Wow, thank you for all your support on this video!! I know a lot of you were asking about more secure alternatives to Notion. Here are the apps I have on my radar, and video links if I've tried them out: - Obsidian: ruclips.net/video/ms4cWMsOITs/видео.html - AnyType (not yet released) - Standard Notes - Joplin
Are their any productivity apps that are designed to store your data locally, or on a [local] NAS storage device you own, so we don't have to worry about e2e encryption since only people that can access your device or your NAS can access your data? Because the idea of storing hybrid life notes digitally on one platform sounds great, but not if it must be stored in the cloud.
@@sakshampethkar8970 Linux is not going to protect you in regards to the content for which the Video refers to. Android and Apple rely on Linux kernel. As for the OS well, unless you have been under a rock, Linux has been vulnerable for the past 3 or so years and if your using Intel based that just adds to the pot.
@@walkerrobinson9614, Do you think our diary entries shouldn't be kept on Notion because of this? I'm still debating whether or to move my diary entries on Notion to a different space.
@@katelinaman4998 honestly I don’t know. It depends on the content of your diary. Even a paper diary is flawed, because someone can find it, open it and read. Me personally, I’ve since deleted my diary entry off of notion and keep notion for work uses only.
Omg I have a notion page with the kdramas I've watched, want to watch and am currently watching with links to some 🦋very legal🦋 sites to watch them (+my thoughts on them, the cast, etc.) and it's honestly the only interesting thing on my notion 😂
I wouldn't necessarily agree If the product is completely free probably most likely, if it is only free to some extend, that might be a very reasonable business concept. I mean give a good tool to students while they might not have too much money and make it likely to value that tool still when they make money. Make a tool known, use the feedback and profit from recommendation and community work and charge the poweruser that very well have a monetary benefit. That beeing said, a reasonable balance is necessary for such a business concept to work. And ofc there is no guarantee that a company might at some point say, well we make enough money to do well, maintain and improve the product, but why not make even more money for free and expand to use the person data.
I dare the hackers to snoop around my data. They're gonna cry with me when they go through my paper's literature reviews. Maybe they'd pay me some bitcoin to appreciate the amount of references academia requires 😂
They’ll be shaking their heads in pity looking at my overengineered planning system and list of resources and skills to learn at the beginning of the year that gets abandoned in a couple of weeks...
I hope Notion enjoys reading my Math notes written in my native language. I’m interested in data privacy but... I seriously just use it for school notes.
I think E2E encryption is important, however when using Notion for my school notes and daily planning, the data I store in the app isn’t really sensitive. If someone wants to look at my A level physics notes then I don’t really mind lol. As long as they’re backed up in the cloud, I have no problem really. My worry would be more about my data being lost, not intruded on
@Apoorva S I take online classes, so I’m always home. And, if we’re going to be paranoid, simply walking outside could lead to me getting killed by a random person who didn’t find my Notion account. If someone wanted to find me, I stay indoors anyways so it literally means nothing. Pointless to put my address on Notion, lol. I don’t forget where I live.
If you want your data to be encrypted, you just need to use a service that encrypts your data. The developers are the ones who make all the security decisions (in most cases), so there's not much you can do to secure your data except using the right apps for the right things and using a good password! Hope this helps 🙂
@@mariellegomez5089 Depends on your use case. You could use something like obsidian (I believe that stores data locally) and bitlocker, which is enough for most people. Obviously if you do that, you lose out on a lot of the benefits of notion which stores your data in the cloud. Another option is something like evernote, though encryption is turned off by default and is a bit of a pain to use. I hear good things about joplin's encryption, but the app itself is quite basic and not as useful as something like notion. TLDR; it all depends on how much you value data security over functionality but there are a lot of apps out there
@Jonathan Thompson Thank you for sharing their reply. I also checked in my account, and "support access" is NOT automatically turned on, which I applaud. Most companies will automatically grant themselves all possible rights, banking on the fact that most people don't check. But here you have to give them explicit permission.
Pasting the following from the notion site, update as of August 2021: End-to-end encryption for over-the-wire transmissions AES 256-bit encryption for all data transfers between the bridge and sensors (the same level of security as a bank vault) OAuth 2.0 for client authentication (the best-in-industry standard) Third party security and penetration testing
I first panicked, but then I thought that I only put my academic notes and my dream diary there, so I'm ok with it 😂 Google and Apple knows worse and more detailed things about all of us
I’m aware of data privacy, I just don’t really care. I’m a computer science major :| I mean, don’t put passwords, or whatever else, but it’s just school stuff. To-do lists.
As someone that understands the basics of encryption, I feel you did really well to explain the concept to those that may not be familiar. The animations are excellent. Watched the entire video & enjoyed hearing your insights, thoughts and concerns. E2EE is definitely something I would love to see implemented into Notion. I avoid storing sensitive information on these apps for the reasons you stated, so I don't need to change my behaviour in this regard. But it's definitely good to have these reminders & to raise awareness with those that may not be well-versed on the topic. Excellent video!
I personally I don’t put confidential information in apps only in encrypted files or pen and paper. Essentially, if I don’t care if anyone finds said info I’ll log it digitally on an app.
This is why for me I will never share any personal info (my finances, passwords, address) on any apps! This is something you should def be concerned about whenever you use any apps.
@@jaskiratgrewal6114 well that's really the catch 22. if you can memorize your passwords that means either you are re-using your passwords, which basically means if one site gets breached, your accounts on all of the other sites are breached as well. Or your passwords are short and/or easily memorizable, which can be easy to hack. password managers can generate secure passwords for you and you don't need to repeat or memorize any. however they have their own issues.
Great video. IT guy here, I think you did a great job researching, however I wanted to point a few things out: TLS (Transport Layer Security) does not protect data at rest. Notion does state that their data is also encrypted at rest (on their servers) and they mention that in spite of not being end-to-end encrypted, they do periodic third party penetration testing. All that said, you should encrypt your hard drives/SSDs if you are worried about encryption on your end. Having read their security page, it does seem that they do take security seriously - perhaps in part thanks to you, so thank you. My conclusion (based on the information on their security page): it is safe to use and they do appear to take their security seriously.
