diff --git a/website/blog/2022-12-2-your-own-backups.md b/website/blog/2022-12-2-your-own-backups.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1d28d914d --- /dev/null +++ b/website/blog/2022-12-2-your-own-backups.md @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +--- +slug: your-own-backups +title: "Owning Your Identity and Data For The Price of One ☕️/Month " +authors: nica +tags: [corso, microsoft 365] +--- + + +I recently saw a tweet that really spoke to me: + +![Gian Paolo tweet stating The only long-term solution to maintain your identity is: 1. your own domain name 2. your own website/blog 3. several backups](../static/img/blog/gian_tweet_backups.png) + +Gian was really addressing the chaotic situation with Twitter, but it feels much more broadly applicable in today’s climate. +Given the increased role of automation in flagging “bad” accounts, + there is now an ever-growing list of examples where imperfect AI-based systems misclassify perfectly legitimate accounts + as bad. With no human-based recourse with most large companies, this has led to disastrous situations where + email account suspensions lead to lost accessing to other services that you have used your entire life + (due to SSO via your email account), AdWords account suspensions lead to a small business unable to advertise, or a + flagged application account leads to published applications being automatically withdrawn from app stores. + +Thankfully, the growth of easy-to-use SaaS services now allow you to, for the price of a coffee a month, +control and maintain not just your identity without risk but also all your personal and, +for all you entrepreneurs, business data too. There’s a happy state, for individuals and teams, where you feel fully in +control of your own identity. This makes you more resilient to systemic failures and changes in one platform’s policy. +How do we achieve this ownership nirvana? The pieces are simple: + +* Buy your own domain: Right now, `.me` is available for $3/year and `.online` is available for $0.99/year. + +* Pick someone to host your email with the above domain: We highly recommend [Microsoft 365 Business for $6 /month](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business). + +* Microsoft Office applications that you know and love, 1TB of file storage, unlimited video meetings, +and more: FREE with your Microsoft 365 subscription. + +* Your own blog at your own domain: Static hosting with a global CDN like AWS CloudFront will be < $1/month! + +OK, so the above might cost the equivalent of two coffees a month (or way less than an +[expensive San Francisco coffee](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/world-most-expensive-coffee-elida-geisha-natural-klatch-san-francisco/190823/)) +but you are suddenly in control of your identity, and this is not even tied to Microsoft 365 (more on that below!) even +though you are using it at this time. This is an amazing cost to value ratio given how important our data is. + +## Securing your own data means controlling your own backups + +Now, you might believe that your identity is tied to Microsoft’s control of your account but that is not true. +Given that you own your domain, you can now take your data and email with you to any other provider. +Having moved between Google Suite and Microsoft 365 in the past, this can be made seamless. + +That said, if we go back to Gian’s tweet at the beginning of this article, +there is one big issue that we failed to consider: backups! You want to back up your data in an independent location +(cloud storage, your server under your desk, etc.) for many really important reasons: to protect against ransomware, +to give you independent access to your data (email, files, messages) if the cloud provider locks you out overnight, +to be able to port your data over if a cloud provider’s +policies change seemingly overnight, or even to just respect +[Microsoft’s shared responsibility model](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/shared-responsibility) +where you are responsible for your data’s safety and Microsoft only promises to take care of the infrastructure. + +So, ensure you and your data is always protected, set up regular backups! + +## How can Corso help? + +Backups can be complicated and, till recently, great backup solutions for Microsoft 365 might have been “enterprise” +offerings that would cost many, many, MANY coffees a month. However, all of that is now behind us! + +We recently introduced Corso, a free, secure, and 100% open-source tool to let you create a backup of all your data in +your Microsoft subscription. Backups go to a cloud storage provider of your choice, giving you fine-grained control of +your data and independence from your primary cloud provider. Data is also compressed and deduplicated to reduce cost +(pennies a month with systems such as AWS Glacier Instant Access) and encrypted with user-provided keys so that no one +can see your data and that it is safe against hackers and ransomware. + +![corso Screenshot](../static/img/blog/corso_backup.png) + +Corso is available now, and we’d love to hear your thoughts! Download it, give it a try, and join us on Discord to let +us know what you think. diff --git a/website/static/img/blog/corso_backup.png b/website/static/img/blog/corso_backup.png new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e778d3a35 Binary files /dev/null and b/website/static/img/blog/corso_backup.png differ diff --git a/website/static/img/blog/gian_tweet_backups.png b/website/static/img/blog/gian_tweet_backups.png new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0a5c0c311 Binary files /dev/null and b/website/static/img/blog/gian_tweet_backups.png differ