellyLock · 22 March 2005 at 10:10AM

Garret wrote:

You could try using a google mail account which gives you a gigabyte of email storage for free. It accepts attachments so you can send yourself scanned documents. I think yahoo gives you 250 Mbytes for free. I wouldn't use hotmail - they seem to delete everything if you haven't used the account for more than 30 days (not that I know the google and yahoo policy on this).

Garret

sorry this would be a bad idea too! gmail is not secure at all! you wouldnt want your personal details found out...having not really looked into mylifesafe the concept seems viable as long as security is of utmost important, afterall the servers which the data is stored on will be backup up hence the loss of this data is very unlikely. in my eyes its the same as online banking, if you trust your money and the security of online banking then i cant really see the difference?

neil

Debt_Free_Chick · 22 March 2005 at 11:01AM

I'm not sure I agree that a web-based storage system is insecure ... it depends. You would need to check the security in place e.g. access rights, password integrity, encryption. A robust sytem would be far more difficult to hack than the average home PC, most of which do not have a firewall!

You would need to do some research on the security features that a good provider would ideally have in place. You also need to consider that data could be intercepted whilst you're transferring it to the data storage server, but the risk can be minimised (avoided) by use of a secure protocol such as SSL, which encrypts data as its transmitted. Mylifesafe uses this, but there's little information about the security of the information they store. That said, if they described it, most of us wouldn't understand it

I wouldn't write it off as being mad or insecure. Whether you really need it is another matter though. And, certainly, make sure your own PC is secure - apply security patches as they're released and get a firewall.

Rex_Mundi · 22 March 2005 at 11:24AM

Any security is only as strong as the weakest link. The servers for this company may be as secure as they get, but, if a virus or trojan entered your home system they could possibly get your password from your end. This is much more likely. I see a report has just come out that states that the UK has the highest percentage of infected machines than any other country in the world. This is worrying, and it seems to be getting worse.

Storing ALL your personal information in one place electronically does seem a completely bonkers idea to me. Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes out there now. Putting everything in one place could make it very easy for criminals.

Paul_Varjak · 22 March 2005 at 12:55PM

Why not encrypt your data before uploading to the on-line storage device?

Tomnod · 23 March 2005 at 12:37AM

I was keen to keep all my important data including passport numbers etc safe aand be able to access from any pc anywhere.
My machine appears to be adequately protected, but its such a bind having to back up to 10 plus CDs. I dont have a DVD burner. The other thing that made me consider off site storage is that I keep my backups in the same location (house) as the pc.
I bank on line and even use Plaxo!!!!!!! so far my experience has been OK. A techie who had been critical of Plaxo gave it the thumbs up last year saying hotmail and yahoo were far more vulnerable.

Tony_H_3 · 23 March 2005 at 1:38AM

If you want to keep your data safe & access it from any PC I would strongly recommend you consider using a USB Flash drive & file encryption software (or winzip as previously mentioned).

99% of PC's have usb facilities so at any computer you would be able to "Plug In" your flash drive any get at your information, which would be protected and on your person anyhow!!

Paul_Varjak · 23 March 2005 at 1:43AM

How many passport numbers do you have that require 6-7 gigabytes of storage? How often do you propose to do this backup? That would take over two days at my rather slow broadband speed of 256k. I trust you have an unlimited superfast connection and an understanding ISP!

Why not get a DVD burner and a fireproof data safe, and keep a second DVD at your parents' house for good measure? Carry a third DVD around with you - making sure the data is encrypted of course!

Back up of personal information on web

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free