I developed some kind of anxiety after i used the same password for years and out of nowhere (data breaches) my accounts started to get hacked. I was checking my gmail every hour, because i was so scared and at sometime i started thinking "if i didn't have a phone i wouldn't have to be anxious". I think i'm better now, but that time was really messing with my mind.
Humm... in notion you actually don't need "internet" to open it and use it unless you want templates. so basically you can download and open an account on your laptop and deny notion to use wifi. and your infos won't have anywhere to go once you get into your acc. then whenever you want to change your laptop. notion provides the export option "i don't know if it works in offline mode". however exporting and importing it into another laptop assuming you denied notion as well to acces your internet. i guess that's the only way to protect your informations.
If you do decide to briefly go online to access templates, will all of your data then be uploaded to notion, leaving it there for access, even when you are offline?
I'm using Notion for a project where I search up a lot of Highschool (I'm from Brazil though) classes that are relevant to the ENEM (Similar to the SAT's), learn about them and make a simpler text with most of the crucial information, while leaving all the resources and links I used for people to search more. This video helped a lot since I'm trying to help make study easier for my friends, not compromise their security. I decided it's fine to continue in Notion, since the project doesn't have any personal information, since the whole ideia of it is to share it all around my school
I feel that this can be a big problem if you're thinking of using notion to keep something that has intellectual property, like writing, designs or music. So disappointing :(
exactly! I handle a lot of information regarding my health research, creative ideas, and so on and I would not want someone to have access to that information without my consent :/
you also know that absidian is not practic. Notion is most popular and easy prodductive app. I am writing my diploma thesis in obsidian. Can not say that I am fine, but it is not good really enough
unfortunately there's not much you can do to avoid this as you're basically always being watched, by everything. of course i try to avoid it, but it's almost impossible. and while you shouldn't just give into it because of that, there really isn't *that* much you can do to avoid it other than do the best to avoid sketchy apps or products. (some coffee machines need access to your microphone and... camera?)
Before you posted this Video I reflected on this very point some time ago, because I was thinking of using it for a work-based project. In the end I decided against it as my instincts told me there could be potential GDPR issues in risking confidential company information which could have both considerable - reputation, financial and legal implications, the risk was just too high. I have decided that if I wanted to use Notion for personal stuff, I would only use it as a database that is meaningless and boring to other people (thereby decreasing the risk to 0%) for things like taking notes in academic subjects at university, thanks for posting this. I wonder what people like Ali Abdaal and Thomas Frank think of this issue?
I think everything you do on your phone is being looked at unfortunately. Just be mindful on what you post or put in. Personal things like finances A notebook. But other things like to do’s or others notion is great for
Thank you so much for making this video. It really bothered me that no one was talking about this. Roam Research has the same issue and it really bugs me because I really wanna use these apps.
I like the option of adding media to journal , and notion would be pretty handy for journaling but I dont think I would want somebody/some corporate read my sensitive information from my journal. sad
Notion is the app that's keeping me from failing school lol. I never really thought about privacy, and what implications it might have if my info is leaked. Thx for the advice and great video.
Really appreciate your critical view on the lack of E2E encryption on the notion platform. You have pretty much sum up the whole data security and privacy concerns. However implementing an E2E security model or solution for a web based public facing portal is highly unlikely yet (we may see options in future). Yours or mine data does get exposed at some point if we are using online web services; so total cyber security can only be achieved by going back to pen and paper ( or hiding in a bunker) - This element of trust is required for certain Internet based services to function or the service model wont work. scavenging
Thank you so much for making this video ❤️❤️ We often forget to protect ourselves online and get swept up in using the latest app. This is a very good reminder
the explanation is so good omg????? like it’s concise and understandable for those without much knowledge on the tech-y stuff ! altho i got a bit alarmed with the bad privacy thing, i will be more wary on what i put in notion too! thanks for this 🥰
Finally someone else who is worried about Notion! Note taking apps can easily be secure if they are an offline app versus an online web-app. And users get more control over what Cloud Services they save their data to! We should collaborate on this topic 😃 it is very important people know how insecure Notion is before they throw their lives into this app.
Oh no, I literally wrote journals on notion and also voice recordings for my daily journal. I kinda put sensitive stuff there where I organize everything. But I hope this gets fixed, I literally paid a subscription for them so maybe they would solve this issue even more.
I care more about how secure the data's survival is. The worst thing would be having all my journals, business data, and all the rest suddenly becoming corrupted, wiped out. Evernote hasn't fudged this since I joined them around 2015. Make it 1000% certain that my data is properly backed up, and add a REAL offline mode for both desktop AND mobile, and you'll have my heart.
This is a really big problem and I'm glad you are bringing it up! Notion has tons of information on people's lives and should feature E2EE. They were asked about it and gave a silly answer about it making things like search tricky, which is kinda sus. I would suggest switching to Standard Notes but you will not have even close to the power of Notion and to even get Markdown you have to pay premium, which is really expensive for people in poor countries.
ItIt is certainly an important issue, but are there really people out there who do not think about this all the time? It is such a central issue for every human being.
There many more problems when it comes to commercial use: - security & compliance as you mentioned it - file handling is poor - the typical problems with SAML authentication that leaves you with a out-of-sync situation when you already have a company directory If all the cloud service providers would build a consortium to solve those problems and define standards together we could move on without all this questions.
Interesting video and I have seen all of those concerns in Reddit too. I think it is something, we, as individuals, need to realize when we use digital tools that hackers are out there. My personal view may be vastly different from others but as long as someone can't take my money (passwords) or business (passwords) then I don't see the damage in people knowing... I would be interested to hear why people need to keep their data private?
Hackers have used fraudulently gained information to reset passwords to accounts, which causes the legitimate owners to lose control of said accounts. I read an article where one such person lost control of his Apple ID by such a process. The hackers called Apple customer service and sweet-talked the representative.
@@DannyHatcherTech I agree with you that there is definitely a problem with the company that is allowing the sweet-talking to occur, but if the account holder had the info encrypted end to end then that could have the effect of the hackers not being able to access the info they use as ammunition to hijack an account. I'm learning so much from the intelligent commentary I'm reading in the responses. Thanks for the question! :)
WAIT WAIT WAIT HOLD ON HOLD ON WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY WATCHING LIKE THEY CAN SEE MY NOTES??? MY NOTES???? im gonna cry omg no its just nononono im paranoic 😭😭
Great comprehensive explanation! This is great for non-technical people. I'd like to give a small suggestion when talking about privacy: the term "data privacy" is a bit misleading as it sounds like it's about the privacy of the data, while it's the privacy of *people* that matters. It's a term I see privacy-disrespecting companies use to divert attention towards thinks like encryption at rest as opposed to actually protecting privacy.
