Help, i lost my novel

[qqnforyou6]

Hey all, I lost my thumb drive that had the first 4 1/2 chapters of Tick Tock on. Is it possible to get a word copy back from Lit?

qqnforyou6

 

[PennLady]

Hey all, I lost my thumb drive that had the first 4 1/2 chapters of Tick Tock on. Is it possible to get a word copy back from Lit?

qqnforyou6

If you posted the story, you could just copy and paste the text from Lit. I'm not sure you could get a Word file back.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yeah just paste it into word.

You will most likely have to do some formatting to get it lined back up properly, but you'll have it.

Something I do to ensure never losing my writing is in addition to periodically downloading things to thumb drives, I e-mail every finished story to myself and put the e-mails in a story folder so I can always save them again.

 

[qqnforyou6]

thank you

Excellent idea

 

[PennLady]

Yeah just paste it into word.

You will most likely have to do some formatting to get it lined back up properly, but you'll have it.

Something I do to ensure never losing my writing is in addition to periodically downloading things to thumb drives, I e-mail every finished story to myself and put the e-mails in a story folder so I can always save them again.

Any extra saving is good. I have a flash drive with the stories, and I also have a large external HD where everything gets backed up.

 

[redzinger]

I email them to myself, using two separate accounts run by different providers.

 

[Handley_Page]

Any extra saving is good. I have a flash drive with the stories, and I also have a large external HD where everything gets backed up.

I have a completely separate Hard Drive for things like my back-ups.
It plugs in to the USB port

 

[karaline]

phew, glad thats sorted out *shudder*

 

[Swilly]

I generally email finished stories to myself. I keep the original on my hard drive, and it backs up to Dropbox automatically. With services like Dropbox, Google Drive and One Drive essentially free, everyone should have their stuff backed up seamlessly.

 

[lovecraft68]

I generally email finished stories to myself. I keep the original on my hard drive, and it backs up to Dropbox automatically. With services like Dropbox, Google Drive and One Drive essentially free, everyone should have their stuff backed up seamlessly.

Careful with anything with google. Never use that google edit feature there is fine print in their terms and conditions that anything shared through them can technically be dubbed their property.

 

[StrangeLife]

I will recommend DropBox, since it's the only one with no motive for snooping in your data. You get 2Gb for free and 1Tb costs $9.99/month.

My stories (and other sensitive papers) are furthermore kept in an encrypted container, so even in the event that DropBox should have a security breach my side-career as smut-writer extraordinaire will remain a secret.

 

[Swilly]

I will recommend DropBox, since it's the only one with no motive for snooping in your data. You get 2Gb for free and 1Tb costs $9.99/month.

My stories (and other sensitive papers) are furthermore kept in an encrypted container, so even in the event that DropBox should have a security breach my side-career as smut-writer extraordinaire will remain a secret.

Yes. Good point on encryption. I use it for certain items on there too. My writing, not so much. (Dropbox is my go to service as well. I have the others, but really don't use them).

LC...I didn't realize the T&C thing on Google, but I don't use it anyway. I just use these sites for backup storage.

 

[sr71plt]

I started posting to Literotica just to have my erotica available somewhere other than in my computers. But I don't just post to one Web site. I've had a couple of Web sites zero out with my files on them.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Americans are the number ones in earth
http://imgserve.net/img-543325e2c0e56.html

what happens if they all crashes ??
http://imgserve.net/img-543325e2c0e56.html

back up storage is somehow a lousy thing to me
http://imgserve.net/img-543325e2c0e56.html

Americans are the number ones in earth
http://imgserve.net/img-543325e2c0e56.html

http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/trackback-spam.jpg

 

[Bramblethorn]

I will recommend DropBox, since it's the only one with no motive for snooping in your data.

DropBox is probably less safe than options like SpiderOak, both for technical reasons and because of who's on their board:

http://www.zdnet.com/snowden-wannabe-prism-partner-dropbox-is-hostile-to-privacy-7000031740/

Using your own encryption before uploading to DB would improve security, but there are major concerns about TrueCrypt since its developers abandoned it warning that it was insecure.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameslyne/2014/06/02/truecrypt-is-back-but-should-it-be/

 

[garyr19680]

Any extra saving is good. I have a flash drive with the stories, and I also have a large external HD where everything gets backed up.

