File Deletion & Cloud Backups + Can You Trust Google?

I just strolled by my RSS feeds and saw Bruce Schneier’s latest on file deletion: http://bit.ly/Mx24L. I’ve said this many times–but there’s more to be said. The core of his point is that you can never be sure when you delete a file from a web service that it will be actually be deleted. After all, you most likely signed away in the terms of use that they own your data–but sometimes, you can protect your data before it gets to that point. I actually use Google for a lot of things. The convenience far outweighs the violation of privacy for me. This is because, while I take steps to protect some of my data, I don’t really care about privacy for most of my data in the cloud. I don’t care if someone reads 99% of my emails–most of my communications are in public forums these days anyway (Twitter, facebook status updates, etc), which have so little privacy it’s laughable. Gmail I use Gmail to check and manage all of my email accounts. I have several different s ...