The amount of ignorant, jokey comments here, is deeply disappointing and disturbing. Way too many people are like "Ohmigawd, Notion can read my food recipes! 😂" (as in: "so what, who cares") Data-mining **your life** - whatever it is, is WRONG. And almost no matter the aim, is not positive for you, in any way, shape or form. End of story. Furthermore, not everyone is writing "whatever" or "dead diary" or "food recipe" stuff. Some are working on f.e. online course material, or are writing their next book. Ideas are IP, and should be kept 100% private.
The structure of this video is insane and certainly did not go unnoticed good job! This was amazing informational video and you really know your audience and how to please them while getting the job done.
I want to try Notion, but it's use is definitely limited or void due to lack of E2E encryption. I'll stick primarily with Joplin for notes, Signal for messaging, and Bitwarden for passwords, in case anyone was looking for secure app recommendations.
Communication between Notion and you is secured with HTTPS (E2E). Only Notion servers and you can see what data you communicate with Notion. E2E encryption means that the intermediaries cannot read your messages. In Notion's case, what intermediary is there? It's just Notion and you. What you probably mean here is that you want encryption at rest. Notion in fact is E2E encrypted and if you read their security statement you can also find out that is encrypts your data at rest as well. This means that even if Notion servers get compromised, hackers can't read your notes unless they know your password (which is not stored on Notion servers, only an AES hash is). I find this video misleanding.
Check out AnyType! It's still in closed beta but it strives to be a privacy focused Notion competitor. At the moment I'm part of a small testing group and it's pretty good. It still has a long way to go but it is a start
Searched through all the comments to see if anyone else had already mentioned Anytype. Yep, it's not a Notion replacement yet, but it appears to have a very good chance of becoming one. I would guess that within a year it will be at reasonable Notion parity as far as having databases, and perhaps embeds and things. Already you can do almost anything with text that you can do in Notion. Another area where Anytype stands out over Notion too is in the fact that there is a feature vote and discussion forum where the devs actually engage. That alone is a huge improvement over Notion's frequent non-answers, e.g. "That's a great idea, we'll add it to our feature list" (which they say to almost everything) 🙄
Self-hosted alternatives like Obsidian, etc. are at least better in the privacy aspect: You are responsible for it. I personally don’t have any qualms about using Notion as I don’t put any information which I consider to be sensitive on it. I don’t use any of the alternatives as the synchronization between different between devices is too good to give up. Can’t have my cake and eat it too 😖
@@harshibar As far as I know, E2E is problematic when it comes synchronizing through all devices - you have save your data offline on your hard drives, right?
@@harshibar Do you think self-hosting will be better or more secure? I would think that any server space you can buy/rent for a reasonable price (ie. around the same price of a Notion pro account) will be more secure than their infrastructure? I think it would be MUCH easier for a hacker to search for and target all the self-hosted Notion installs, than to target Notion themselves. With self hosted you will always have X% of users who didn't set up security correctly, run outdated software on their server, etc. So I do hope they (and everybody else handling our data) add E2E, but self-hosting is usually less safe. Look at all the Wordpress websites.. its self-hosted and a prime and fairly easy to hack target.
My Synology Note Station app syncs between devices fine and stores all data on my local Synology NAS. Synology QuickConnect allows for easy access while away from home.
That's understandable! Most apps have the same level of security as Notion -- so I think it's important to just be cautious about what you put online (anywhere, not just Notion).
@@harshibar Thanks a lot again..Yeah, understood 😊 . I actually shared my passwords in Notion all in one place for my work to become easier. I will be removing that now 😊. Will be cautious moving forward for any app 🙏
@@RameshKumar-ng3nf Since it was not encrypted, there can be chances for Notion to save multiple versions of your content (Eg: to undo recent changes). Chances are very less or negligible though. More secured option would be to change your passwords that was stored in Notion once.
Thank you very much for this very honest and informative review! I started on Notion after watching your video on it actually! I did want to ask the community here about why privacy is such a big issue because I am genuinely curious. I once read in an article 'It's like, would you give your phone password to a stranger? If not, why would you want big corporations to have that kind of personal information?' Personally, I find that a mute point because I would have no qualms giving my passcode to a stranger since I can safely say that they would have no personal agenda against me; I feel the same about giving private data to big corporations. What are they really going to do with it such that it practically affects me in a personal way? Tailor ads for me? I do understand the Cambridge Analytica - Facebook scandal and its effects as I say that. I did watch The Social Dilemma too and personally thought it was a tad overdramatic. There is a few characters in it that were not at all impacted by the addiction to social media and, quite frankly, I think the lack of addiction is not that uncommon. Poor parenting was a factor too imo (but we can talk about that another time lol). My point really is, I feel that data privacy is not a serious issue by any means. Tbh, if I had to give Notion a wish list of 20 things I would like them to add to the app, better privacy would not be on that list. As someone with an engineer-mindset, I just prefer functionality, efficiency and versatility more than privacy. Again, I sincerely do respect the opinions of those who highly value data privacy. I do want to understand the other perspective. Hence, my question: Why is data privacy an important issue and what are the personal consequences you may fear from it? I'm assuming most of you wouldn't keep financial information, passwords or other sensitive information on a personal note-taking app; please do correct me if I'm wrong!
There is nothing anyone can say to you to change your mind if you don't value your privacy enough to realize that it's important. But feel free to post your accounts and passwords here, I'm sure nothing bad will happen.
honestly, there's never enough privacy for users, but that's just how it goes. no matter how "secure" the website is, there will always be hackers that will be able to access your data. no matter if internally externally. it won't stop and i actually find Notions security policy pretty good.
this is a really good video, eye opening for people who aren't aware of privacy issues. but for me as a student and probably most others students using notion for school/uni, I don't think this is a deal breaker. just be careful with what information you store on there!
