What complications will arise from personal on-line data storage in the near future?

Because of concerns about that, I have not used any online options for storage or back-up. I am curious to know what people who do use them think.

I use a couple of encrypted sites like Mozy for backup and LastPass for passwords, but just try to keep Google from knowing everything about you.

Why would you want to let Google you know you own Harry Potter? The only thing Google can do with that information is offer you more advertisements.

As for putting your identity, family and friends online, we already do that it’s called Facebook and Twitter. The same goes stuff like personality traits, by interacting with people you know you are already putting ‘maps’ of who they are on the internet.

I walked down the street last night and glanced in my neighbors window. They have a big (around 42 inches) flat screen tv. And a iMac in the same room. I guess we all need to start closing our curtains too.

@johnpowell I actually did this the first couple of days when I bought a plasma a couple years back. That was the same day I realized maybe I should move to a better neighbourhood ;)

And they are not doing that now?

@johnpowell Well you can’t see everything in someone’s house just by peering through a window, plus using the internet will be much quicker and easier.

It’s a security issue now and ultimately, the users are responsible for their own actions. So many people post so many personal details via Twitter, facebook, myspace etc.

If you don’t want criminals reading the personal details of your life online, don’t post the personal details of your life publicly.

Some people have their address details on Facebook (or other social networking sites), and then (micro)blog that they’re going on vacation. That’s already a very big risk nowadays and I’m surprised I haven’t heard of many cases of people with evil intent taking advantage of that. I try to take care to avoid such obvious situations, but I’m also really ignorant in that, if you want, you can look up a lot of details about me. Then again, I suppose it’s like they say: “if you and someone else are being hunted by a bear, you don’t need to be able to run faster than the bear, as long as you run faster than the other person”. So as long as some people are really stupid with their personal data, it’s less risky for me to be a bit ignorant.

Data theft.