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

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

#181
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevertheless, such a system is quite a long way from a true free-market approach. And I think it demonstrates that market based systems that aren't "free markets" can be quite effective, and indeed from a theoretical perspective it seems to me very likely that such approaches work better than a "remove regulation at all costs" approach. EDIT: there was initially a typo in this comment. I meant "aren't free markets",…

it is insane to me that anyone would point to china as a example of how the rest of the world should operate If you do clearly you place no value on what most people call Basic Human Rights. >> And I think it demonstrates that market based systems that are "free markets" can be quite effective, I am not sure what you are trying to say here, everyone knows Free markets result in the best economic outcomes, that was my…

> it is insane to me that anyone would point to china as a example of how the rest of the world should operate. If you do clearly you place no value on what most people call Basic Human Rights.

I don't like the human rights abuses in China. But that doesn't mean they don't do anything well. Such an argument is silly. I could makes a similar claim about the US. How does the US do on the right to healthcare for example? Awfully. But that is only tangentially related to the merit of their overall economic policy.

> everyone knows Free markets result in the best economic outcomes

No they don't. There is a lot of evidence that free markets lead to better economic outcomes then soviet-style planned economies. That they lead to the best possible outcomes of all possible economic systems is a highly suspect claim given that the economic outcomes they lead to aren't all that great (e.g. high levels of inequality).

You seem to have in your mind that free markets and planned economies (which you call socialism, although there are actually many forms of socialism that don't use a state-planned approach such as market socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism) are the only possible economic models. But in fact there are many other approaches. For example the scandinavian model is a mixed economy with some free-market aspects but also a large state (32% of the economy is public sector in Denmark vs 17% for the US and 50% for China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_se...), and much stronger regulation than in the US.

> That is not to say there is no issue with capitalism in general, Crony Capitalism which is what you have with Heavily regulated markets like we see in the US is a real problem and is largely the cause of Wealth Disparity in capitalist systems

Regulation is indeed a problem in the US. But that is only because of the regulatory capture leading to ridiculous regulations that enforce monopolies. In other places (I live in the UK) regulation actually prevents monopolies (e.g. we have laws that anybody may start an ISP using the shared fibre/copper infrastructure) and leads to much better outcomes than unregulated markets. I find it hilarious that you think the US markets are heavily regulated when they are some of the least regulated amongst OECD countries

> I am further confused by your statement the Free Markets are better than "remove regulation at all costs" approach. Truly free markets have no regulation, so I am not sure what point you are driving at.

Having no regulation is what I am describing as "remove regulation at all costs". My point is that there is a lot of evidence that such markets don't in fact function better than a more measured approach of "regulate where it's appropriate". The political position that all markets ought to be as free as possible is almost as extreme as the one that economies ought to state run.

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

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're storing a large enough set of data for long enough, 2 copies will be woefully insufficient to ensure you don't suffer a loss of a given subset of the data.

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

#183
post #161
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you automatically test restores?

Not the parent, but my homebrew backup script first makes the backup and then attempts to restore a canary file. If that fails it raises the alarm. It's not perfect. I can imagine a scenario where the canary is restorable, but some other important files aren't. However it certainly protects against cases where a bug in the backup software makes a completely unreadable snapshot (which has happened to me before).

I wouldn't be so harsh on your homebrew solution, deja-dup uses the same strategy to verify backups.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Minus youtube which I use a mirror" ?

Not the poster, but intent was probably something like "... which I use [via] a mirror"

I suppose it partially aligns with the intent of a boycott

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

#185
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't follow. That's like saying: - Slavery is bad. - Then don't wear cotton clothes. Maybe instead change the system so there's no slavery, and have non-slaves pick up cotton and make cotton clothes? Non-capitalist countries can have computers and internet too. In fact most computers today are made in "communist" China.

> In fact most computers today are made in "communist" China. No Most computers today are made in "Special Economic Zone" China that has exempted almost all communist economic policies in favor of Free market capitalism because even hard core authoritarian communists know that their economic model is a path to poverty for everyone including the leaders

Actually, most computers today are made in China that hardly favors "free market capitalism". The companies take lots of subsidies, some are state owed, they depend on state infrastructure and policies (even to get workers), and so on.

At best it's a mix, but hardly "free market capitalism".

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

#186
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…

I wonder if they discuss that and actually write down calculations

I've designed a storage system for an image storage app for a client, and I had an extensive spreadsheet with the cost and risks of various combinations of erasure coding and data centres, as well as other mitigations.

So yes.

But this data loss highlights that all too often it ends there, with calculating the risk of loss due to hardware or data centre failures.

You need to also do the same in terms assessing how you design your software, and what processes you put in place to mitigate risks.

In this case it was the software system design that failed: They allowed the system access to modify long term stored data, when really the system ought to have been designed to allow "write once unless the user has convinced us that they really, really want the data destroyed, in which case keep a backup for a limited time" type design.

A lot of software fails in that respect. The moment your internal API's allow modification of data, you risk catastrophic loss, as Canon found out, and you really ought to have strategies for mitigation of that.

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

#187
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> there was a 10GB/user cap, so it's unlikely someone had been using it as their only copy

I don't understand why a small total size implies people are less likely to use it for their only copy of something?

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reading their description of the problem, it wasn't that they lost one of their redundant servers, it was that their code that cleans up temporary storage accidentally was also cleaning up long-term storage. Increasing the redundancy of their storage wouldn't have helped.

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

#190
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevertheless, such a system is quite a long way from a true free-market approach. And I think it demonstrates that market based systems that aren't "free markets" can be quite effective, and indeed from a theoretical perspective it seems to me very likely that such approaches work better than a "remove regulation at all costs" approach. EDIT: there was initially a typo in this comment. I meant "aren't free markets",…

it is insane to me that anyone would point to china as a example of how the rest of the world should operate If you do clearly you place no value on what most people call Basic Human Rights. >> And I think it demonstrates that market based systems that are "free markets" can be quite effective, I am not sure what you are trying to say here, everyone knows Free markets result in the best economic outcomes, that was my…

>If you do clearly you place no value on what most people call Basic Human Rights.

For starters, who said human their rights violations go wholesale with their economic policy (and you can't have one without the other)?

Second, well, the US is not some paragon of freedom either compared to many western countries.

From the largest prison population per capita (25% of the worlds inmates for 4% of the worlds population), to slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, seggregation until 1970s, Japanese interment camps, the only country dropping atomic bombs (and to civilians nonetheless), McCarthyism, mass surveillance, and so on, all the way to Bush, Trump, and co (including the multi-war supporter Obama), plus constant meddling on foreign countries, invasions and occupations, etc., all the way to waterboarding, and such, yeah, I'd take "socialist" Denmark over it...

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