E2E encryption only covers transport between 2 endpoints. User A > User B is encrypted. Since Notion is not a messaging app it would not have E2E encryption. It may have transport encryption and encryption at rest. If you have a key that only you know that is called zero-knowledge encryption. That is really what you should want to be in place.
thank you so much, I was so excited to start Notion but not willing to have the exposure. You did a nice balanced approach to the security issue we all have with all apps
You can read 'Permanent Record by Edward Snowden'. I read, this in the beginning of 2020 this book is quite good, and for personal record you can use Bullet Journal. Best of Luck Harshibar😆 aka Notion girl.
about whatsapp: there are HUGE number of people that were arrestet in Azerbaijan, Russia, Belarus and other undemocratic countries bc the goverment read all the messages and found these people eho wrote smth against their goverments.
Wow, thank you for all your support on this video!! I know a lot of you were asking about more secure alternatives to Notion. Here are the apps I have on my radar, and video links if I've tried them out:
- Obsidian: ruclips.net/video/ms4cWMsOITs/видео.html
- AnyType (not yet released)
- Standard Notes
- Joplin
social dilemma is dog sh1t its just paranoia prawn
Use Linux
Are their any productivity apps that are designed to store your data locally, or on a [local] NAS storage device you own, so we don't have to worry about e2e encryption since only people that can access your device or your NAS can access your data?
Because the idea of storing hybrid life notes digitally on one platform sounds great, but not if it must be stored in the cloud.
@@sakshampethkar8970 Linux is not going to protect you in regards to the content for which the Video refers to. Android and Apple rely on Linux kernel. As for the OS well, unless you have been under a rock, Linux has been vulnerable for the past 3 or so years and if your using Intel based that just adds to the pot.
@@mydroid2791 take a look into obsidian, don't know about the others listed here.
Dearest Notion Staff,
I write my recipes in Metric.
Figure it out.
-chef
You do know that the rest of the world uses Metric anyway right?
PS: I know its a joke
what is metric?
@@noobbb7074 the only true religion
@@noobbb7074 A measuring system that's not retarded
@@Sarahchamorro made by people who weren't high when designing it
always had nightmares about Notion staff looking at my diary entries and just laughing
Lmao
Omg 😂😂
You’ve made a good point, I’m going to delete the entries now, and stick to paper diary.
@@walkerrobinson9614, Do you think our diary entries shouldn't be kept on Notion because of this? I'm still debating whether or to move my diary entries on Notion to a different space.
@@katelinaman4998 honestly I don’t know. It depends on the content of your diary. Even a paper diary is flawed, because someone can find it, open it and read. Me personally, I’ve since deleted my diary entry off of notion and keep notion for work uses only.
Me panicking at my personal information being stolen while I am taking school notes and the names of the kdramas I saw on notion.
Omg I have a notion page with the kdramas I've watched, want to watch and am currently watching with links to some 🦋very legal🦋 sites to watch them (+my thoughts on them, the cast, etc.) and it's honestly the only interesting thing on my notion 😂
@@joshina4497 😂😂😂😂😂 make a video on itttt
@@Erika-pq7ip maybe I should 😳
ME TOO OMG HASSAHJ
@@joshina4497 YESS IVE DONE THAT TOO, THE WANT TO WATCH, WATCHING, WATCHED AAA
If you don‘t pay for the product, you are the product
D:
hope more people can realize this. However, sadly, even people realize this, how many care about this??
I wouldn't necessarily agree
If the product is completely free probably most likely, if it is only free to some extend, that might be a very reasonable business concept.
I mean give a good tool to students while they might not have too much money and make it likely to value that tool still when they make money.
Make a tool known, use the feedback and profit from recommendation and community work and charge the poweruser that very well have a monetary benefit.
That beeing said, a reasonable balance is necessary for such a business concept to work. And ofc there is no guarantee that a company might at some point say, well we make enough money to do well, maintain and improve the product, but why not make even more money for free and expand to use the person data.
We just data to buy and sell 😅. It's a weird reality to grow into.
I guess open source products are bad then 🤔
Summary: Don't put sensitive information in apps, just things that you could chat with anyone without blushing/feeling unsafe after that.
The only safe place is probably the "notes" on phones, I guess...
@@brensayuri7196 probably lol
@@brensayuri7196 Depends on the device. Many notes apps sync with private servers
@@brensayuri7196 nope ! The only safe place is probably the notes on notebooks 🤣🤣
@@rupakrabha-2179 nope. anyone can steal that. Send your notebook on the Mars for extra security
OMG! a notion employee will see that I haven't done nothing of my to do list for 2 months!
😂
😂😂
I'm laughing so hard! thank you!
Hahahahaha same
HAHAHAHAH your comment made me laught!
I dare the hackers to snoop around my data. They're gonna cry with me when they go through my paper's literature reviews. Maybe they'd pay me some bitcoin to appreciate the amount of references academia requires 😂
They’ll be shaking their heads in pity looking at my overengineered planning system and list of resources and skills to learn at the beginning of the year that gets abandoned in a couple of weeks...
for me they'll probably feel sorry for my broke self when they enter the fiancee page
I hope Notion enjoys reading my Math notes written in my native language. I’m interested in data privacy but... I seriously just use it for school notes.
This is such a marvellous exploration into privacy, so well explained! Thank you Harshibar!
I think E2E encryption is important, however when using Notion for my school notes and daily planning, the data I store in the app isn’t really sensitive. If someone wants to look at my A level physics notes then I don’t really mind lol. As long as they’re backed up in the cloud, I have no problem really. My worry would be more about my data being lost, not intruded on
I think a lot of us have our class schedules and calendars in notion as well and that can be really unsafe
@@apoorvas6062 I don’t consider my class schedule as sensitive though
@@anniemeridian270 yeah but people knowing where you are and eat what time can be scary for several people, stalking is a huge deal these days
hey, how I know that my data is backed up in the cloud? Do I need to buy the premium version of the notion to have that option?
@Apoorva S
I take online classes, so I’m always home. And, if we’re going to be paranoid, simply walking outside could lead to me getting killed by a random person who didn’t find my Notion account.
If someone wanted to find me, I stay indoors anyways so it literally means nothing. Pointless to put my address on Notion, lol. I don’t forget where I live.
