Microsoft loses customer's Sidekick Data
Anyone heard about Microsoft losing customer's Sidekick data? Anyway, just to be safe I think it is high time people start backing up their Hotmail accounts. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10372525-56.html?tag=rtcol;pop.
...first came across it on /. ... http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/11/0335210/Server-Failure-Destroys-... ...hard to believe m$ didnt have a backup for this kind of service... <grumble>i'll never understand why users place 100% trust on "cloud" providers with all their data.</grumble> <m.b> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com> wrote:
Anyone heard about Microsoft losing customer's Sidekick data? Anyway, just to be safe I think it is high time people start backing up their Hotmail accounts. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10372525-56.html?tag=rtcol;pop.
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It's not an issue of clouds or sidekick or even microsoft, much as not having backups is a spectacular show of incompetence. It's an issue of users taking charge of their own data and taking necessary precautions. It is sheer folly to trust your data entirely to Microsoft/Google/Yahoo/Amazon etc without fallbacks. Even on your local PC the brown stuff can hit the fan, just ask some Snow Leopard users http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-10373064-260.html I'm very sure a large percentage of us right here, who ought to know better, don't back up our personal data. On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM, MotoBaridi <motobaridi@gmail.com> wrote:
...first came across it on /. ... http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/11/0335210/Server-Failure-Destroys-...
...hard to believe m$ didnt have a backup for this kind of service... <grumble>i'll never understand why users place 100% trust on "cloud" providers with all their data.</grumble>
<m.b>
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com>wrote:
Anyone heard about Microsoft losing customer's Sidekick data? Anyway, just to be safe I think it is high time people start backing up their Hotmail accounts. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10372525-56.html?tag=rtcol;pop.
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On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Rad! <conradakunga@gmail.com> wrote:
It's not an issue of clouds or sidekick or even microsoft, much as not having backups is a spectacular show of incompetence. It's an issue of users taking charge of their own data and taking necessary precautions. It is sheer folly to trust your data entirely to Microsoft/Google/Yahoo/Amazon etc without fallbacks.
With any service, it boils down to reading the fine print. For example, Apple's MobileMe includes the following in it's Terms of Service (http://www.apple.com/legal/mobileme/en/terms.html): Backup Your Content ================ You are responsible for backing up, to your own computer or other device, any important documents, images or other Content that you store or access via the Service. Apple does not guarantee or warrant that any Content you may store or access through the Service will not be subject to inadvertent damage, corruption or loss. ~gms
Err... wrong on this one Rad. It is an issue of Sidekick and Microsoft. The whole point of Sidekick, as conceived by Danger (the company that was bought by Microsoft) was that it required a data connection for the most basic tasks since everything was automagically stored on centralized servers, there was no other way to do it, and that was part of the appeal for some users. You're right about it not being an issue of clouds, it was rather a good ol' centralized data house that was horribly mismanaged by Microsoft and friends. Here's Reuters take: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/10/12/how-the-sidekick-fiasco-is-... And here's why some think it has nothing to do with clouds (so references to Google and Amazon cloud services are incorrect): http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/12/the-sidekick-failure-... saidi On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 4:21 AM, Rad! <conradakunga@gmail.com> wrote:
It's not an issue of clouds or sidekick or even microsoft, much as not having backups is a spectacular show of incompetence. It's an issue of users taking charge of their own data and taking necessary precautions. It is sheer folly to trust your data entirely to Microsoft/Google/Yahoo/Amazon etc without fallbacks. Even on your local PC the brown stuff can hit the fan, just ask some Snow Leopard users http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-10373064-260.html
I'm very sure a large percentage of us right here, who ought to know better, don't back up our personal data.
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM, MotoBaridi <motobaridi@gmail.com> wrote:
...first came across it on /. ... http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/11/0335210/Server-Failure-Destroys-...
...hard to believe m$ didnt have a backup for this kind of service... <grumble>i'll never understand why users place 100% trust on "cloud" providers with all their data.</grumble>
<m.b>
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com>wrote:
Anyone heard about Microsoft losing customer's Sidekick data? Anyway, just to be safe I think it is high time people start backing up their Hotmail accounts. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10372525-56.html?tag=rtcol;pop.
