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Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

digitalcameraworld.com

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Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#141

Post by agumonkey »

nabla9 wrote: post #49
radicaldreamer wrote: post #6

This is all because someone thought it would be “easy” to add a stream of recurring revenue for cloud photo storage but didn’t take the time to design the service from a technical perspective to be resilient enough to not crash and burn.

This can be just calculated risk. Incredible damage for some users can be negligible damage to the company. In this case just 10TB of data was lost, so maybe thousands of users for the long term storage option. Losing customer data has potential for big reputation or brand damage, but surprisingly often the damage is relatively small. Putting in too much effort when potential damage to business is minimal may not be…

I wonder if they discuss that and actually write down calculations

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#142

Post by ghaff »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #53
henvic wrote: post #36

Everyone should be looking for a backup strategy that involves at least a hot backup and a cold backup, with some sort of offline validation. However this is easier said than done (because now you've to deal with multiple file systems, decisions about cryptography, lack of interest in creating something that you hope you'll never need, and so on). I wish there was a service (and don't tell me about Backblaze because…

I have a multi-dimensional backup strategy, which includes “cloudy” backups of my most important assets, using services like GitHub, local hourly NAS (Synology double-redundant RAID-like) incremental backups of my whole system, and running “hot” backups of my system and development volumes; automatically updated every four hours (or on-demand. It's a bootable CCC clone). I seldom need to use anything more than my “ho…

A problem with digital media as well is that it encourages you to just save everything but it's easier that way. But as I'm discovering well into the digital era, I wish I had more curated photos and video--though that comes with its own problems.

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#143

Post by syshum »

traveler01 wrote: post #117
jacquesm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there won't be at this rate. Besides, it is now a net negative for their users. 'The cloud is not a backup' should be a mantra that everybody that uses the cloud for their work and personal data be familiar with.

I use the Cloud to store all my work and it's my way of backup. I trust Google's capacity to save my files. But, this being said, you SHOULD have other ways of backing up your data, like another HDD, storing locally in your PC too. Being too careful is never enough.

>> I trust Google's capacity to save my files

Sure but do you Trust Google's AI not pick up something from you, or a network you happen to be connected to then determine your account is in violation of their ToS at which time all of your accounts are suspended.

Which if that happens you better hope you can get enough social media attention to have your issue attract and actual person with authority in google to do something...

If not your SOL as is your data that google "reliably saved" for you

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#144

Post by arethuza »

chrisseaton wrote: post #122
jacquesm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there won't be at this rate. Besides, it is now a net negative for their users. 'The cloud is not a backup' should be a mantra that everybody that uses the cloud for their work and personal data be familiar with.

> The cloud is not a backup Of course the cloud is a backup. Why do you think it isn’t? Because it may break? All storage may break. The cloud is a backup. Like all backups, you need multiple independent backups.

And you need to check that you can actually restore from backups - which is a step a remarkable number of people forget to do.

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#145

Post by kohtatsu »

wruza wrote: post #84
kohtatsu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment reads as "This is normal; nothing to see here move along". Which is more of an indictment on the state of things than on the comment itself. If you can't protect people's shit, don't offer to hold onto it for money!

Or what? They could and they did.

Or they could like, not.

I think there's a world where corporations aren't given a carte blanche pass on human decency.

I believe that world is nicer and where possible I work to give it room to exist;

I boycott Disney because I believe what they did to the copyright system is wrong.

I don't use Google or Microsoft products because I don't think they treat users with respect. (Minus youtube which I use a mirror, and the occasional google search when I get tired of banging my head against ddg (~1-2/week, but my tolerance is probably higher than most))

I'm even abstaining from my copy of Overwatch despite loving the gameplay of a character in it, because I don't believe supporting the HK protests warrants a ban.

I'm not going to boycott Canon from this, incompetence is generally forgivable, but I certainly think it's noteworthy, and if it comes to light they are as nonchalant as OP says they can be then I won't be supporting them.

Downthread someone had mentioned there was a 10GB/user cap, so it's unlikely someone had been using it as their only copy which is also reassuring.

