A good idea, but sometimes you want to access information when there is either poor or even no connectivity. Having the device sync with your own server is the way to go, but there needs to be a mechanism to erase the device quickly, and then restore later. I suppose that opens up the possibility that a comprehensive wipe could take too long (e.g. that the the people forcing you to open your device to them could somehow stop the wipe before it completes). Additionally, with devices carrying tens (if not hundreds) of GBs of storage, an over-the-air restore could be extremely painful. Maybe a multi-stage restore mechanism, where a smaller set of key data can be restored quickly (contacts, calendars, notes) while larger data (photos/videos, music, games, files, applications) can be either trickled in or held off until the device is connected to higher speed/lower cost network. I've also been thinking it would be good to build a virtual RAID out of cloud services. Say you have three services -- configure them such that exposure to any single service doesn't expose your data ... you need to have at least two of three services to re-assemble your data. So even if someone confiscates your server, you don't lose data and they don't gain access to the data - I'd still encrypt the "chunks" or "slices", but this would add redundancy and reliability

Interesting, perhaps its the way I use it I don't need full disk encryption. Most of the stuff I consider important and confidential is pretty small (tax return files, bank statements, etc.) What I need is small virtual disks that are encrypted so that I can easily move them around and access them. Perhaps it's extra naive of me, but I put a small true crypt archive on a server that I trust, and can then mount it from there on Linux, Windows, Mac, and iOS (I actually still have an operational NeXTStation, but I don't think there's a true crypt for that.) Maybe there's a better approach for what I'm doing?

I apologize for offending you, it was certainly not my intention. Rather, I intended it (along with the ducks! comment) to indicate that I appreciated that I was suggesting another vendor with similar products that also has "issues" with making source available. Next time I'll leave out the emoticon. I am interested to know what you suggest for indicating that text you've written is meant to be sarcastic, ironic, or other. Do you just avoid using constructs that are common in speech in your writing?

I've been using TrueCrypt for a long while (in fact still do), but I'm interested in what others use and their justification for its use? (e.g why?) I'm certainly not expert enough to audit any code myself, so I eventually have to just trust something.

I used to work for a company that was meant to be a partner of Ubiquiti -- from the first meeting with Robert, one could tell this was not going to be a "share and share alike" partnership -- more likely it was going to be a one party gives, the other takes partnership. We as partners needed access to some parts of the code, and in meetings said we'd like to get the source, and given that it was built on GPL'd code, we figured it would be a non-issue. How wrong we were. Basically told that was never gonna happen, not for us, nor anyone else that wanted it, it was their IP. Robert's one of Forbe's 10 youngest billionaires. He's gotten stinking rich off others, and refuses to give back. It certainly douses your faith in the human spirit somewhat. Anyway, not that it's much better, but you can always buy from MikroTik (ducks! ;-) )

Or does one have to use DigiKey, Avnet, Arrow, Amazon, etc. and wait a couple of days. In California, we do have Fry's, but they too seem to be following in the Shack's footsteps.

Well, I suppose it's possible that the systems were small enough back then that they were able to prove that the systems were correct to essentially eliminate bugs, but as you point out, once past the physical security, I suspect there's a number of new techniques that could be brought to compromise the systems - even without exploiting what might be called traditional flaws.

Yep, in school (long ago) there was an old adage -- "never underestimate the bandwidth of a semi full of mag tapes". Sure the latency is high, but in many cases, not an issue!

Thanks for this explanation. So, I guess what you are saying is that to make things more economical, effort should be made into making the equipment less complicated and more rugged to reduce the maintenance aspects. I suppose this doesn't bode well for the personal jet packs we've all be promised for so many years! ;-)

Seems about time they start doing this ... others have been doing similar activities with cars and planes. Helicopters have always seemed like a good idea to me, but generally are outside the financial reach of most of us (I've only been on one 20 minute sightseeing tour in Hawaii and it was $200 or $10/minute/passenger - there were 5 passengers). I wonder how much of my fare was to cover insurance premiums? Perhaps with more data for the actuaries to work with, the flight costs could drop to the point we could see helo transportation rival busses / small planes.

Sounds like you're experiencing some burnout. I say take a break - the dip in the management pool wasn't far enough away. Do something else entirely for a 12-18 months. I did this, and after a couple years I found I had all the motivation I needed to get my development skills honed up. As others have pointed out, many of the skills you learned years ago can be very valuable, provided you figure out how to apply them to the new world order. Getting out of the game for a while will give you the perspective you need. I'm not saying this is easy or even financially smart ... you'll probably take a significant cut in pay to do the "new thing" and when you come back to development you will be competing with younger folks ... but you'll have the same hunger and passion that they have (maybe even more), so you *will* be able to compete. Best of luck!

Since the sailor is familiar with Slashdot, I think he's probably all set for the electronic tech ... I'd concentrate on supplying power to all the gadgets he's likely to bring along - solar, wind gen, towable water gen, battery banks for storage ... And he should also consider some of the new tech for sails and rigging -- many of the synthetics can be worked with by the owner (no need for swaging, etc.).