There is absolutely no legitimate reason to implement "cloud" storage or backup in a way that does not encrypt on the client side, with open, verifiable standard if not open source for the client software, in such a way that it can't be read by the provider.

I remember when I got PGP mid 90s and thought: Wow, in 6 months, everybody will use it! Yet it never caught on. User stupidity, elitism or a bit of both?

At the height of pre-encryption WhatsApp I remember talking about PGP to some younger relatives about the problem of intercepted messages, and they had a hard time believing that we had "access to that kind of technology" in the 90s.

Somehow, they managed to normalise sending your stuff out there based entirely on trust in corporations and governments, although the problem was solved technically long ago.

Problem is: They fight back by introducing "convenience" that only works in clouds they can access, such as "AI" in Google or Apple Images. E. g. you can enter "cat" and it will show all your cat photos.

But I got to admit that I TALK a lot about a switching to a self-hosted image solution such as PhotoPrism, but lack in execution, other than putting it on my todo-list.

iCloud backup is encrypted if the option is chosen. It’s deactivated by default. The backup is linked to the signature of your devices, or a phrase you are only shown once when activating it. AFAIK it’s secure until now.

biggest invasion of privacy so far...

Local storage only

At least there's redundancy! Good luck trying to request recovery of the files though.

Nexctloud home server ftw

iCloud has an Advanced Data Protection feature, that when enabled, makes one’s personal devices the only place encryption keys are stored. Unless you live in the UK that is.

You don't encrypt your backups? Or are you implying þe NSA has backdoors into all encryption?

The dumbest thing I ever saw are mostly seemingly straight people keeping their porn (sometimes homemade nudes or otherwise) on phones and sometimes on their laptops. And technicians working on those run into such incriminating content.

It’s not though why do people who don’t understand technology post these dumb memes? At least for iCloud it’s E2EE with advanced data protection