Backing up Gnucash accounts

[Manfred Usselmann]

On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:56:41 +0000
Berni Elbourn <berni at elbournb.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

> Manfred Usselmann wrote:
> > On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:29:00 +0000
> 
> > Not sure if I would put my financial data on dropbox. They don't
> > encrypt your data at all.
> 
> :-O Cough...splutter...Berni spills coffee down his front...
> 
> Dropbox is encrypted:
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/features
> 

OK, so my statement is incorrect. Has this changed recently? I stopped
using Dropbox because I had the information that they encrypt the
transfer using SSL, but that the data itself is not stored in an
encrypted format.

Nevertheless, even if they store the data encrypted that must have the
keys because otherwise they could not offer the files via the web
interface where you have direct clickable links and can even publish
direct links. You wouldn’t be able to view or download your files
directly. And secure encryption, where you are in possession of the
private keys, would also make it much more complicated to share files
with other people.

So a certain amount of trust is still required.

This also explains why so many articles can be found on the web
explaining how to use Truecrypt and Dropbox together.

I would still be a bit hesitant to use it to backup a bunch of
sensitive financial data or sync confidential data between several
computers without encrypting the data myself beforehand.

Manfred



-- 
Manfred Usselmann <usselmann.m at icg-online.de>
ICG IT Consulting GmbH, Kelkheim