Do you actually trust major cloud providers with your personal data and homelab infrastructure?

Question

Trying to decide if I should move my self-hosted services (password manager, photo storage, smart home hub, etc.) to a major cloud provider for better reliability and convenience. I've read their privacy policies but those are basically written to give them maximum flexibility. For those who use AWS/Azure/GCP/etc. for personal projects or sensitive data, do you genuinely trust them? Could they technically access your encrypted data if they wanted to? Would they ever have incentive to do so? Always hear people say "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product" but what about when you ARE paying? I know I'm probably being paranoid but I'd like to hear how others approach this trust issue with big tech infrastructure.

777pajg · Answer

Unless you're encrypting everything client-side before it touches their servers, assume they can read everything. Whether they DO read it is another question, but technically they absolutely can

Corado · Answer

I&nbsp;worked at Cloudflare for 3 years. There are strict internal controls against employee data access, but those controls disappear when faced with government requests. They'll fight some requests for PR purposes, but ultimately they comply with almost everything

mr hunter · Answer

You're asking the wrong question. It's not "do I trust Google/AWS/etc" but rather "what's my threat model?" For most normal people, the security benefits of professional cloud services outweigh the privacy drawbacks. For activists, journalists, etc., different calculus

magicsonk · Answer

An underappreciated aspect: these companies have business models that rely on trust. If AWS was caught peeking at customer data for profit, their entire business would collapse overnight. That's actually pretty good alignment of incentives

halk_sk · Answer

I&nbsp;keep sensitive stuff local, convenience stuff in cloud. Password manager? Local only. Family photos? Cloud is fine. It's all about categorizing your data by sensitivity and acting accordingly

Nokiatoo1s · Answer

No one mentions the most likely threat: rogue employees. Every major provider has had incidents of employees abusing access. Remember Uber employees stalking ex-partners? Same risks exist with cloud providers

Schizophrenic · Answer

If you're really concerned, look into zero-knowledge encryption services where the provider mathematically cannot access your data even if they wanted to. Still requires trusting their implementation though

Lion_010 · Answer

people often forget that "self-hosting" means trusting your ISP, hardware manufacturers, software developers, etc. security is always about layers of trust, never absolute

efsgfsgsr · Answer

I split the difference - use cloud providers but encrypt sensitive data before uploading. Yes it's more work, but gives me both convenience and security

Faeton83 · Answer

After 14 years in cybersecurity, here's my approach: use cloud providers for their expertise, but compartmentalize. Never put all your eggs in one basket. Use different providers for different services so no single company has your entire digital life

CAPS LOCK · Answer

I&nbsp;trust azure/aws/gcp security more than my own ability to secure a home server. They have teams of experts constantly monitoring and patching. I've forgotten to update my home server for months before

elozeen · Answer

Important to understand the concept of shared responsibility model with cloud providers. They secure the infrastructure, but you're still responsible for your applications, access controls, and data. They provide tools, but you need to use them correctly