What is stored where with membership?

Hi @woodmeister50,

Thanks for taking the time to write in with these questions. I’d be happy to help answer them.

1. No company can guarantee absolutely that their servers will be absolutely
   100% available all the time forever.

That’s absolutely true. We have taken the service offline for maintenance a couple of times, and there has been a couple instances of unplanned downtime. Fortunately each of the 1Password apps keeps a local encrypted cache of your data. If the service is unavailable changes won’t sync, but you’ll be able to access whatever was available the last time you signed into that particular device.

2. No company can guarantee 100% absolutely that their servers are un-hackable.
   With the case of your service, depending on what is stored, it would make a very
   juicy target.

You are absolutely right. You can read in detail what we store and how we store it in our security white paper:

http://1pw.ca/whitepaper

We’ve built our entire design around the possibility that our servers would be compromised.

If you have further questions or need further details please let us know.

Ben

@woodmeister50: These are great questions! :)

1. Once set up on the iPhone for the account, will there always be an additional log-in required when I open the app or will the Master Unlock (fingerprint) used to open the app automatically log into the member servers?

When you initially setup the app with your 1Password.com account, you'll need to enter all of your account credentials to authorize it. But after that you'll be able to unlock it normally using your Master Password (or Touch ID) and access your data, even offline.

2. On the Mac, will the 1Password Mini automatically connect to the servers or will another log in be required other than the Master Password?

It works exactly the same in the app: you sign into your account to set it up, and then use it like you normally would the rest of the time.

3. Will iCloud or any other remote server for that matter be disabled and all moved to the members server? Is there still a choice in what to sync to?

1Password.com accounts store the encrypted data on the server. There are no 3rd party sync services involved, nothing to configure — you simply sign into your account to setup each device.

4. After setting up the initial Mac, is simply a matter of installing on subsequent Macs and simply add the account log in?

Yep!

5. Finally, if for some reason I add a Windows platform to my environment, will the subscription purchased via the MAS still be valid for it? Or will it only work with membership purchases directly from AgileBits?

A 1Password.com membership allows you to use all the apps across all of your devices; it's all included, whether you pay for the subscription through Apple or directly through 1Password.com.

Sorry for so many questions, but I am trying to decide whether switching to a subscription or sticking with the non-subscription is best for me and what caveats and possible pitfalls I may run into.

Hey, this is what we're here for! Let us know if you have any others. :)

In question 3, can I opt to have no data stored other than license validation on 1Password.com and sync only to my local server?

@woodmeister50: You can, but it isn't supported or recommended. You would not benefit from any of the convenience or security improvements of using 1Password.com, like seamless sync and the Secret Key which is also used to encrypt your data.

Even with v6, with all that is going on with breaches these days, I intend to contain all my syncing of passwords and sensitive documents to my local server.

That's why the "keys" to your data are never transmitted to us: the server only gets an encrypted blob, and even if that is stolen, an attacker will not have what they need to decrypt it; only you do. :)