An Obsidian user on Medium recently lost an entire vault to data corruption because of an encryption plugin.
I’m very sorry this happened to them, and that they didn’t have a backup.
Truly, if our notes in Obsidian can’t function without features that exist only in that app, we’ve shackled ourselves to the wall of a prison without a door.
Always have an exit plan! Always backup your work! And never lock all your data with a key you don’t own.
@ellane@obsidianmd That’s why I posted this feature request on the #Obsidian Forum and explained why encryption needs to be a core feature, because relying on a plugin to handle it is inherently dangerous.
Sadly, it’s only gotten 3 likes in five months, so I don’t have high hopes of it getting implemented.
@kepano@ellane I agree that OS-level full-disk encryption and E2EE are the most important and we already have those, but Bear’s ability to individually encrypt and password protect particularly sensitive notes is a nice feature. It doesn’t have to be either/or.
@mlevison@kepano@ellane Ellane’s post says the problem was “data corruption because of an encryption plugin,” so I assumed the plugin was incorrectly coded or contained bugs that led to the corruption.
Since you’ve done cryptography work, I’m sure you’re aware of pitfalls in all this that I’ve never considered, and Kepano has pretty much convinced me that the use case I was thinking of would be better handled by a specialized tool.
@davidlohner@ellane@obsidianmd Obsidian Sync encrypts your data in transport between your devices, but not at rest on your local device storage. But as long as you have full disk encryption enabled through your operating system, they shouldn’t be readable by anyone who can’t log into your system.
Sign in my hotel room in London. The door was stuck, and the maintenance crew helpfully "fixed" it by putting up a sign. Naturally I got transferred to a room with, you know, a door that actually opens and closes.
Not posted on here in a while - What's everyone's thoughts on @tana vs @logseq - online vs offline etc. etc. Kind of flipflopping between one and the other at the moment
@ednico I’m looking forward to trying #Logseq again for my tasks and short-term notes after the database version comes out, which I’m hoping will fix the syncing issues.
(I just hope it doesn’t take as long as Bear 2 did…)
For my long term/permanent notes, I expect to remain completely committed to #Obsidian and its local, interoperable plaintext #markdown files.
@ednico What you find joy in is critical but too often overlooked in technical comparisons and practical lists of features. Finding tools that feel right to you matters. And that’s not going to be the same for everyone.
@chrishannah I get the sense that Apple is building as much passive aggressive friction into their “compliance” as they think they can get away with, partly to try to create a sense that the Act is bad and partly just because they’re pissed and petulant about it
@codemonkeymike Out of curiosity, were you a committed macOS user before you started using Linux? Just asking because if you were, it will be much more convincing than if you come across as a FOSS evangelist trying to convert the heathens.
I don’t mean that in a smartass way. There are a lot of people out there who could be happily using Linux full time but don’t realize it, especially with the growth of popular cross-platform apps. IMO Linux has benefited from Electron more than any other OS.
@raptor85@dhry@codemonkeymike There’s alway seemed to be a tension in the Linux community between FOSS fundamentalism and Linux as a practical tool for getting things done and solving problems.
The FOSS people often pitch it as the latter but then vehemently oppose the use of closed source drivers and software on it that would actually make it possible for a lot more people to use Linux personally and professionally, even though that would still be a net win for free and open source.
@obsidianmd I recently upgraded my iPhone from a Xs Max to a 15 Pro Max. #Obsidian mobile now cold loads in about half the time.
But the biggest difference is that after that, Obsidian stays running in the background, so even with a lot of plugins it opens instantly, like simple, native editors such as iA Writer and 1Writer.
The faster processor is nice, but doubling the RAM from 4 to 8 made all the difference. Someone on Discord said the same about the S23 Ultra (8/12GB) running Android.
They’ve already heard all the reasons people think they should and you’re unlikely to come up with anything new that would make them change their minds, so your best options are to either make your peace with it or find an open source alternative.
@nicole Nicole, I've been following your posts on YouTube and wanted to let you know I've made an add-on for the Thunderbird email app that clips messages to #Obsidian. If you could let folks who use Thunderbird know, I'd appreciate it!
@nicole I’d use a separate vault for email for exactly that reason. Done right, it could be like MailMate, but more powerful, flexible, and customizable—and cross-platform, with mobile as well as desktop apps.
I don’t know how feasible it would be to create a plugin like that, but I like the idea.
Thank you, Estonia, for five years of e-residency. Here's to another five. I wish all countries made it as easy to handle the financial side of work as you do.
@ellane It always fascinates me that we simultaneously experience opposite seasons in the two hemispheres. While you’re hot we’re freezing and vice versa.
New security page and independent audit completed by Cure53 (obsidian.md)
Just channeling kepano here