Greetings!

On 5/4/2016 7:44 AM, HerHusband wrote:
as we have the sole "physical" mailed copy, we're pretty
sure no one is seeing the paper copies, either.

That doesn't prevent hackers from accessing the online electronic
versions. Just ask Home Depot, Target, Sony, etc...

Of course! Nor the IRS, etc. But, we don't have accounts with Home Depot,
Sony, Target, etc. grin

What it does prevent is malware on any machine that *we* use to access them
from leaking that information to a bad guy. If you're "on-line" (with "that"
machine -- i.e., to pay bills and access accounts) often, then you are more
likely to encounter something you "shouldn't" (e.g., a driveby), drop your
guard for a moment, use it to ALSO read mail/WWW/etc.

One of my checking accounts tried to go that route -- wanting
$8.95/month for the paper copies of the statements (thinking that
would coerce me into going electronic). I thanked them for their
offer by closing the account.

Unfortunately, there are no alternatives for many of my bills (garbage,
electric, cable internet, etc.). You either pay the paper fee or go
electronic.

It actually costs *more* for us to pay electronically with some of our bills.
E.g., city water/sewer charges an extra fee for that "service".

use plastic and cash for most payments so just pay off the
credit card companies each month.

Yep, same here. I'm sure the banks don't like us as we have't paid a
finance charge in many, many years.

I'm pretty OCD when it comes to paying bills on time. Had to rush home
for one of those "hopefully he'll still be alive when you get here"
sort of events. Grabbed a laptop (to work), a change of clothes (have
laundry facilities there!) and my checkbook.

I was there ~2+ months. Consulted the payment dates in the checkbook to
know when each bill would be coming (I pay promptly when I receive the bill).
Then, telephoned each entity to inquire as to my current balance (account
numbers recorded in the comments field for each checkbook entry) and the
address to which I should mail the payment.

An order of 100 checks can last me many years. I am always amused
when I see these folks with 5-digit check numbers!

We're still using the same checks we bought 25+ years ago. We're up to
check number 2200 now. We almost never use checks anymore. The few places
that still required them (income taxes, property taxes, etc.) have now
gone electronic too.

I find (canceled) checks are a great "receipt" for many of my business
purchases. I don't have to look through lists of every credit card
purchase to try to understand what each charge may have been.

We still have several books of checks left from that original order.
They'll probably last the rest of our lives.

you're reliant on a medium that you can't implicitly verify (can
you LOOK at a thumb drive/CD/DVD/etc. and KNOW that it is intact?)

Flash drives and optical discs are bad backup mediums. I think flash
drives are rated for only 5 years, and I've had CD's become unreadable
after just a year. I only use those for short term storage, specifically
when I need to mail data to someone else.

Flash drives that see repeated use tend to fail, IME. I have a 32G drive
that's essentially new that will only write at ~1MB/s. It's on the list
to be replaced, today (stores a copy of MP3's for the car's player)

OTOH, I'm pretty confident copying last year's tax return onto the "Finances"
thumb drive that we keep in the bug-out-bag.

I've had great luck with optical media (CD/DVD) lasting 5 or more years.
Likewise, tape and MO media. But, I tend to "baby" it -- cool, dark places,
etc. Also, record on the slowest setting possible, no overburns, etc.

Blu-Ray's are "supposed" to be longer lasting (25+ years), but I don't
trust them for my sole backups. There are discs made by M-Disc that are
supposed to last 1000+ years, but the cost and storage limits are still
an issue.

I'm more about redundancy. I backup to hard drives because they're fast,
inexpensive, and can store a lot of data. But I EXPECT the drive to fail
at some point, so I have multiple hard drive backups. I also backup
important data to BluRay discs every so often just to have another copy.

Yes. I probably have ~20+T in my archive. But, that incorporates the
redundancy -- at least two copies of everything. I have every "object"
tracked in a database using a simple schema:
(unique_identifier, name, container, checksum, other-meta-data)
So, a file called "2015" residing in "/Finances/Taxes/Federal" on the
"XYZ" volume has the following entries:
(1, "XYZ", -, ...)
(2, "Finances", 1, ...)
(3, "Taxes", 2, ...)
(5, "Federal", 3, ...)
(82, "2015", 5, ...)
A backup copy called "IRS" in "/MyFiles/2015" on the BB volume would add:
(70, "BB", -, ...)
(951, "MyFiles", 70, ...)
(952, "2015", 951, ...)
(955, "IRS", 952, ...)
While another called "2015" in "/Taxes/IRS.zip" on the XYZ volume adds:
(79, "Taxes", 1, ...)
(10023, "IRS.zip", 79, ...)
(88888, "2015", 10023, ...)
I.e., each of these objects are the same object (contents) just with different
names and in different containers (a container can obviously be a directory
or an "archive file").

Because they will all have the same "checksum" (hash), I can automagically
locate potential duplicates -- by those hashes ("name" is immaterial).
Then, track down where they are located by walking the tuples backwards.

So, I can have as many copies as I want -- on as many different media/volumes!
I.e., as long as the "volume name" is unique, I don't care if it is a CD, DVD,
internal hard disk, CF card, MO cartridge, tape reel, etc. Find it, mount it
and the database will tell you how to retrieve the desired "contents".

And, because I have a stored hash of each object's "desired" contents, I
can periodically walk through any mounted volumes and verify their
contents against the stored hashes. So, I know if a medium is degrading
*before* it fails -- as well as what its contents "were" -- so I can
recreate it on a fresh medium!

