Hey, howdy, hallo,
Apple recently removed the offering for Advanced Data Protection in the United Kingdom. For context, when ADP is enabled for an Apple account, the user’s data is end-to-end encrypted. Meaning, only the user can decrypt their data. Apple didn’t remove ADP voluntarily; instead, the UK pressured Apple to create a backdoor for accessing encrypted user data, which Apple refused.
Say what you want about Apple, I think this was a good choice by them. What the UK is requesting is reprehensible and they should have no right to do it.
But this could happen to anyone, in any country. As the old proverb goes (adapted for my readers), "The best time to secure your data is 20 years ago; the second best time is now."
Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive are extremely popular. They work well, they’re reliable, and most of the time free. But this means you’re uploading your private data to these large companies who then have access to it. The data is unencrypted, available to them to access or hand over to governments/law enforcement.
The typical answer is self-hosting. Host your own NAS (Network Attached Storage) so you can fully control your data. While I agree this is a great option, it’s not ideal for a lot of people. Things can go wrong; you’re now fully responsible for your data, and hardware can be expensive. That’s where Cryptomator comes in.
Before I had my NAS, I used Cryptomator. I had a Dropbox account and I would use Cryptomator to secure my data. The way it works is that it creates an encrypted Cryptomator vault in your cloud sync folder, on your computer. Everything is done client-side, which is key, meaning nothing unencrypted is ever uploaded. That encrypted vault is then synced like any other folder.
If you log into the web interface for the service you use (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.), all you will see is a bunch of encrypted files. Your data is secure and encrypted inside that vault before being uploaded to the service, meaning the provider has absolutely no access to your unencrypted data.
While this option isn’t perfect, its accessibility is unmatched. ANYONE can use it today. There’s no extra hardware needed, no huge time-consuming setup, just the initial configuration and you’re good to go.
If you’re one of the people using one of the supported providers then I challenge you to at least play around with Cryptomator. You don’t need to go all in on it. Set it up, create the vault, and put a file there. Lock the vault, unlock it, see how the encrypted files look in your web browser. Seeing your data inaccessible to these companies might just be the motivation you need to go all in.
Another use I learned about yesterday is that even if you don’t use one of the providers listed above—you can still create a vault on your computer to secure your files locally. Either way, learning something new is never a bad thing.
I hope you had a great February, and I’ll see you in March!
-Josh
This site is a collection of deliberately inconvenient everyday objects.
🎧 Gordon Moore — The co-founder of Intel and the mind behind Moore’s Law—the prediction that has shaped the pace of technological advancement for decades.
🎧 Linus Torvalds — The creator of the Linux kernel. From his early coding days on a VIC-20 to launching an open-source revolution.
🖥️ The Big Problem with Bitwarden Backups — I had an issue with my Bitwarden backup and lost data. I shared my story to hopefully prevent someone from making the same mistake.
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