Storing important documents online

[geek84]

Good Morning Folks

I wish to store some important documents inline in case I loose the hard copies.

Can you kindly recommend a secure way of doing this and preventing anyone else from getting access?

Thank You

[Tyre Smoke]

Dropbox? Access anywhere but only you have the password.

[Marcellus]

2nd vote for drop box, I use it for all my files now, can then choose who I want to see what (if anyone anything).

Then once a month intake a back up of that too to an external hard drive which is stored off site.

[Petrus1983]

Marcellus said:

2nd vote for drop box, I use it for all my files now, can then choose who I want to see what (if anyone anything).

Then once a month intake a back up of that too to an external hard drive which is stored off site.

This. External backup is important even if it’s for peace of mind.

[Beetnik]

Microsoft OneDrive Personal Vault - for a bit more security.

[mikef]

geek84 said:

I wish to store some important documents inline in case I loose the hard copies

Do you mean hard copies as in paper documents?

I scan those to pdf using an HP all-in-one, then use OCR in Adobe Acrobat to make the text searchable and resave as pdf

Then for these and other computer (soft) documents, I create an encrypted container locally using Cryptainer and keep my documents in there, with regular uploads of the container to multiple reputable cloud services, it doesn't matter which, the key thing is that there are more than one and the files there are encrypted

[db10]

Google drive?

[geek84]

Hi Folks

Thanks for your replies.

Yes I do mean hard copies of documents. At present, I have scanned them on my laptop and feel they are not very secure, since more than one person in our family uses the laptop.

[Countdown]

Hi all

I’m looking for something similar.

Dropbox looks like a paid-for service whereas MS OneDrive is free......any reasons not to go with the free option?

FWIW I’m looking to store household documents (life insurance, house insurances, car insurance, bank account numbers, utility contracts, possibly things such V5 documents) things that the wife and kids would need if god forbid the worst happens

[leemanning]

What are the documents you're wanting to store? Are they legal documents that may need referring to at some point in the future? Alternatively are they documents that could at all be utilised in litigation? Simply scanning and saving a PDF isn't really applicable if it's for the above intended uses. They need to be in a system with version control. Something that can monitor who accessed the documents, when they were accessed and was anything changed - essentially maintaining the original integrity of the document.

[Funk]

geek84 said:

Hi Folks

Thanks for your replies.

Yes I do mean hard copies of documents. At present, I have scanned them on my laptop and feel they are not very secure, since more than one person in our family uses the laptop.

Why have you not set up each person with their own profile on the laptop? It would make life a million times easier for all, including personalisation, syncing bookmarks/logins etc in Chrome (or your browser of choice) and that's before you even consider the security benefits of doing so.

Beetnik said:

Microsoft OneDrive Personal Vault - for a bit more security.

This, or at least something with 2FA. I wouldn't store anything important in the cloud with just a username and password protecting it if I could help it.

If you're not already using a password manager (and you should be) then many of them have a documentation storage area for precisely this. I use LastPass which does it: https://www.howtogeek.com/392417/how-to-use-lastpa...

Edited by Funk on Monday 8th March 14:39

[Taita]

Easy route is stick them in an encrypted zip with a good strong password (7zip can create AES encrypted zips, Windows can use builtin ZipCrypto).

Can then sync to 2FA Dropbox or whichever

[eeLee]

any service + https://cryptomator.org/
pre-Internet encryption, keys in your hand.

Otherwise store some documents in your password manager such as LastPass, BitWarden, etc

[Mr Pointy]

Countdown said:

I’m looking for something similar.

Dropbox looks like a paid-for service whereas MS OneDrive is free......any reasons not to go with the free option?

FWIW I’m looking to store household documents (life insurance, house insurances, car insurance, bank account numbers, utility contracts, possibly things such V5 documents) things that the wife and kids would need if god forbid the worst happens

These sort of items (important but don't change very often) are ideal for storing in a password manager; you then have access to them anywhere including on your phone. If you set up someone as an emergency user they'll be able to access your accounts more easily should you fall under a bus.

The current favourite seems to be Bitwarden since Lastpass jacked up their prices; withe Bitwarden you get 1GB for $10 a year.

[mr_spock]

I quit Dropbox and moved to pCloud. Better apps, better sync, better cross-platform compatibility. More free space too. They just added a backup feature as well. Crypto available too, as well as maintaining data in your chosen region.

I also have a google drive account which I rsync from my Linux Samba server for other stuff, saves me paying for anything.

Moderator edit: no referrals please

[Countdown]

Mr Pointy said:

These sort of items (important but don't change very often) are ideal for storing in a password manager; you then have access to them anywhere including on your phone. If you set up someone as an emergency user they'll be able to access your accounts more easily should you fall under a bus.

The current favourite seems to be Bitwarden since Lastpass jacked up their prices; withe Bitwarden you get 1GB for $10 a year.

Thanks

My understanding is that OneDrive is free. is there any benefit in a "paid for" service, especially as these wont be particularly confidential documents?

The other reason why I would prefer Onedrive is the ease of downloading/uploading documents. Most of the family are familiar with it, whereas with lastpass etc they would have to download and learn something new

[deckster]

OneDrive and Google Drive are the two obvious candidates here. Both are dead simple to use, free for the amount of data we're talking about here, and run by companies who are unlikely to fold next year. OneDrive is (very) marginally better integrated to Windows, and Google Drive distinctly better integrated into Android, if either of those make any difference.

Really it comes down to whether you trust Microsoft or Google more.

[matjk]

Just get a gmail account and email them to yourself ,

[muppetman74]

All good suggestions so far.

Whatever you choose, I'd store them in at least 2 places. You never know when a "free" service might disappear.

[Ham_and_Jam]

mr_spock said:

I quit Dropbox and moved to pCloud. Better apps, better sync, better cross-platform compatibility. More free space too. They just added a backup feature as well. Crypto available too, as well as maintaining data in your chosen region.

I also have a google drive account which I rsync from my Linux Samba server for other stuff, saves me paying for anything.

Moderator edit: no referrals please

I’m quite interested in PCloud, more specifically the lifetime plan. £159 500Gb or £309 2Tb one time payment.

I’ve signed uo for the free account & got 7Gb free, and quite like the feel of it. The cross platform file sharing is quite good and something that appeals to me.

My main concern is that £309 for a lifetime (99 years) 2Tb is very good value, cheaper than a NAS. However if they fold or disappear after 2 to 3 years, not so good value.

What’s peoples thoughts or experiences with the platform and them as a company. How long is the average shelf life of these types of cloud businesses?