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Cerberus

A Python file backup application.

Named after the Greek hound of Hades, a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld.

remarque

I stopped this project when Proton released a got enough desktop app for ProtonDrive. I was already paying for an account for their great email service ; hence it was a free addition to my acccount.

Repository

This project was built to consolidate my knowledge after watching these courses:

I also wanted to sharpen my Python skills.

I wanted to create something useful and I needed something to automatically backing up my documents from my Raspberry cloud server at home to my pCloud family drive.

Why not syncing my documents to the same pCloud drive with something like Rclone?​

The pCloud drive is shared with my family. Sharing a readable copy of my documents poses two main risks:

  • Privacy concerns. Some of my documents are very sensitive (like tax reports, critical business work). The privacy risks apply to my family as well as to pCloud entities
  • Loss of data, if another family member makes a mistake and delete some of my data, I would potentially lose essential documents

The privacy concern can be worked around as I encrypt my documents with Cryptomator. However, the data loss risk is still a factor.

Why not syncing documents with something like a free Google Drive then?​

True, if I use a personal Google Drive to sync encrypted version of my documents, I would tackle all the privacy risks mentioned above.

However, there's this other thing. I hate being locked in gradually with one company. Even my financial accounts are all separated (checking account, mortgage, investments...). I always refused to buy Apple products to avoid getting locked in their ecosystem. Then I bought my first Android phone and started using Google apps. Ironically, I started to be locked in as much as I would with Apple. The only difference was it was more on the software side.

I decided years ago to free myself of any big tech giant. They represent a risk to my individual freedom as well as the risk they pose on our digital collective freedom. #Heal the web

There is also another risk: the risk of myself deleting a document that shouldn't have been deleted. If I use something like Rclone to sync with pCloud or Google Drive, I still need regular backups to cover the risk of my personal human error.

Risks covered​

Hence this project. My documents are covered from:
✔️ Hardware destruction (fire, flooding)
✔️ Property theft
✔️ Human manipulation error (from me of a member of my family)
✔️ pCloud failure that would compromise the integrity of my data
✔️ pCloud data hacking that would pose a risk on my privacy

I also have a third copy of my data that I update yearly. It covers the risk of human error even further if I delete some document I shouldn't and I don't realize it in the following 24h window.

Also, that third copy covers off the -very slim- probability of a Cryptomator bug that corrupts my encrypted data. That third copy is encrypted with another software (7zip).

Risks still remaining​

❌ If I delete an important document, it's been >24h, and that document wasn't part of the last yearly backup

That's why I'm thinking adding last week/last month/last quarter backup capabilities to Cerberus.