local notebooks in Evernote

Posted by dan7000
Feb 11, 2016 at 07:02 PM

Paul Korm wrote:
I’ve never used local notebooks with Evernote.
> >But, why would anyone want to put private personal info into Evernote
>anyway—local, or in any other manner?

I used local notebooks for a while for confidential information, but after a couple hard drive disasters realized I needed a secure, continuous backup solution—and also wanted access to this information on multiple devices. Now information that must be kept confidential is in tresorit.

However—and although it’s a bit of a tangent—I’m interested in your comment about why anyone would want to put “private personal info” into Evernote. I’m intereted in what people think is “personal” vs “private” (are they the same) vs. “confidential.’ I suspect there is an equation in most peoples’ heads where the extent of damage that could happen due to exposure of a particular piece of information (D) equals the amount of protection that should be given the information (P) divided by the cost of the protection (or the benefit of foregoing the protection). D=P(B/C).

But I think people likely both under- and over-estimate the first variable D), thinking that some information would be massively damaging when it wouldn’t be and ignoring information that could be massively damaging. And of course people have wildly varying ideas about what services and solutions provide different degrees of protection (P) For instance, it seems to me that lots of people think their tax return is absolutely sacrosanct, and their solution to this is to store it on their local computer or in some cases in paper (providing questionable protection). Many of those same people happily signed up for Ashley Madison—which either provided such a massive benefit it was worth the risk or else they totally ignored the danger of ruining two marriages or overestimated the privacy offered by the service.

I personally don’t really see what anybody could gain by having my tax return, so I don’t see much danger at all in having it exposed - but perhaps someone could enlighten me? For me, there are basically three simple categories: information that I am legally obligated to keep confidential; information that would be embarrassing; and everything else. Even my health information and tax returns fall into “everything else” and its curious to me why that is not true for most people (with the minor exception of stigmatizing health conditions).