I’m wondering everyone’s thoughts/opinions on distrubuting trust vs consolodating trust (such as using only one provider such as Proton vs using multiple). I’ve seen some arguments for both. Obviously if only one entity has your data, then your footprint is overall smaller. However, if that one provider fails you in some way, you’re pretty much screwed.
I guess the question is which is best for optimizing privacy? Or is doing a little bit of both the optimal strategy?
Personally, I tend to lead towards consolidating trust. The fewer entities I need to trust the better. Of course, there are some exceptions. In some cases where data/account integrity or longevity are important I do like to follow a 3-2-1 style strategy.
one copy on main provider, one+ copy of data locally stored, and one copy of data transfered to closest equivalent provider.
As to which strategy provides more user privacy (again this is opinion): I feel like the distributed trust model can provide more security in regards to data sovereignty/ownership and integrity. However the required trust extension of the distributed model in my opinion does not aid user privacy, and may be to complex to keep track of.
The consolidation of trust, so long as you have a back out plan reduces your overall exposure, and in turn may aid user privacy.