If you work in public company, be careful if you decide to put work stuff into notion or other productivity tools, you might get sued by the company
👆
Good to know. I was already planning to take notes here about current and future projects.
But isn't it kinda the whole point of Notion? To be able to work in teams and stuff?
yeah but what are they going to do with my books list
Haha lmao I thought about the same thing
same lol
Exactly lmao
Well, data analysis , stats , influencing the publishing industry ... Never underestimate the power of data
@@DragonHeart29 for a free use of the page tho, it's cool by me they can steal my to do list
Rule #1 : Always keep sensitive information in encryption.
If you want your data to be encrypted, you just need to use a service that encrypts your data.
The developers are the ones who make all the security decisions (in most cases), so there's not much you can do to secure your data except using the right apps for the right things and using a good password!
Hope this helps 🙂
@@mariellegomez5089 telegram for example
@@mariellegomez5089 Depends on your use case. You could use something like obsidian (I believe that stores data locally) and bitlocker, which is enough for most people. Obviously if you do that, you lose out on a lot of the benefits of notion which stores your data in the cloud.
Another option is something like evernote, though encryption is turned off by default and is a bit of a pain to use.
I hear good things about joplin's encryption, but the app itself is quite basic and not as useful as something like notion.
TLDR; it all depends on how much you value data security over functionality but there are a lot of apps out there
*pulls out my little physical memo booklet. ah yes encryption
Rule #0: Always keep sensitive information in YOUR OWN FKIN COMPUTER :P (& encrypted :D)
I want to leave notion now....but I spent hours making my dashboard look all pretty ✨💁♂️
LMAO
same it’s too late to go back HAHAHAH
@@ladydianecasilang7193 I need a template so bad I just got it and mine looks so basic 😭
@@emm3lli yeahh i got overwhelmed the first time i used notion but you’ll get used to it eventually just keep using it HAHAHAHAH
Ur life aint that interesting i dont think people that can enter into accounts that easily would care about u... What makes u think u special?
Knowing this helps decide 'what to' and 'what not to' capture in Notions. It still seems worth using despite the issue.
Agreed 👍
Great video! Do we know if this has been addressed by notion? Love the app but I don’t place anything sensitive until this is solved.
Hmm I haven’t seen any updates on this from Notions side yet.
OMG I just started watching your drawing videos... jamás pensé verte por acá, lol.
@Jonathan Thompson Thank you for sharing their reply. I also checked in my account, and "support access" is NOT automatically turned on, which I applaud. Most companies will automatically grant themselves all possible rights, banking on the fact that most people don't check. But here you have to give them explicit permission.
Pasting the following from the notion site, update as of August 2021:
End-to-end encryption for over-the-wire transmissions
AES 256-bit encryption for all data transfers between the bridge and sensors (the same level of security as a bank vault)
OAuth 2.0 for client authentication (the best-in-industry standard)
Third party security and penetration testing
I first panicked, but then I thought that I only put my academic notes and my dream diary there, so I'm ok with it 😂
Google and Apple knows worse and more detailed things about all of us
WHAT THEY GONNA DO W MY SCHOOL SCHEDULE, BOOK LIST, MANGA AND ANIME LIST, AND MY DAILY THINGS TO DO LIST?
😅
@@weeboo305 im the type of person who wants all my things on 1 app or website so haha
hahaha same i keep my manga list on there too
Yeah, same thought, doesn't really matter. Just don't write your account details, it will be fine. 😅
This debate must go on ... people are pretty much illiterate when it comes to data privacy.
I’m aware of data privacy, I just don’t really care. I’m a computer science major :| I mean, don’t put passwords, or whatever else, but it’s just school stuff. To-do lists.
@@user-sf9gs2pg1b 🍪
@@夕阳-n1h LOL
As someone that understands the basics of encryption, I feel you did really well to explain the concept to those that may not be familiar. The animations are excellent.
Watched the entire video & enjoyed hearing your insights, thoughts and concerns. E2EE is definitely something I would love to see implemented into Notion.
I avoid storing sensitive information on these apps for the reasons you stated, so I don't need to change my behaviour in this regard. But it's definitely good to have these reminders & to raise awareness with those that may not be well-versed on the topic.
Excellent video!
Thank you so much! I frankly don't know much about security myself beyond the basics, so I'm glad the explanation was clear.
"While I don't use it, I do have a degree in Computer Science" I know for sure this is going to be my catchphrase after I graduate lmaooooooo
I personally I don’t put confidential information in apps only in encrypted files or pen and paper. Essentially, if I don’t care if anyone finds said info I’ll log it digitally on an app.
but... but it’s pretty
This is why for me I will never share any personal info (my finances, passwords, address) on any apps! This is something you should def be concerned about whenever you use any apps.
Where should you keep passwords? On paper?
I’d suggest an app like LastPass.
@@harshibar why lastPass?
@@stepht526 Yes? 💀
@@jaskiratgrewal6114 well that's really the catch 22. if you can memorize your passwords that means either you are re-using your passwords, which basically means if one site gets breached, your accounts on all of the other sites are breached as well. Or your passwords are short and/or easily memorizable, which can be easy to hack.
password managers can generate secure passwords for you and you don't need to repeat or memorize any. however they have their own issues.
Great video. IT guy here, I think you did a great job researching, however I wanted to point a few things out:
TLS (Transport Layer Security) does not protect data at rest. Notion does state that their data is also encrypted at rest (on their servers) and they mention that in spite of not being end-to-end encrypted, they do periodic third party penetration testing. All that said, you should encrypt your hard drives/SSDs if you are worried about encryption on your end.
Having read their security page, it does seem that they do take security seriously - perhaps in part thanks to you, so thank you.
My conclusion (based on the information on their security page): it is safe to use and they do appear to take their security seriously.
Agreed! Thanks for the clarification
Thank you! This helped me breathe.
Stop procrastinating while watching a video about being productive 😂
I feel like you're personally coming at me right now
I always use this quote to justify “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
the right title should have been: The BIGGEST Problem With most productivity apps (and Notion too)
Right title won't generate that much views.
Thats wrong
@@realgowthamkumar no, notion is an exception in this „app world“
@@DGHF 4:20
@@burcuterzioglu4778 ?
