Full ACK, as the cool kids used to say. I can’t calculate the probability that the risk will materialise - it must be reasonably small. But people play the lottery despite the very small risk of winning big. And some then do win.
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Hi, @rmschne See the post from @Blanc for some good factors regarding cloud storage.
I trust Devonthink’s due diligence on encryption. In the case of the original poster, where there’s an organizational distrust of cloud services, anyone who attempts use of those services could be suspected of trying to exfiltrate data through the cloud. That is probably the only privacy issue involved here. Even if the data is unreadable, the cloud traffic, either blocked or successful, is visible.
Last night I helped run an event in a metal building. I had slow Internet access via my cell phone’s wifi. No worries about sync errors, though. My USB thumb drive ran at full speed.
If I lose the thumb drive, it’s encrypted and the Devonthink sync store on it is separately encrypted. Based on my level of risk and faith in Devonthink, DT’s encryption exceeds the good-enough level I want.
For completeness, no sync store is a backup. A thumb drive is a horrible choice for archival. On the other hand, they generally have better uptime than cloud services in data centers at the end of thousand mile chains under constant attack from both hackers and well-meaning construction teams.
It’s really tough to harden Internet connectivity against a bulldozer’s denial of service. Talk about brute force attacks, it doesn’t get much worse than that. 
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For completeness, no sync store is a backup.
Preach it! Can I get an ‘Amen’ ?
A thumb drive is a horrible choice for archival. On the other hand, they generally have better uptime than cloud services in data centers at the end of thousand mile chains under constant attack from both hackers and well-meaning construction teams.
While I would suggest using a more robust external portable drive, I’m not against the thumb drive with a local sync store as a fast, reliable, and extremely private sync option.
And if anyone’s wandering by… an SD card can work for a local sync location in a pinch but I would treat that as a very temporary solution.
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Yuk!
Amen!
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If the uni has blocked access to iCloud, etc, then it clearly is very security conscious. But it allows Google!!! The mind boggles!
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i suspect commercial interests. companies get their technologies into universities under contract means students carry on later with same.
Oh yes! I’m a retired CS prof, and back in the late 80’s, IBM provided many services and equipment at discounts to our college. Years later Microsoft and Apple were trying to get our (and students) minds and hearts with big discounts.
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agree.
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I’ve been reading this thread with interest, because the Google CSAM AI false positive incident has scared me into a serious rethink of my data storage situation.
On the other hand, one has to trust someone in order to get one’s work done with computers efficiently, meaning some of my data needs to be synced to my phone. Not everyone has the technical know-how to implement a safe solution. I’m just hoping that WebDAV, coupled with DT’s encryption is safe enough. My sensitive client data is stored in an encrypted password manager. I’ve done what I can for now, and I’m trying to minimize my exposure whenever I can.
On the other hand, one has to trust someone in order to get one’s work done with computers efficiently
Yes… yourself and your network with your servers (if applicable). 
meaning some of my data needs to be synced to my phone.
This does not require using anyone else’s network or servers when Bonjour or your own WebDAV connections on your local network are available.
If you want to use a remote sync with your WebDAV server, yes you have to give in a bit, but ask yourself is it needed?
And yes, our sync engine’s encryption does provide a deterrent of sorts. Whether that’s good enough to let you sleep at night is up to you. 
Hmm.
I’m using Fastmail’s WebDAV servers and 1.2 GB is being synced right now. Guess I’ll have to spin up my own WebDAV server sometime soon.
It’s entirely your call. I’m not very data paranoid but I also don’t sync my important data anywhere outside my network and machines.