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What are best-practices for securing cloud storage? If you want to be able to be the only one who can read/view your documents in an online cloud storage provider, how do you set this up? From what I understand, there are several options:

1. Roll your own (Nextcloud). 2. Use a closed-source cloud encryption drive (Boxcryptor) 3. Use an open-source cloud encryption drive (Cryptomator) 4. Use something like VeraCrypt

All of these have benefits an downsides. Cryptomator decrypts super slow in Windows 10, making it useless for storing video or pictures you want to access fairly quickly. Boxcryptor works well, but is closed source. VeraCrypt volumes have to be entirely re-synced when one change is made. Nextcloud has all the downsides of needing to self-host something.

What are suggested ways of keeping your files private in the cloud to a reasonable degree? ("Reasonable" because I'm aware there are many avenues that a state agency could take hardware-wise, or many methods that would be secure but make your files essentially unusable in the real world).

Let's say you have an upcoming interview with a potential new employer who's in an entirely different industry from your current one, and they'd like you to give a presentation on one project from your past that you've worked on from start to finish. I.E. what was the scope of the problem, how did you go about solving it, etc. To test technical ability, leadership, and presentation skills.

If your only projects that are big enough in scope to be a presentation like this are ones you're working on at your current employer (and you're not aware of any NDA you've signed), how do you deal with the situation? How do you know what is OK to present and what is not, if you don't want to tip off your current employer that you're looking (in other words, can't ask current employer if this is OK)? Is it reasonable to take a project you're working on now and change all the details about it, but keep the same gist of it?

I've had a project idea that I've wanted to do for a while now. Unfortunately, I don't have time or know-how (on the programming side). I've tried to start the project in Python, but always realize it's going to take more time than my wrists can handle (I work as a data scientist, already too much time at the keyboard).

I'd like to create software that will take all your personal data that you are able to download - like Google, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mint, Health Data, SMS/texts, RescueTime, RSS Readers, CVS prescription history, 23andMe, etc. - and compile it into a "personal analytics" software. For example, help answer questions like:

1. Where do I spent the most money around town (location data + mint transactions)?

2. Where do I send the most angry texts (location data + NLP on texts)?

3. At what time and after what Google searches do I end up buying the most junk off Amazon (Google + Amazon)?

4. Recreate your life as a movie (Google street view + texts + purchases + etc.).

Those are just the start.

My first foray into this was writing some basic Python code to see where my girlfriend and I crossed paths before we met (we were within a mile of each other at the same time, two years before we met).

1. This has to be all done locally, no cloud involved because of the clear privacy implications. What kind of local DB that interfaces well with Pandas/Python would be appropriate?

2. How would I encrypt the data locally, and potentially allow 'agents' to interface (for example, seeing where you overlap with somebody else in location)?

So the Ask HN question is this - when you have an idea and want it to materialize but you need help - where do you go?

If you have a little bit of money, do you hire a freelance programmer?

Do you post a barrage of Stack Overflow questions?

Do you partner with somebody, or do you throw the idea out there in hopes somebody else might pick it up?