I have had a lot of conversations with people about data and website security. It is alarming how many people either don’t keep backups, or if they do, have no idea how to restore a backup should they need to.
Several times I have talked to people who grew up in a world where security meant a five lever lock, or a big steel box with a lock on it. If that is the case, then the idea of moving your stuff to “the cloud” is a concept they find troubling. Among other things, I don’t think the term “cloud” sounds very secure. Maybe if it were called “the fortress” or something like that it would be more inclined to set people at ease.
My real point is that there is no such thing as secure. That applies to all forms of security.
For example, when you buy a five lever lock for the front door of your house it should be pretty obvious that the lock is not going to guarantee that someone doesn’t break into your house. It is hard to open a door with a good lock on it, you aren’t going to pick it, it will take several minutes to drill it open or smash it with a chisel and that will make a lot of noise and attract attention. Much easier to (quietly) smash a window. But what if there are shutters on the windows, well then just take a few tiles off the roof and get in that way. Even if you have a house built like a fortress, if someone really wants to get in they can always pick your pockets, hold you up at gunpoint, or whatever. At that point, you might have been safer not making your house so secure in the first place! The same goes for banks. By and large, they put little effort into keeping people out of their branch buildings, enough to deter rough sleepers but not much more. The vaults are a different matter, the plan is simply to make it take so long to get in that people won’t bother. Even then, sometimes people will find a way.
All we can ever achieve is relative security and that means not only thinking about how we keep people out as far as is practically possible, but also having a plan for how we are going to deal with what happens when our security is breached.
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