I get it, it’s fun to make jabs at posts on HN. You don’t need to lean so hard into the trope.

I may have assumed that your backups were encrypted, just because so many backup tools do it automatically. And I didn’t put that in the post. Predictably, I get some kind of jerk replying to the comment with a sarcastic jab, rather than any kind of interesting discussion.

Accidental data loss is the big risk, and for most people, it’s a bigger risk than any risk of someone reading your unencrypted data. It makes sense to start with the most serious risks (data loss), and work your way down to the minor risks (compromise).

It makes not sense to start by encrypting your data, because it significantly increases your risk of data loss, in the absence of good backups. That’s what the article is talking about.

I legitimately didn't, and still don't, see how this solves the problem of less technical users losing their encryption keys.

Because it gives you a longer period of time to learn the keys without consequences if you forget.

If you encrypt your HD, you’re suddenly in a position where forgetting your key will lose all your data. It’s like walking off a cliff and hoping you can fly.

If you start by making backups and doing test restores, there’s a period of time where you are still forced to remember the key (to do the restore), but the consequences for losing it are low.

Yeah I don't think this would help my mother.

Your mother wouldn’t benefit from backups? The idea here is that you get backups working first, because data loss is the most serious risk, and then you later consider whether you want full disk encryption once you have backups working.

Encryption is designed to make data difficult to access, so it makes sense to consider backups and encryption jointly. I don’t understand why someone would consider this controversial.

Now you need to manage password to your backups (that you would encrypt, else why bother with encryption in the first place?) and to your encryption.

Or maybe just capitulate and admit that a bunch of kids, people and cat pictures maybe don't need to sit on encrypted storage

Yes, it seems we agree on all these points here. I don’t think we have any disagreements. My whole argument is that backups are more important than encryption for most people, and encryption is (1) not necessary and (2) shouldn’t be attempted until you have good backups.

You seem to be arguing against something here, but it sounds like it’s really just a miscommunication. The original prompt was to fit the instructions on a postcard, and and perhaps it’s not really possible to fit good instructions on a postcard.

In order to fit instructions on a postcard, there are a number of things I left out with the idea that someone could figure them out. Stuff like “how do I do backups” or “should I encrypt my backups”. I thought that people could figure out to encrypt their backups if they wanted to, because backup solutions have that option. I also thought that people could figure out that you’d also encrypt your backups if you encrypted your hard drive. Maybe I should have spelled it out in excruciating detail.

As far as I can tell, that’s the lesson here—spell things out in excruciating detail, or you’ll get sarcastic jabs in the replies.