The one downside to rewriteable backups (flash drives and hard drives) is
that the data can change. If the data on my main drive is corrupted
(drive failure, virus, etc.), my automated backups can copy that
corrupted data to my backup drive (overwriting the previous backup with
the new corrupted backup). I may not discover it until it is too late.

Exactly. The flaw in most backup scenarios (and why I have the "active
scrubbing" mechanism outlined above). You *may* get an ECC error ("read
error") when you try to make that backup. But, the "drive/transport/driver"
usually won't let you see the raw, "corrupted" data in those events! So,
you can't even decide if "everything looks intact except the name on the
document is AnThony instead of Anthony (single bit flip)!

Then, you are reliant on some ad hoc scheme to recall where THE backup
of this file is located so you can (hopefully) use it to restore THIS
instance.

That's one of the reasons I still backup to BluRays every now and then.
As long as the disc is still readable, I know the data won't change.

As for verifying the data, there are programs that can calculate MD5
hashes for the files on the drive. This allows you to quickly verify that
the files on the drive have not changed since they were written to the
drive. Of course, it's a time consuming process to calculate the hashes,
and I'm probably not going to take the time to verify the documents. So,
I stopped doing the MD5 hashing, and just rely on multiple copies.

I have appliances that I designed that do this as soon as they are turned
on. I.e., if I need to access some files from the archive (for a new
project, etc.), then I fire up the appliance(s), mount the particular
volumes that the database has told me contain the files of interest
(usually a large sub-tree -- like /Projects/1988/ClientX/ProjectY)
and pull a copy of the files off the archive onto whatever medium
is appropriate for my current need.

Once the appliance is up and the drive(s) spinning, the "verify job"
resumes -- and just keeps marching through whichever volume(s) happen to
be mounted, checking hashes based on where the job left off the last time
it "saw" these volume(s).

So, I just leave the box run for a while and let it slog through as
much as it can -- before I decide to spin everything down. In that
way, the "verification" is essentially free -- I don't have to wait for
EVERYTHING to be verified; just let it remember how much progress it made
so that it can pick up from that point next time.

[I store "timestamp of last verify" with each database tuple so I can
query the database and figure out which objects have NOT been verified
in the longest time -- and, how long that has been]

Note that I can incorporate "original media" into this scheme as well!
Just make an entry for the volume identity of the original medium
(e.g., the DVD for Windows7 install) and let the software catalog
the files on the medium, the "containers" for each and their hashes.
If I clone any of those files to any other place in the archive system,
I'll be able to find those copies based on the hashes and other metadata!

Paper documents aren't necessarily foolproof either. A while back I went
through our fire safe to clean out documents we no longer needed. I was
surprised to find that most of the thermal printed documents (most store
receipts) were completely faded. They were just white pieces of paper.
Thankfully, I had previously scanned the important receipts so I still
had electronic copies.

Yup! The same is true for NCR paper and many store receipts. We photocopy
documents before archiving cuz the photocopies seem to be more resilient.
(some of my early tax records have lots of "blank slips of paper" tucked in
the folders -- all the "original receipts" documenting those purchases! : )

You could have similar issues with fire, water damage, or insects.

Yup. And CD/DVD/BRay/MO/tape/etc. are just as vulnerable to fire, water
damage, etc. OTOH, paper rarely suffers from a "bearing failure"... :

(Do you have backups of the various *drives* that each of these media
require?)

I find *using* the documents in electronic form to be tedious.

It took me a while to adapt to balancing our checkbooks using the PDF
bank statements instead of the printed statements I was used to. Now it
seems just as easy as the paper versions.

I just balance using the check register. Once an entry (deposit, withdrawal,
check, etc.) has been accounted for, I "check it off" in the register.
So, I know the calculations that it was involved in are correct. All I
have to do is deal with the (few) new entries since the most recent
"checkpoint".

I only use the bank statement to know which items have cleared and what
THEY think my balance should be. Irritating if a check is slow to be
processed but no big deal to add that amount back into "my" balance.

Learn to cook better! : (I find Pepto-Bismol to be *nasty* stuff!)

We cook well, but sometimes we might drink a little too much, or eat
something we knew we shouldn't. For example, I hadn't eaten a donut in
years but gave in to temptation last week and bought some maple bars. Big
mistake, I was up all night with indigestion. I won't do that again. I
just can't tolerate fatty foods like that anymore.

frown Thankfully, I don't appear to have any similar problems. I
once got sick from some "bad chicken" I tasted as a sampler. Taught me
not to eat *in* grocery stores!

We don't drink so that's not a risk (SWMBO might have a shot of brandy
if she's having trouble falling asleep; I just make sure I'm dead tired! : )

I hate the liquid version of Pepto-Bismol too, but the pill versions work
just as well without the yucky factor.

I use Advil for the occasional headache

I don't have any allergies and rarely get a headache.

Unfortunately, I have *lots* of "seasonal allergies". My scratch test
results raised eyebrows. And, here, things are ALWAYS growing. So,
it's just one allergen after another. Apparently manifests in sinuses
leading to headaches above/behind the eyes, etc.

SLIT regimen this year seems to be making a difference. Never should have
stopped it, previously. :

But Advil does work best for headaches.

I find it invaluable for "lack of sleep" headaches. Often, can't GET to
sleep if fighting one of those! Of course, going to sleep "as required"
would also eliminate the problem... :

It also works good for things like sore throats, or
swelling. It doesn't seem to do anything for sore muscles though.

I guess I just consider sore muscles to be a natural consequence of
physical labor. Never thought of "taking" anything for them -- other
than a nice hot shower. And, a good sleep that night!

We find Aleve to be a miracle drug for muscle pain.