Rebuilding windows for the 21st century
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Hum pincushion I guess if you had enough machines working on it
anything could e cracked as they did per the Enigma machine during WW2.
I know that was a slightly less a high tech set up than now but the mere torrent of malware that sneeks out and in is testament to those who really want to get at you - or me:)
To quote my late Mum "where there is a will there is a way"
The Enigma was 'cracked' by the power of human thought, beginning with a few unlikely original thinking heroes and carrying on through hard mental teamwork, to devise more machines to decode the enemy messages and systems. There was also the fixed, unswerving, robotic and subserviently obedient mindset of the Nazis, to assist the Code Breakers, most of whom thought originally and "out of the Box" as we would say nowadays.
For the Nazis, substitute Microsoft (and they are not alone). For the original thinkers, substitute the people on this forum. (and they are certainly not alone)
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As the old saying goes, make something foolproof and you'll get a bigger fool.
Any means of data encryption is vulnerable to some extent (regardless of what experts might suggest); the most secure option we have is to simply not share that data in the first place (short of not creating/having that data in the first place!).
Absolutely KA and your quote sort of reflects my Mum's saying - frankly I have given up worrying about it too much if they want you bad enough they'll get you. I just don't like the way things are going re those awful iPads or whatever they keep jamming down our throats. I'm pulling out of a couple of my favourite newsletters cos they inevitably trot out this garbage (IMHO) non stop
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Don't put anything in the cloud you don't want seen on the front page of the newspaper...
Other than that, I find cloud storage very useful, if somewhat limited in capacity by the various providers, i.e. Skydrive, the box, dropbox, et al. The one strong point being I can access it from multiple devices and multiple locations.
best regards,
Jeff
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While I agree with most of the posting, but...
Encrypting data in the cloud does prevent even the cloud service provider to read the actual data. Depending on the type of encryption used, symmetric or asymmetric, and how the encryption keys (a.k.a. seeds) managed, the technology can certainly be useful for preventing unauthorized access to the data.
In most cases, the actual implementation of the encryption technology in software that is exploited, not cracking the the encrypted text. To my knowledge, it is the DES that had been cracked using brute force. Neither the 3DES, nor the AES had been cracked by brute force as of yet.
More and more cloud service companies offer data encryption for their clients, where the auto assigned encryption keys can easily be changed by the client. For larger companies with PKI infrastructure in place, this is a none-issue; they can use their asymmetric technology to encrypt the data in the cloud.
More and more federal and state regulations in the US requires encrypting data at rest, a.k.a. in storage. If it's not a requirement yet, the regulations do wave data-breach reporting requirement for encrypted storage.
When the companies encrypt the data at rest, it really doesn't make much of a difference where the data is stored. Again, the encryption key management is an important function; without it, the encryption looses its effectiveness for preventing unauthorized access to the data.
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As the old saying goes, make something foolproof and you'll get a bigger fool.
Any means of data encryption is vulnerable to some extent (regardless of what experts might suggest); the most secure option we have is to simply not share that data in the first place (short of not creating/having that data in the first place!).
Not sharing data or placing it in a position where it could conceivably be compromised is the 100% failsafe. But simply take a look at how fast companies can look up your credit rating as one example of how fast data becomes available when put out there in any form!
Encryting data is usually most secure from the unintended random access while nothing is ever 100% fool proof. Plus if anything gets corrupted in the process you can lose the whole batch of data.
There will always be some level of risk with any method no matter how secure it is deemed to some type of vulnerability. Whether it's data theft or loss of account information mishaps are possible.
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I'm no expert on encryption but I think the others have said what is the current situation. Enigma does not compare to modern encryption methods and the use of the best available methods, if used properly, are deemed to be unbreakable for a very long time - even with any future quantum computing advances. Truecrypt offers a variety of algorithms that are used where strong security is essential. The normal methods of breaking encryption are attacking weak passwords/passphrases or other perhaps more secretive methods but, as proved by numerous cases coming to law, if used correctly then the encryption is unbreakable.
:) 
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No pincushion I realise Enigma falls very short of modern stuff I was simple using it as an analogy.
As a come lately computing addict my concerns with using something like Truecrypt would be my clumsiness with the nitty gritty stuff and losing data to lost codes or whatever it uses. I am a normally password losing person as it is - in view of the sheer number one has to have.
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