Me, who just spent the last days building my notion pages and putting a lot of informations in it 👁️👄👁️
Brb I'm gonna delete my journal entries and finances entries ✌🏻
as soon as ali abdaal sees this, oh man, i can't even imagine
Honestly in these days you shouldn't trust your shadow 😂
LOL true
Because they will also leave you in dark
If you're really picky with privacy, don't get a phone.
if u r really not picky with privacy, plz disclose your bank account on ytb and share all your passwords and info and live-stream yourself 24h a day
The Notion much secure now , It got TLS connrction now ,and other secure license
I developed some kind of anxiety after i used the same password for years and out of nowhere (data breaches) my accounts started to get hacked.
I was checking my gmail every hour, because i was so scared and at sometime i started thinking "if i didn't have a phone i wouldn't have to be anxious".
I think i'm better now, but that time was really messing with my mind.
@@SaeSaeyoungyoung omg that’s so scary
@@Blue-lc5np Yeah, at least i'm not checking gmail every 5 seconds, still have 2 steps for everything just in case
Your video gives me the Vibe similar to that of "Pick Up Limes"
Why?
so informative! thank you
A verified comment with no likes?
I luh u 🥰
“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product”
Great video and very well put together. Thank you! 🙂
I only use Notion for my university notes... I bet the hackers are crying in the corner when they saw my terrible notes and hard subjects 😂
Humm... in notion you actually don't need "internet" to open it and use it unless you want templates. so basically you can download and open an account on your laptop and deny notion to use wifi. and your infos won't have anywhere to go once you get into your acc. then whenever you want to change your laptop. notion provides the export option "i don't know if it works in offline mode". however exporting and importing it into another laptop assuming you denied notion as well to acces your internet. i guess that's the only way to protect your informations.
that actually makes perfect sens, it's a good way to do it !!
Oh that's an interesting idea! Never thought of doing that
If you do decide to briefly go online to access templates, will all of your data then be uploaded to notion, leaving it there for access, even when you are offline?
@@ErinColors that seems like a reasonable assumption to make.
oh boi I have so many trust issues 😭😭 does this really work??
I'm using Notion for a project where I search up a lot of Highschool (I'm from Brazil though) classes that are relevant to the ENEM (Similar to the SAT's), learn about them and make a simpler text with most of the crucial information, while leaving all the resources and links I used for people to search more. This video helped a lot since I'm trying to help make study easier for my friends, not compromise their security.
I decided it's fine to continue in Notion, since the project doesn't have any personal information, since the whole ideia of it is to share it all around my school
I found your video so randomly by googling some aspect of Notion. I really appreciated how informative it was. Thanks!
Girl I envision u doing Ted talks! This was awesome ! You broke things down sooooo well...thank you!
Ah thank you! Glad the video was helpful!
wow sis, the editing and quality of content is amazing
Thank you!!
I agree! very much reminiscent of a documentary style
@@k.herondalle 💜
I feel that this can be a big problem if you're thinking of using notion to keep something that has intellectual property, like writing, designs or music. So disappointing :(
exactly! I handle a lot of information regarding my health research, creative ideas, and so on and I would not want someone to have access to that information without my consent :/
Move to Obsidian, that's the reason I use it, DATA BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE, NOT THE CLOUD.
Can you put the link please 🥺
Here ya go! obsidian.md/
you also know that absidian is not practic. Notion is most popular and easy prodductive app. I am writing my diploma thesis in obsidian. Can not say that I am fine, but it is not good really enough
this is such a great guide and so important! just thinking about starting to use notion and i wanna consider everything before i do
Glad it was helpful!
unfortunately there's not much you can do to avoid this as you're basically always being watched, by everything. of course i try to avoid it, but it's almost impossible. and while you shouldn't just give into it because of that, there really isn't *that* much you can do to avoid it other than do the best to avoid sketchy apps or products. (some coffee machines need access to your microphone and... camera?)
as a cybersecurity student getting back into heavy reading I HEAVILY appreciate this
Before you posted this Video I reflected on this very point some time ago, because I was thinking of using it for a work-based project. In the end I decided against it as my instincts told me there could be potential GDPR issues in risking confidential company information which could have both considerable - reputation, financial and legal implications, the risk was just too high. I have decided that if I wanted to use Notion for personal stuff, I would only use it as a database that is meaningless and boring to other people (thereby decreasing the risk to 0%) for things like taking notes in academic subjects at university, thanks for posting this. I wonder what people like Ali Abdaal and Thomas Frank think of this issue?
I think everything you do on your phone is being looked at unfortunately. Just be mindful on what you post or put in. Personal things like finances A notebook. But other things like to do’s or others notion is great for
Thank you so much for making this video. It really bothered me that no one was talking about this. Roam Research has the same issue and it really bugs me because I really wanna use these apps.
I like the option of adding media to journal , and notion would be pretty handy for journaling but I dont think I would want somebody/some corporate read my sensitive information from my journal. sad
Notion is the app that's keeping me from failing school lol. I never really thought about privacy, and what implications it might have if my info is leaked. Thx for the advice and great video.
Can you suggest some video which shows how to setup Notion?
@@Jazzmine96 you should watch Marie Poulin or August Bradley 👍 they are productivity and Notion expert I would say
lol
I wonder how they'll react reading through my "midnight insanity" page
Lmao, you believe WhatsApp is completely end to end, and Facebook has no way of seeing your “encrypted” messages; okay “computer scientist” lol…
That's what i was thinking too 😂
Thank you, good peace of advice. Privacy is a complex topic in these new cloud services. It was funny your behind the scene shots :)
I just loved your E2E encryption animations! Keep doing! 😄❤️❤️❤️
ok bro.
they could've asked for my biology notes if they wanted em 🙄
Really appreciate your critical view on the lack of E2E encryption on the notion platform. You have pretty much sum up the whole data security and privacy concerns. However implementing an E2E security model or solution for a web based public facing portal is highly unlikely yet (we may see options in future).