But then again maybe someone was just getting into photography after having a baby, and their precious first photos were lost! Or photos from a special date, or first (god forbid last) moments with a pet; it's sad to think about, and it can't be justified with "darn, guess it's gone forever so Canon could gain a small advantage using some risk calculus. Oh well, I give more of a damn about the stock market than those photos."

Don't give me that shit!

Disclaimer: I only own a pitiful EOS 20d and a cute f1.4 50mm, but my friend has been super into photography and I've been wanting to get into it again.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#146

Post by chrisseaton »

tinco wrote: post #124
traveler01 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the Cloud to store all my work and it's my way of backup. I trust Google's capacity to save my files. But, this being said, you SHOULD have other ways of backing up your data, like another HDD, storing locally in your PC too. Being too careful is never enough.

Sure, Google can save your files. But will it? and will you never lose access to Google? The problem with these big cloud providers is there are employees and robots with a big "disable account button", but there's no one you can call to talk about reenabling your account. I don't know what the odds are that Google is going to hit that "disable account" button on your account, it's probably incredible small, but if i…

> Sure, X can save your files. But will it? and will you never lose access to X?

Google, DropBox, a storage server in your house, external hard drives, tapes, burnt DVDs... you can swap in any backup system there and it's exactly the same. Google's cloud is just as valid as a backup as any other.

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#147

Post by tinco »

chrisseaton wrote: post #146
tinco wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Google can save your files. But will it? and will you never lose access to Google? The problem with these big cloud providers is there are employees and robots with a big "disable account button", but there's no one you can call to talk about reenabling your account. I don't know what the odds are that Google is going to hit that "disable account" button on your account, it's probably incredible small, but if i…

> Sure, X can save your files. But will it? and will you never lose access to X? Google, DropBox, a storage server in your house, external hard drives, tapes, burnt DVDs... you can swap in any backup system there and it's exactly the same. Google's cloud is just as valid as a backup as any other.

True, the problem is people thinking their files being stored at Google means they don't need another location for backing them up.

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#148

Post by b112 »

mixedbit wrote: post #46
klodolph wrote: post #2

Lesson for those designing cold-storage solutions--design your system, as much as reasonable, to not support deletion operations. The reason why files get lost is usually due to software bugs, bad configurations, and operator errors. Design your system to protect against these things.

Both AWS S3 and Google cloud storage buckets have an option that makes it impossible to delete stored objects for some period of time. The option was added for some legal compliance reasons, but I find it useful as an extra safeguard that important service data is not accidentally or maliciously deleted.

Yes, but...

This does nothing to protect against a bad cron job script. The web frontend, and even backend, are not linked to background maintenance tasks.

And a field in a DB doesn't prevent a manual DB delete, or api call to a backing store.

The real problem here, was a lack of backup testing / restore testing.

If you have backups, you MUST manually verify they can be restored, in a desired state.

And this means restores MUST be tested every time code changes happen, which effect backups.

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#149

Post by deepstack »

nabla9 wrote: post #49
radicaldreamer wrote: post #6

This is all because someone thought it would be “easy” to add a stream of recurring revenue for cloud photo storage but didn’t take the time to design the service from a technical perspective to be resilient enough to not crash and burn.

This can be just calculated risk. Incredible damage for some users can be negligible damage to the company. In this case just 10TB of data was lost, so maybe thousands of users for the long term storage option. Losing customer data has potential for big reputation or brand damage, but surprisingly often the damage is relatively small. Putting in too much effort when potential damage to business is minimal may not be…

In this case just 10TB of data was lost

I don't know about you, but something doesn't seems right here. Just 10 TB of data? For me even 0.5TB is too much. Hech, 0.0001 is too much.

Re: Canon's cloud platform has lost users' files and can't restore them

#150

Post by deepstack »

deepstack wrote: post #149
nabla9 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can be just calculated risk. Incredible damage for some users can be negligible damage to the company. In this case just 10TB of data was lost, so maybe thousands of users for the long term storage option. Losing customer data has potential for big reputation or brand damage, but surprisingly often the damage is relatively small. Putting in too much effort when potential damage to business is minimal may not be…

In this case just 10TB of data was lost I don't know about you, but something doesn't seems right here. Just 10 TB of data? For me even 0.5TB is too much. Hech, 0.0001 is too much.

How hard can it be to have a set of data, make 2 copies and store the in different locations.
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