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My point is that it does not matter which company name you put there or whatever the technology is called. I think it is semantics whether the technology is AWS or data center storage. Users neither know nor care nor need to know what technologies are being used on the other end. The reason I'm saying its semantics is that whether it's AWS or S3 or Google Apps or Azure, the end of the day something has to be written to disk. The fact of the matter is -- if your data is *entirely* stored on someone else's servers it is only a matter of time before Murphy catches up with you, be it colossal incompetence (as is this case), disasters (flooding, etc) or hardware failure. On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 5:58 PM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
Err... wrong on this one Rad. It is an issue of Sidekick and Microsoft. The whole point of Sidekick, as conceived by Danger (the company that was bought by Microsoft) was that it required a data connection for the most basic tasks since everything was automagically stored on centralized servers, there was no other way to do it, and that was part of the appeal for some users.
You're right about it not being an issue of clouds, it was rather a good ol' centralized data house that was horribly mismanaged by Microsoft and friends. Here's Reuters take: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/10/12/how-the-sidekick-fiasco-is-...
And here's why some think it has nothing to do with clouds (so references to Google and Amazon cloud services are incorrect): http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/12/the-sidekick-failure-...
saidi
The fact of the matter is -- if your data is *entirely* stored on someone
else's servers it is only a matter of time before Murphy catches up with you, be it colossal incompetence (as is this case), disasters (flooding, etc) or hardware failure.
Given that my mail, calender, documents and tasks are all handled by Google ATM, I should be worried... -- With Regards, Phares Kariuki | T: +254 734 810 802 | E: pkariuki@gmail.com | Twitter: kaboro | Skype: kariukiphares |
You should. Even google can lose customer data http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-analytics-loses-a-weeks-e-commerce-data/. And so can Nokia http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/02/12/nokias-ovi-loses-data... On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 6:16 PM, Phares Kariuki <pkariuki@gmail.com> wrote:
The fact of the matter is -- if your data is *entirely* stored on someone
else's servers it is only a matter of time before Murphy catches up with you, be it colossal incompetence (as is this case), disasters (flooding, etc) or hardware failure.
Given that my mail, calender, documents and tasks are all handled by Google ATM, I should be worried...
-- With Regards,
Phares Kariuki
| T: +254 734 810 802 | E: pkariuki@gmail.com | Twitter: kaboro | Skype: kariukiphares |
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Rad, quick question: do you back up *all* your bank statements and transactions? Your bank's servers could go belly-up any moment. Assuming you do it diligently, should this be expected of users? In your words, why should users care? They're paying you to make sure Murphy is outwitted. With Microsoft/Sidekick users, there was no facility to backup their data to their phones, unless they had the technical knowhow to hook it up to their laptops and hope they could retrieve the data from non-supported software. Again, in your words, why should users care? It is not an issue of semantics. Amazon AWS is *not* an application, it is a service on which developers build applications that end users interact with. The Microsoft/Sidekick model is *not* a service for developers, it is an application for end users. The expectations of data backup and data loss are completely different! In one case, AWS and the like, you are interacting with developers and it reasonable to expect/demand independent backup, in another (Microsoft/Sidekick) you are dealing with end-users and it is irresponsible to expect independent, un-supported data backups. Back to bank statements: it is reasonable to expect banks to independently backup their data from their storage providers, it is completely unreasonable to expect end-users of the banks to do the same. Complexity should always be shifted from the end-users to the developers. We're paid to (essentially) manage risk for the user, not worsen the situation. saidi On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Rad! <conradakunga@gmail.com> wrote:
You should. Even google can lose customer data http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-analytics-loses-a-weeks-e-commerce-data/. And so can Nokia http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/02/12/nokias-ovi-loses-data...
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 6:16 PM, Phares Kariuki <pkariuki@gmail.com>wrote:
The fact of the matter is -- if your data is *entirely* stored on someone
else's servers it is only a matter of time before Murphy catches up with you, be it colossal incompetence (as is this case), disasters (flooding, etc) or hardware failure.
Given that my mail, calender, documents and tasks are all handled by Google ATM, I should be worried...