Yours or mine data does get exposed at some point if we are using online web services; so total cyber security can only be achieved by going back to pen and paper ( or hiding in a bunker) - This element of trust is required for certain Internet based services to function or the service model wont work.
scavenging
Thank you so much for making this video ❤️❤️
We often forget to protect ourselves online and get swept up in using the latest app. This is a very good reminder
the explanation is so good omg????? like it’s concise and understandable for those without much knowledge on the tech-y stuff ! altho i got a bit alarmed with the bad privacy thing, i will be more wary on what i put in notion too! thanks for this 🥰
Childhood 2.0 is a really good cyber documentary based on how tech affects and targets young people now :)
Will check it out!
I mean the only thing they would see are my random movie reviews / vision boards / and me ranting about subjects.
yeah but like can can see our location*
@@applepi433 everything you use that has access to Internet has access to your IP address (which doesn't always show you your correct address).
Me, only using notion to manage and plan my D&D campaigns: 👁️👄👁️
Finally someone else who is worried about Notion!
Note taking apps can easily be secure if they are an offline app versus an online web-app. And users get more control over what Cloud Services they save their data to! We should collaborate on this topic 😃 it is very important people know how insecure Notion is before they throw their lives into this app.
Seeing this after writing my journal 💀
samé.
Oh no, I literally wrote journals on notion and also voice recordings for my daily journal. I kinda put sensitive stuff there where I organize everything. But I hope this gets fixed, I literally paid a subscription for them so maybe they would solve this issue even more.
You are the first person who talked about my concern all along. I always wondered about this issue. Thanks for covering it. Subscribing right away ❤️🙏
I care more about how secure the data's survival is. The worst thing would be having all my journals, business data, and all the rest suddenly becoming corrupted, wiped out. Evernote hasn't fudged this since I joined them around 2015. Make it 1000% certain that my data is properly backed up, and add a REAL offline mode for both desktop AND mobile, and you'll have my heart.
This is a really big problem and I'm glad you are bringing it up! Notion has tons of information on people's lives and should feature E2EE. They were asked about it and gave a silly answer about it making things like search tricky, which is kinda sus. I would suggest switching to Standard Notes but you will not have even close to the power of Notion and to even get Markdown you have to pay premium, which is really expensive for people in poor countries.
ItIt is certainly an important issue, but are there really people out there who do not think about this all the time? It is such a central issue for every human being.
There many more problems when it comes to commercial use:
- security & compliance as you mentioned it
- file handling is poor
- the typical problems with SAML authentication that leaves you with a out-of-sync situation when you already have a company directory
If all the cloud service providers would build a consortium to solve those problems and define standards together we could move on without all this questions.
Interesting video and I have seen all of those concerns in Reddit too. I think it is something, we, as individuals, need to realize when we use digital tools that hackers are out there. My personal view may be vastly different from others but as long as someone can't take my money (passwords) or business (passwords) then I don't see the damage in people knowing... I would be interested to hear why people need to keep their data private?
More potential for social engineering if the hackers ever get ahold of your data that you thought is personal
Hackers have used fraudulently gained information to reset passwords to accounts, which causes the legitimate owners to lose control of said accounts. I read an article where one such person lost control of his Apple ID by such a process. The hackers called Apple customer service and sweet-talked the representative.
@@nepenthe1446 ok, if there was 'sweet talking' isn't that a personal issue in the company not 2FA in the software...
@@DannyHatcherTech I agree with you that there is definitely a problem with the company that is allowing the sweet-talking to occur, but if the account holder had the info encrypted end to end then that could have the effect of the hackers not being able to access the info they use as ammunition to hijack an account.
I'm learning so much from the intelligent commentary I'm reading in the responses. Thanks for the question! :)
WAIT WAIT WAIT HOLD ON HOLD ON WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY WATCHING LIKE THEY CAN SEE MY NOTES??? MY NOTES????
im gonna cry omg no its just nononono im paranoic 😭😭
Great comprehensive explanation! This is great for non-technical people. I'd like to give a small suggestion when talking about privacy: the term "data privacy" is a bit misleading as it sounds like it's about the privacy of the data, while it's the privacy of *people* that matters. It's a term I see privacy-disrespecting companies use to divert attention towards thinks like encryption at rest as opposed to actually protecting privacy.
Oh, that's true, I never thought of it that way!
The amount of ignorant, jokey comments here, is deeply disappointing and disturbing. Way too many people are like "Ohmigawd, Notion can read my food recipes! 😂" (as in: "so what, who cares")
Data-mining **your life** - whatever it is, is WRONG. And almost no matter the aim, is not positive for you, in any way, shape or form. End of story.
Furthermore, not everyone is writing "whatever" or "dead diary" or "food recipe" stuff. Some are working on f.e. online course material, or are writing their next book. Ideas are IP, and should be kept 100% private.
absolutely has made me revisit my Notion setup and what I use Notion for, thank you!
The structure of this video is insane and certainly did not go unnoticed good job! This was amazing informational video and you really know your audience and how to please them while getting the job done.
I want to try Notion, but it's use is definitely limited or void due to lack of E2E encryption. I'll stick primarily with Joplin for notes, Signal for messaging, and Bitwarden for passwords, in case anyone was looking for secure app recommendations.
Communication between Notion and you is secured with HTTPS (E2E). Only Notion servers and you can see what data you communicate with Notion. E2E encryption means that the intermediaries cannot read your messages. In Notion's case, what intermediary is there? It's just Notion and you.
What you probably mean here is that you want encryption at rest.
Notion in fact is E2E encrypted and if you read their security statement you can also find out that is encrypts your data at rest as well.
This means that even if Notion servers get compromised, hackers can't read your notes unless they know your password (which is not stored on Notion servers, only an AES hash is).
I find this video misleanding.
Check out AnyType! It's still in closed beta but it strives to be a privacy focused Notion competitor. At the moment I'm part of a small testing group and it's pretty good. It still has a long way to go but it is a start
I'm on the waiting list! Excited to try it out soon 🤞🏽
Searched through all the comments to see if anyone else had already mentioned Anytype. Yep, it's not a Notion replacement yet, but it appears to have a very good chance of becoming one. I would guess that within a year it will be at reasonable Notion parity as far as having databases, and perhaps embeds and things. Already you can do almost anything with text that you can do in Notion.
