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Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

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Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#51

Post by jkaunisv1 »

ghostpepper wrote: post #29
jkaunisv1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Fastmail until they randomly deleted a large chunk of my emails and the support followup was abysmal (one email a day around 4am EST) with no ability to recover, explanation or apology on their part. It was the push I needed to set up a Mailinabox instance. It was a breeze to install and has been working great since I spun it up four months ago.

As a recent convert from gmail to fastmail, this scares the hell out of me. How long did this go on before you pulled the plug? I am not Australian/located in Australia so I would have about as much recourse with fastmail as I would with google (ie. none).

Emails were deleted August 23rd, across a wide variety of folders, all at the same millisecond (when I later pointed this out and how difficult it would be for me to do this accidentally, they did not comment).

Noticed on October 4th. I'd noticed some emails weren't turning up in searches but I chalked it up to my bad memory until there was one I knew for a fact should have been there. It was Oct 22nd by the time we got to any sort of conclusion, which was basically "there's nothing we can do for stuff that far back but I'll try to restore any recently deleted emails we can find". Getting details/logs/info from their support, even after they escalated to a higher level, was like pulling teeth.

They restored a bunch of things I'd actually deleted but they were all stuck in Draft mode, took till Oct 31st for them to sort-of fix that mess.

I set up the Mailinabox somewhere in that period. I still have my fastmail account because I wanted some overlap to test the MIAB before committing, and I'm getting ready to fully pull the plug before my next billing cycle.

It was a good lesson in setting up regular backups and not trusting any provider. I found Fastmail great to use until that experience, and I could see them being useful as a relay to send through trusted servers, but not worth my money to deal with the terrible support.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#52

Post by thedance »

brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

I get an absolutely endless parade of other people's data to my gmail account. Doctors send me MRI scans. Bankers send me foreclosure notices. Airlines send me tickets. Undertakers send me condolences. The preponderance of evidence suggests that relying on individual vigilance on a large scale does not work as well as relying on the vigilance of large organizations.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#53

Post by darkwater »

thedance wrote: post #52
brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

I get an absolutely endless parade of other people's data to my gmail account. Doctors send me MRI scans. Bankers send me foreclosure notices. Airlines send me tickets. Undertakers send me condolences. The preponderance of evidence suggests that relying on individual vigilance on a large scale does not work as well as relying on the vigilance of large organizations.

Your comment is quite anecdotal I would dare to say, and anyway the scope of single individuals messing up is quite, quite smaller than the scope of $LARGE_COMPANY. Even if you sum all those individuals.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#54

Post by Kaiyou »

crazygringo wrote: post #42
brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

Everybody makes mistakes and nothing in the world is black and white. The only question is, is your cloud provider less likely to make mistakes with your data than you are? For most people, the answer is going to be orders of magnitude less likely.

Just encrypt your data before putting it onto somebody else's computer a.k.a. the cloud.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#55

Post by pergadad »

brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

But if I host myself I have to trust both my own IT skills and the one FOSS maintainer that provides the software...

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#56

Post by balladeer »

brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

I use Restic Backup to backup to a supported object storage and now setting up another provider (or VPS which will be slightly tricky) via Borg Backup (for the same data). The most important of that (~1GB) gets backed up to Tarsnap too. And once copy gets backed up to my local hard disk.

Once a while if I have to share any photos with some friends I send them an iCloud link and then remove the photos once they have either downloaded or seen.

I know there's a risk of losing the data if I forget/misplace the key(s) and my hard disk dies (at the same time) but then I could forget my Google credentials too, or worse still (with a higher probability) I could get locked out of my Google A/c and I don't know any Googler, neither do I have too many Twitter followers.

It's been worth it and once setup it's been running smoothly for over a year (across 2 laptop changes/data migration).

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#57

Post by balladeer »

jimbob45 wrote: post #13
brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

What do you use for email over Gmail?

Mailbox.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#58

Post by davidwparker »

brenden2 wrote: post #20
gman83 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Photos is pretty great though. My use case for it is that even though it's private, I assume that any photo on there could become public.

I, too, was a fan of Google Photos in the early days. But I've decided that privacy is more important than the convenience of its syncing feature. You never know how that data might come back and bite you in the future. I have an iPhone but I don't use iCloud's backup or sync feature either, I just store my photos locally. I backup my iPhone to my iMac, and I backup my iMac to my Synology NAS in my closet. I try to k…

Do you use any remote backups? What do you do in case of a fire?

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#59

Post by zubspace »

brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

For consumer products, the cloud makes perfect sense. Scaling, performance and orchestration make it a perfect fit. And who cares about the few things that fall into wrong hands here and there...

Our business, on the other hand, works closely with government agencies, insurance companies and similar institutions, and the cloud is an absolute no-go. All sensitive data on-premise on the intranet. No need for change.

I believe many people are not aware yet, that things in the cloud cannot be controlled, or they consciously accepted that. Many companies won't take this risk.

Re: Some Google Photos videos in backups were sent to strangers in November

#60

Post by drewg123 »

thedance wrote: post #52
brenden2 wrote: post #11

The usual argument for using "cloud" over managing your own files/data is that it's very hard to safely manage your own data without making mistakes (data loss, etc). However, this is an example of how companies like Google also make mistakes. Furthermore, when Google/FB makes a mistake (like leaking your private data) they do it at a global scale. I offboarded myself from all of Google's services a while ago, but I…

I get an absolutely endless parade of other people's data to my gmail account. Doctors send me MRI scans. Bankers send me foreclosure notices. Airlines send me tickets. Undertakers send me condolences. The preponderance of evidence suggests that relying on individual vigilance on a large scale does not work as well as relying on the vigilance of large organizations.

I assume that this not because Google is midirecting email, but rather because your email address is quite close to that of others.

Mine is just my last name @gmail.com. It is a rather uncommon name, and I've met many others with that name, as I've accidentally received email intended for them.

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