That's my method. I just have to remember to actually do the backups.

 

[StrangeLife]

DropBox is probably less safe than options like SpiderOak, both for technical reasons and because of who's on their board:

http://www.zdnet.com/snowden-wannabe-prism-partner-dropbox-is-hostile-to-privacy-7000031740/

I assume that whatever is in the cloud is public information, and I trust no-one. Not even those who offer encryption like Spider Oak. If it's too sensitive to show other people, it shouldn't leave your PC unencrypted.

...there are major concerns about TrueCrypt since its developers abandoned it warning that it was insecure.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameslyne/2014/06/02/truecrypt-is-back-but-should-it-be/

I disagree. TrueCrypt is an open source product that has been around for a very long time. If there had been a problem, it would have been discovered long ago.

The truth is more likely that the programmers got tired of maintaining the code for free, but they didn't want anybody to mess it up either. So they decided to kill the project entirely. And there is no more efficient way of doing that to a security product than spreading a rumor that it is insecure.

But common sense says they are lying...

 

[Swilly]

That's my method. I just have to remember to actually do the backups.

That's my point. I don't have to remember. It's done automatically.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I assume that whatever is in the cloud is public information, and I trust no-one. Not even those who offer encryption like Spider Oak. If it's too sensitive to show other people, it shouldn't leave your PC unencrypted.

That's the whole point of client-side encryption, which is what SpiderOak uses - the data is encrypted before transmitting to their servers, and they never get the keys.

I disagree. TrueCrypt is an open source product that has been around for a very long time. If there had been a problem, it would have been discovered long ago.

Not necessarily. Just look at what happened with Heartbleed: OpenSSL is one of the most important net security tools out there, it's open-source, and it took more than two years between when the buggy code was released for public use and when the vulnerability was announced, although there's speculation that it was known to NSA and other attackers much earlier.

Open-source quality-control works great for applications where failure announces itself: if your open-source word-processor crashes every time you try to underline a word, somebody will notice and fix it. But with a security app you need to worry about bugs that don't announce themselves.

Quality-assuring crypto code is particularly tricky since it requires a combination of computer expertise and specialist mathematical expertise. If you try to design your own, even if you're an expert, you have a good risk of screwing it up; if you use somebody else's, you have to be sure that it hasn't been deliberately sabotaged by somebody who designed it with a weakness they can exploit.

This database documents 22 known vulnerabilities in TrueCrypt, including 13 that were only announced this year (note in particular the key-creation weakness), so it's pretty clear that its vulnerabilities weren't all discovered and eliminated long ago.

The truth is more likely that the programmers got tired of maintaining the code for free, but they didn't want anybody to mess it up either. So they decided to kill the project entirely. And there is no more efficient way of doing that to a security product than spreading a rumor that it is insecure.

But common sense says they are lying...

...and yet you're willing to trust the product they created. I don't know what to call that, but "common sense" wouldn't be it.

 

[redzinger]

I'm a bit confused. They're stories, why do they need security measures such as encryption?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm a bit confused. They're stories, why do they need security measures such as encryption?

May be an issue if you're sharing a computer with somebody else and don't want them snooping, or if you're in a jurisdiction where reading/writing smut is illegal. But some people just like a feeling of privacy, which is also fair enough; even if there are no tangible consequences to me, I get pissed off by the idea that groups like NSA are intercepting some of my more intimate conversations.

I use full-disk encryption on principle, mostly to protect against fraud/identity theft in the event that somebody steals my laptop; my stories get encrypted as part of that, but I wouldn't go out of my way to encrypt them.

 

[StrangeLife]

That's the whole point of client-side encryption, which is what SpiderOak uses - the data is encrypted before transmitting to their servers, and they never get the keys.

Not directly, but they kinda do. Under the engineering section they admit to storing what basically amounts to a password hash on their servers. While it is true that they cannot read the password directly in clear text, it provides everything they (or rather the NSA) need for running an off-line brute force attack on your data.

The only secure way is having the encryption totally separate from net.

