Re: [svlug-announce] SVLUG June meeting: Paradux: Recover from Maximum Personal Data Disaster, with Johannes Ernst

On Mon, 10 Jun 2019 02:18:04 -0700
Rick Moen <rick-IyCrq+X4Fdq2oZ/[email protected]> wrote:

> TOPIC: Paradux: Recover from Maximum Personal Data Disaster
> 
> PRESENTED BY: Johannes Ernst,
> Founder, Indie Computing Corp. 
> 
> 
> TOPIC SUMMARY:
> 
> Many of the residents of towns wiped out by last year's California
> wildfires didn't have time to grab their laptops, bring hard disks, or
> take password-recovery sheets with them.  Similarly, what if your
> favorite cloud services simply kicks you off?  Personal data disasters
> lurk everywhere.  If one hits, can you recover your data and
> passwords? 
> 
> Paradux is a new scheme (and supporting software) to store your
> personal data and passwords in several different places that you
> choose, so that:
> 
>  o no third party can read it,
>  o there are redundant copies of everything,
>  o the effort for you to maintain the scheme is minimal, and
>  o you can recover even if you remember nothing.
> 
> It does this with help from key-splitting and trusted friends. It
> applies to personal data, and to credentials. This is a new project:
> We'd love to tell you all about it, and appreciate all your feedback
> and help. 

There's more info, written by Johannes, at
https://upon2020.com/blog/2019/01/paradux-a-scheme-to-recover-from-maximum-personal-data-disaster/

Johannes brings up scenarios with natural disaster, key wallet loss or
forgotten wallet password, getting amnesia. Even though I live in the
hurricane capital of the world (got hit by Irma 2 years ago, Charlie,
Frances and Jeanne in 2004), the use I personally see for it is when I
kick the bucket, my wife and kids won't have a clue how to get at
anything.

I'm not sure what "split key" is, but it would be nice if any two of my
wife, my 3 kids and myself could do a recovery. I'm just not a trusting
enough person to give that capability to just one of us. But two of us
would be great.

So if I get dimensia and start giving out thousands of dollars to
strangers, no problem: My wife and kids can get all my passwords,
change them, intervene, impersonate me, do whatever to prevent me from
throwing it all away until they can get me declared incompetent. 

Or if a hurricane kills my wife, myself and my one daughter who lives at
home and me, no problem. The two kids who live hundreds of miles away
can pick up the pieces.

If I get run over by a truck, no problem. Everyone else recovers all my
data and knows where to look for my assets.

Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the meeting, but this sounds
like a great idea, and not just for disaster recovery.

By the way, Johannes made a point of mentioning keeping data on
different contents. I don't think that's necessary, because if a
disaster of any kind consumes the better part of a single continent,
what's going to be important is stashing food, water, vitamins, guns
and ammo, hopefully in a secure, defensible structure.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
June 2019 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive