[OSX-Users] OneDrive vs DropBox

[Shaw K.C.]

I am keen that we do not discount security requirements because we don't feel it is appropriate for "operational requirements" - security is a central  consideration surely?

By way of an analogy - we would not expect or allow someone to do research in a lab with noxious substances without appropriate protection nor would we accept that because it was "expensive" or uncomfortable that it was a good reason not to.

Perhaps even more sobering is the ICO penalty notice issued upon Talk Talk which echoes many of the sentiments I hear at the University - and cost them a £400,000 fine and a completely trashed reputation.

I would recommend you read the notice.

https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/talktalk-telecom-group-plc-mpn/

An anecdote from one of the most senior people within the University telephoned a cloud based storage provider (and was not verified by the provider) who in an attempt to sell a "Corporate Solution"  to the University described how they had examined all of the data stored by the University, knew what it was, described password strength usage and continued for the next 30 minutes to explain many of the security considerations we should be making but failing to recognise the paradox they were describing.

I won't name names but can you guess who it was?

Kevin Shaw
Head of Information Security


-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Gutteridge [mailto:cjg at ecs.soton.ac.uk] 
Sent: 06 October 2016 10:23
To: List for users of Mac OS X <osx-users at ecs.soton.ac.uk>; Shaw K.C. <K.C.Shaw at soton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [OSX-Users] OneDrive vs DropBox

We're literally having some meetings as a result of the previous discussion.

cc iSolutions Kevin Shaw who's our lead on this work.

It's a work in progress, but the current thinking is to help staff categorise information security requirements from "freely allow 3rd party reuse (open data)" at one end and "a leak would result in significant loss of life or long term damage to the economy" at the other extreme. Then provide a guide to popular tools like dropbox and their suitability.

What I'm keen to do is provide a bit of a conduit between iSolutions and real users of these systems. We can't address the "shadow IT" question properly without knowing what people are doing, and more importantly
*why* they are doing it, which is why questions like this are very important.

On 06/10/2016 09:43, Hugh Davis wrote:
> Following on from my post about using OneDrive, I wondered if perhaps I should stop paying Dropbox and start using Onedrive for my entire backup/sync, given that University accounts now get 1TB of OneDrive data - which is the same as I get from Dropbox for an annual payment of around £50.
>
> Reasons Against:
> 1.  I’m not sure I want all my data to be in University hands?
> 2. I’m not sure that Onedrive allows sharing outside the University  ??
> 3. I’m pretty sure OneDrive does not have the ability to get a URL for a directory or File?
> 4. I don’t know how well OneDrive does at keeping versions of files and deleted files - I think Dropbox now gives you one month to go back to old files?
> 5. I’m not far off retirement and then I’ll have to go back to Dropbox anyway!
> 6. Given MS’s record in this space I’m not sure I trust them to keep OneDrive working on a Mac. Dropbox has been perfect.
>
> Any thoughts, answers to my questions, or further reasons against?
>
> /h.
> Hugh Davis
>
>
>
>
>

--
Christopher Gutteridge -- http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cjg

University of Southampton Open Data Service: http://data.southampton.ac.uk/ You should read our Web & Data Innovation blog: http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/