Not necessarily. Just look at what happened with Heartbleed: OpenSSL is one of the most important net security tools out there, it's open-source, and it took more than two years between when the buggy code was released for public use and when the vulnerability was announced, although there's speculation that it was known to NSA and other attackers much earlier.

Open-source quality-control works great for applications where failure announces itself: if your open-source word-processor crashes every time you try to underline a word, somebody will notice and fix it. But with a security app you need to worry about bugs that don't announce themselves.

Quality-assuring crypto code is particularly tricky since it requires a combination of computer expertise and specialist mathematical expertise. If you try to design your own, even if you're an expert, you have a good risk of screwing it up; if you use somebody else's, you have to be sure that it hasn't been deliberately sabotaged by somebody who designed it with a weakness they can exploit.

Heartbleed was not a hidden back door, but a weakness in the code that was visible for everybody to see. The reason for the turmoil was simply that nobody had noticed before - not that it was deliberately obscured. There is a chance - probably a good one - that the NSA knew about it before everybody else, since they have hundreds of people analyzing code for exploitable weaknesses full time. But when it was discovered the OSS community reacted promptly. Nobody was trying to hide anything in order to cover their asses, like would probably have been the case for a private company.

This database documents 22 known vulnerabilities in TrueCrypt, including 13 that were only announced this year (note in particular the key-creation weakness), so it's pretty clear that its vulnerabilities weren't all discovered and eliminated long ago.

They all pertain to local attacks, meaning that the hacker needs access to your PC while TrueCrypt is running in order to exploit them. None of them causes any weakness in the encrypted files. The key generation vulnerability has to do with an alleged weakness in PBKDF2, which is also what Spider Oak and most other encryption packages uses. So it's not really a TrueCrypt problem.

The latest entry isn't even a weakness, but more of a snark. The version of TrueCrypt currently available on the original homepage is a crippled version that can only de-crypt. The people who submitted the entry to OSVDB labelling it a trojan probably meant it as a poke in the ribs of the developers.

So if you need TrueCrypt, don't get from SourceForge. Go to a trusted repository like Gibson or TC Next.

...and yet you're willing to trust the product they created. I don't know what to call that, but "common sense" wouldn't be it.

I will never trust my security to a closed source product, because it requires me to trust people I do not know and have no basis for believing in. Any form of closed source encryption is a joke - giving you a false sense of safety which is worse than none, because it makes you relax your defences and push your worries aside. In the case of Spider Oak, they say....

Thus, our plan all along has been to make our entire code base open source; however, as anyone who has worked with such issues knows, it is often not quite that simple. We are committed and will continue to work toward an open source environment.

Well, it's good to be committed. Let me know when you get there Spider Oak and I shall reconsider. For now, you are not much better than Bitlocker in my book....

 

[Swilly]

To me, Dropbox and the like are already encrypted. Using Truecrypt adds another level of security that I previously never had on my sensitive files. Should Dropbox be compromised, I still have SOMETHING to hang my hat on.

There is a lot of conflicting information on TC. It is by no means a slam dunk that the product doesn't do its job.

 

[StrangeLife]

I'm a bit confused. They're stories, why do they need security measures such as encryption?

I don't want my "Lit career" to become known in the general populace.

It is not the stories themselves I protect, but rather their connection to me. I have been outed by wifey, but I would not want my kids to stumble upon my frisky writings if they were to borrow my computer for example.

 

[Bramblethorn]

To me, Dropbox and the like are already encrypted.

Yeah, but DB also holds the keys required to decrypt, which leaves the encrypted data vulnerable to insider attack, NSA-type surveillance, and even just bugs. Here's an incident a couple of years back where a glitch made it possible for DB users to access other people's data - it accidentally logged people into the wrong accounts, and then decrypted that data for them:

http://news.techworld.com/security/3287206/dropbox-admits-it-suffered-serious-password-failure/

Using client-side encryption prevents stuff like this from happening. (Though it does mean that if you lose your password, your data is unrecoverable... and client-side isn't so well-suited to collaborative work.)

There is a lot of conflicting information on TC. It is by no means a slam dunk that the product doesn't do its job.

It's not, no. As far as I know nobody has confirmed that TC is vulnerable. But when its own developers say it's unsafe, I'm inclined to listen.