I found an article on ask.com last night about the cloud and how it works.
It seems they make multiple copies of your files for all their servers. When you delete something, you hope they delete all the copies.
They also usually charge a monthly fee for this service.
Are Microsoft, Google and the others that safe and trustworthy?

Hi...

That's a good question. Although I'm not an expert in this particular area of the "trade," I think there's always a possibility of your account being hacked and your files accessed at any time, not including surveillance by government agencies such as the NSA.

I found this page, which I think may partially address your question, if you look at the government surveillance aspect solely. If you're interested in finding a service, take a look at the ones mentioned here, although there may be others. SpiderOak, in particular, was mentioned specifically here.

Hope this helps. Other members may post their thoughts and suggestions, as well.

Regards...

"cloud" really just means 'somebody else's server', so your question really depends on who that 'somebody else' is.

... and how inclined they might be to spin up a multi-thousand CPU instance to do some decrypting seeing as how they have your data just sitting there ...

My data stays on my machines - one of which will soon be an owncloud server.

I am not looking for a service.
I just bought a new laptop and it came with Windows10on it. I noticed they try to sell things and store your things on their cloud and then want to sell you a subscription.
I would not use the cloud unless I must after reading about it.

With Windows 10, Microsoft already claims full rights to all the data on your system. Buying a subscription just tells Microsoft to store that data in a form that you are able to retrieve.

Oh that.

I comfortably use other cloud services, but the Windows 10 cloud? Personally, I agree with "not unless I have to."

+1
Exactly my case.

I don't trust any cloud service with my data so I don't use them. But, if anyone does, it's best to create an encrypted volume file, mount it and add your files to it. Then umount it. and sync the encrypted volume file to your cloud service provider. I believe this is good practice especially if you are concern with the privacy of your data.

I don't really care how 'secure' the cloud is touted to be, I refuse to backup anything of what I have to it. Offline storage is just fine thank you very much, and if I am really worried about my house burning down or a break-in I'll pay whatever the monthly fee for a safety deposit box at my bank.

What Jeebizz said.

The "cloud" is a marketing term and getting persons to use the "cloud" is all about the marketing.

I can see legit uses for using someone else's server accessible from the internet, as for collaboration across distance when the persons involved don't have a business-level account(s) with their ISPs (so they can't set up business-like access to their servers from the internet), but I can't see using it unless I have a positive affirmative need to do so.

"Because it's there" is not a positive affirmative need.

I don't like this cloud trend at all. Especially services based on cloud. You have to remember not everyone will have a decent internet connection, so I am also against devices that rely solely on the cloud for everything. Thanks but no thanks.

I prefer to use the old-fashioned term: time-sharing. Although this term is not strictly-correct when applied to some "cloud services," I find that, when I use the term in conversation, it conveys a lot more intuitive meaning than does [i]"the cloud," which says nothing.

Security is, and security always remains, "your concern." A data-center provider can promise that physical access to their facility is restricted, but they don't (and can't ...) promise that the logical integrity of your deployed system won't be compromised.

And? That's how distributed storage works.
Don't rely on them to be secure. Encrypt or compress with password before you upload
and it won't matter what some article on ask.com has to say about it or how many "copies"
are floating around. Then questions like this become unnecessary for you:
How secure are you?
Good Luck.

Edit: It's always good practice to quote your sources. (article on ask.com?)
Thank you.

what is the likelihood of someone looking at your stuff pretty damn low
think about it hundreds of trucks running up and down the highways loaded
with illegal drugs every day
tens of thousands of drunk drivers on the road at any given second
and damn near none of them ever get busted

matter of fact I'd bet ALL illegal businesses use cloud computing to keep
illegal records off site and away from there legal business just in case
law enforcement comes looking