Another area where Anytype stands out over Notion too is in the fact that there is a feature vote and discussion forum where the devs actually engage. That alone is a huge improvement over Notion's frequent non-answers, e.g. "That's a great idea, we'll add it to our feature list" (which they say to almost everything) 🙄
OMG, I was reading the comments and I didn't expecto to find such a great future alternative! Thank you!
hope notion enjoys reading my biology notes
Self-hosted alternatives like Obsidian, etc. are at least better in the privacy aspect: You are responsible for it.
I personally don’t have any qualms about using Notion as I don’t put any information which I consider to be sensitive on it. I don’t use any of the alternatives as the synchronization between different between devices is too good to give up.
Can’t have my cake and eat it too 😖
Yeah, completely agree! As I mentioned, I'll stick with Notion, but I can't wait for the day when they have E2E or even a self-hosting option. 🤞
@@harshibar Yes! I really hope so too. Please make a post or video if they ever do!
@@harshibar As far as I know, E2E is problematic when it comes synchronizing through all devices - you have save your data offline on your hard drives, right?
@@harshibar Do you think self-hosting will be better or more secure? I would think that any server space you can buy/rent for a reasonable price (ie. around the same price of a Notion pro account) will be more secure than their infrastructure? I think it would be MUCH easier for a hacker to search for and target all the self-hosted Notion installs, than to target Notion themselves. With self hosted you will always have X% of users who didn't set up security correctly, run outdated software on their server, etc. So I do hope they (and everybody else handling our data) add E2E, but self-hosting is usually less safe. Look at all the Wordpress websites.. its self-hosted and a prime and fairly easy to hack target.
My Synology Note Station app syncs between devices fine and stores all data on my local Synology NAS. Synology QuickConnect allows for easy access while away from home.
Honey please... Is 2021. EVERY single tech company is watching you.
It’s true 👀
Thanks for sharing such a important topic 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻. I started using Notion few months back but feels scared of security after watching this video ☹️
That's understandable! Most apps have the same level of security as Notion -- so I think it's important to just be cautious about what you put online (anywhere, not just Notion).
@@harshibar Thanks a lot again..Yeah, understood 😊 . I actually shared my passwords in Notion all in one place for my work to become easier. I will be removing that now 😊. Will be cautious moving forward for any app 🙏
@@RameshKumar-ng3nf Since it was not encrypted, there can be chances for Notion to save multiple versions of your content (Eg: to undo recent changes). Chances are very less or negligible though.
More secured option would be to change your passwords that was stored in Notion once.
Prabakaran M Thanks for sharing your views on this.
Why does everything has to be online?
Wouldn't it be good to have an offline use ?
Sure we could lose some possibilities to switch devices, but still
Thank you very much for this very honest and informative review! I started on Notion after watching your video on it actually! I did want to ask the community here about why privacy is such a big issue because I am genuinely curious. I once read in an article 'It's like, would you give your phone password to a stranger? If not, why would you want big corporations to have that kind of personal information?' Personally, I find that a mute point because I would have no qualms giving my passcode to a stranger since I can safely say that they would have no personal agenda against me; I feel the same about giving private data to big corporations. What are they really going to do with it such that it practically affects me in a personal way? Tailor ads for me? I do understand the Cambridge Analytica - Facebook scandal and its effects as I say that.
I did watch The Social Dilemma too and personally thought it was a tad overdramatic. There is a few characters in it that were not at all impacted by the addiction to social media and, quite frankly, I think the lack of addiction is not that uncommon. Poor parenting was a factor too imo (but we can talk about that another time lol). My point really is, I feel that data privacy is not a serious issue by any means. Tbh, if I had to give Notion a wish list of 20 things I would like them to add to the app, better privacy would not be on that list. As someone with an engineer-mindset, I just prefer functionality, efficiency and versatility more than privacy.
Again, I sincerely do respect the opinions of those who highly value data privacy. I do want to understand the other perspective. Hence, my question: Why is data privacy an important issue and what are the personal consequences you may fear from it? I'm assuming most of you wouldn't keep financial information, passwords or other sensitive information on a personal note-taking app; please do correct me if I'm wrong!
There is nothing anyone can say to you to change your mind if you don't value your privacy enough to realize that it's important. But feel free to post your accounts and passwords here, I'm sure nothing bad will happen.
honestly, there's never enough privacy for users, but that's just how it goes. no matter how "secure" the website is, there will always be hackers that will be able to access your data. no matter if internally externally. it won't stop and i actually find Notions security policy pretty good.
This is an underrated video. Not sure why none of these Notion "promoting" you-tubers didn't speak about security
Thanks for this video I'm using Googles note taking app and always thought my notes were encrypted by default. Seems like this is not the case sadly.
this is a really good video, eye opening for people who aren't aware of privacy issues. but for me as a student and probably most others students using notion for school/uni, I don't think this is a deal breaker. just be careful with what information you store on there!
00:05 It's was wide scale marketing campaign done by notion
one word:
monet
@@user-wk2gi5cp9y meaning?
@@Aj-fd4ne money was the motivation
I wish they'd implement E2E before I start using it
E2E encryption only covers transport between 2 endpoints. User A > User B is encrypted. Since Notion is not a messaging app it would not have E2E encryption. It may have transport encryption and encryption at rest. If you have a key that only you know that is called zero-knowledge encryption. That is really what you should want to be in place.
I just wondering, who tf wanna see my recipe, my school stuff and my weird journal in it😭
Idk man... I think notion would just get stressed out on how much academic sht like homework, quizzes, and exams I have to do for this week 🤷♀️😂
thank you so much, I was so excited to start Notion but not willing to have the exposure. You did a nice balanced approach to the security issue we all have with all apps
I was expecting this video to be a huge VPN ad, but everything you said seems to be legit. I learned a few things, so thank you :)
I doesn't matter to me who has the data I put in.... however, no, not in any way do I trust them, or their ability.
This makes me want to go back to using paper journals.
You can read 'Permanent Record by Edward Snowden'. I read, this in the beginning of 2020 this book is quite good, and for personal record you can use Bullet Journal.
Best of Luck Harshibar😆 aka Notion girl.
I'll check it out! Thanks for the recommendation 🙂
@@harshibar
Oh, that's alright!
I have been ignorant to this reality, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
about whatsapp: there are HUGE number of people that were arrestet in Azerbaijan, Russia, Belarus and other undemocratic countries bc the goverment read all the messages and found these people eho wrote smth against their goverments.