-- With Regards,
Phares Kariuki
| T: +254 734 810 802 | E: pkariuki@gmail.com | Twitter: kaboro | Skype: kariukiphares |
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This reminds me of that debate between 'hackers' and 'crackers'. The semantics have since become irrelevant. Personally it makes no difference to me whether you call it cloud storage or data centers. As far as users are concerned, cloud storage is storage not on their physical machines/phones. Whether the service is availed for end users or for developers is neither here nor there. The end result is the same. All these people you pay to provide backups are not immune to forces of nature or forces of incompetence. As for definitioons I think you're splitting hairs here. Suppose Microsoft backed up that data to S3 or Azure. Would we still be having this argument? And what if the gmail interface application went offline (as it did some weeks back). For that period I was unable to access my email. And in fact I remember vividly because I had some invoices in my mail that I needed to action. (Mercifully i downloaded copies). For those hours there wasn't any difference between application failure and storage failure -- at the end of the day you could not get your mail/ I personally believe it is your responsibility to back up your data. Phone book addresses, contacts, etc. Your bank analogy is not correct because the banking systems are not mine to backup. I do however have access to my phone contacts, emails, mp3s, ebooks, files etc and therefore I should take precautions. Having a copy online as the *ONLY *backup is not good enough. See the link I sent about an online backup company losing 7.500 customer's data. You might not like what i said about backups but that is the reality of the matter. Sh!t happens, if you excuse the French. On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 6:40 PM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
Rad, quick question: do you back up *all* your bank statements and transactions? Your bank's servers could go belly-up any moment. Assuming you do it diligently, should this be expected of users? In your words, why should users care? They're paying you to make sure Murphy is outwitted. With Microsoft/Sidekick users, there was no facility to backup their data to their phones, unless they had the technical knowhow to hook it up to their laptops and hope they could retrieve the data from non-supported software. Again, in your words, why should users care?
It is not an issue of semantics. Amazon AWS is *not* an application, it is a service on which developers build applications that end users interact with. The Microsoft/Sidekick model is *not* a service for developers, it is an application for end users. The expectations of data backup and data loss are completely different! In one case, AWS and the like, you are interacting with developers and it reasonable to expect/demand independent backup, in another (Microsoft/Sidekick) you are dealing with end-users and it is irresponsible to expect independent, un-supported data backups.
Back to bank statements: it is reasonable to expect banks to independently backup their data from their storage providers, it is completely unreasonable to expect end-users of the banks to do the same.
Complexity should always be shifted from the end-users to the developers. We're paid to (essentially) manage risk for the user, not worsen the situation.
saidi
To each their own. We can agree to strongly disagree on this point. On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Rad! <conradakunga@gmail.com> wrote:
This reminds me of that debate between 'hackers' and 'crackers'. The semantics have since become irrelevant.
Personally it makes no difference to me whether you call it cloud storage or data centers. As far as users are concerned, cloud storage is storage not on their physical machines/phones.
Whether the service is availed for end users or for developers is neither here nor there. The end result is the same. All these people you pay to provide backups are not immune to forces of nature or forces of incompetence. As for definitioons I think you're splitting hairs here. Suppose Microsoft backed up that data to S3 or Azure. Would we still be having this argument? And what if the gmail interface application went offline (as it did some weeks back). For that period I was unable to access my email. And in fact I remember vividly because I had some invoices in my mail that I needed to action. (Mercifully i downloaded copies). For those hours there wasn't any difference between application failure and storage failure -- at the end of the day you could not get your mail/
I personally believe it is your responsibility to back up your data. Phone book addresses, contacts, etc. Your bank analogy is not correct because the banking systems are not mine to backup. I do however have access to my phone contacts, emails, mp3s, ebooks, files etc and therefore I should take precautions. Having a copy online as the *ONLY *backup is not good enough. See the link I sent about an online backup company losing 7.500 customer's data.
You might not like what i said about backups but that is the reality of the matter. Sh!t happens, if you excuse the French.
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 6:40 PM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
Rad, quick question: do you back up *all* your bank statements and transactions? Your bank's servers could go belly-up any moment. Assuming you do it diligently, should this be expected of users? In your words, why should users care? They're paying you to make sure Murphy is outwitted. With Microsoft/Sidekick users, there was no facility to backup their data to their phones, unless they had the technical knowhow to hook it up to their laptops and hope they could retrieve the data from non-supported software. Again, in your words, why should users care?
It is not an issue of semantics. Amazon AWS is *not* an application, it is a service on which developers build applications that end users interact with. The Microsoft/Sidekick model is *not* a service for developers, it is an application for end users. The expectations of data backup and data loss are completely different! In one case, AWS and the like, you are interacting with developers and it reasonable to expect/demand independent backup, in another (Microsoft/Sidekick) you are dealing with end-users and it is irresponsible to expect independent, un-supported data backups.
Back to bank statements: it is reasonable to expect banks to independently backup their data from their storage providers, it is completely unreasonable to expect end-users of the banks to do the same.
Complexity should always be shifted from the end-users to the developers. We're paid to (essentially) manage risk for the user, not worsen the situation.
saidi
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participants (6)
-
Glenn Sequeira -
MotoBaridi -
Phares Kariuki -
Philip Musyoki -
Rad! -
saidimu apale