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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

#271

Post by crazygringo »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #206

This sounds to me like the classic “replication is not backups” situation where (at best) all of the user files were stored in RAID array someplace and that is what the malware ate. If there had been actual backups and effective backups then it should have been trivial to restore non-corrupted files. It also sounds like someone made the decision not to backup the raw images because they were “big” - that is actually…

Do any cloud providers create backups on top of replication though?

Backing up databases (terabytes) is feasible, they're not that big.

But an entire cloud storage for photo and video for millions, we're talking maybe exabytes. The notion of making "separate" backups seems cost-prohibitive.

I am curious, though -- for services like Dropbox or Google Drive, how many replicas are there of your files? I know there must be redundancy in case a disk fails, but do they keep 2 instances of your data or more? And are the instances spread out geographically, some or all?

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

#272

Post by randoramax »

skoskie wrote: post #270
mumblemumble wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add to that, that the offsite one should also be off line .

That’s a lot harder to pull off. What methods do you use to accomplish this?

S3 bucket with object lock is as offline and convenient as it gets

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

#273

Post by syshum »

nicoburns wrote: post #267
syshum wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I could makes a similar claim about the US. How does the US do on the right to healthcare for example? Awfully. Well first and foremost Healthcare is not a right. It is a Service that has to be provided based on limited resources Rights are things like Free Speech, the Right to Self Defense, the right to not have your property stolen, etc Aka Negative Rights The right to be free from abuse Things like "health care"…

The fact that you don't see things like healthcare as a right is precisely my criticism of your system. Of course everything is subject to limited resources and external constraints. Enforcing property laws is subject to limits on policing resources. How is "the right to not have your property stolen" any different from "the right to not have preventable diseases from killing or harming you"? In both cases there is s…

>> Enforcing property laws is subject to limits on policing resources.

Incorrect, in the US I have no right to policing either, I have the right to defend my property myself from people that wish to take it. Our Courts have held continuously that no individual has the right to protection from the police force.

We do not have Positive Rights in the US, never have and hopefully never will because in order to have positive rights one must infringe on negative rights to supply them

So while I have the right to property, I must provide defense of that property myself. I can also ask the courts to mediate if there is dispute over said property.

Similar with healthcare, and one area I believe government regulations today intrude on my rights. I should have the right to ACCESS to care, but I would not have the right to require someone provide me with care. So for example I should have the right to purchase any medical supply, drug, etc from any person that wants to sell those supplies free from government interference, but the government should not provide me with that care, and should not steal errr tax other people's labor to provide me with that care either

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

#274

Post by dspillett »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #57
_Microft wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software and service might have been ... provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including but not limited to...

> provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including but not limited to... IANAL, but when a service is advertised as being ideal for storing your work or photos, isn't that directly implying that there is a warranty that their service is fit-for-purpose? You can't advertise something in big lettering and then countermand that in the small-print - so those magic words certainly don't shie…

Also NAL, but I would say it very much depends on the law in which-ever jurisdiction it gets tested in - which might be the one you are in, the one Canon are in, or somewhere else entirely.

Some legal concepts such as "fit for purpose" as defined in the UK's Consumer Rights Act (2015) certainly seem relevant here, but that states that companies should offer replacement or refund. Note the word refund, not recompence, is used: Canon may be required to repay you in full everything you paid for the service. All £0.00 of it.

> i.e. people paying Canon to host their photos

Is this the case though? Several other comments have mentioned it being a free service. https://image.canon/st/en/faq.html states that too. Unless there is a non-free option too.

> but when a service is advertised as being ideal for storing your work or photos

I'm not sure what it is advertised as, but that doesn't seem to be what the service is intended for.

Reading other parts of the FAQ it seems that the service is intended as a transfer agent, with the convenience of online storage being a useful side effect. Quoting the FAQ: "Image.canon is designed to ease your imaging workflow – whether you are a professional, enthusiast, or casual user. Wirelessly connecting your camera to the service allows seamless forward of images not only to your computer and smartphone devices but ...". The implication I'm making being that they can just argue that their service is designed to move images around your devices and the user should have been backing them up from there.

Users might try to argue false advertising if "fit for purpose" doesn't fly because of the purpose being defined differently. But good luck funding such as case against the lawyers that Canon can afford. It would have to be a class-action or similar, unless some government body takes the issue up (which from the users PoV will effectively be the same, and the best they'll get is a small voucher for a few £ off future Canon offerings). That is what a lot of things like this boil down to: legally enforceable sometimes doesn't exactly mean legal, it sometimes means "can be enforced by having a better legal team than the little guy"!

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

#275

Post by mumblemumble »

skoskie wrote: post #270
mumblemumble wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add to that, that the offsite one should also be off line .

That’s a lot harder to pull off. What methods do you use to accomplish this?

Well, once upon a time, when I worked at a smaller company, I kept a revolving collection of tapes at home.

A slightly larger company also used tapes, and stored them at an undisclosed (to me) offsite location.

A much larger company kept it all in datacenters, but the "offline" backups were disconnected from the WAN when they weren't actively being used.

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

#277

Post by nix23 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #205
nix23 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but not all photos at the original resolution Thats why you backup the original data and NOT the downscaled etc one. >But how much are you really willing to pay, per month, for that safety? You have to backup ALL your customers data, otherwise DONT go into file-hosting business.

With your argument, Google photos should also not be in business since they also don't back up your original resolution unless you pay.

>Google photos should also not be in business since they also don't back up your original resolution unless you pay.

Not true, but you are resticted to the free 15Gb.

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

#278

Post by returningfory2 »

crazygringo wrote: post #271
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #206

This sounds to me like the classic “replication is not backups” situation where (at best) all of the user files were stored in RAID array someplace and that is what the malware ate. If there had been actual backups and effective backups then it should have been trivial to restore non-corrupted files. It also sounds like someone made the decision not to backup the raw images because they were “big” - that is actually…

Do any cloud providers create backups on top of replication though? Backing up databases (terabytes) is feasible, they're not that big. But an entire cloud storage for photo and video for millions, we're talking maybe exabytes. The notion of making "separate" backups seems cost-prohibitive. I am curious, though -- for services like Dropbox or Google Drive, how many replicas are there of your files? I know there must…

> Do any cloud providers create backups on top of replication though?

Yes - I work at one of the FAANGs for a team that's doing precisely this. We develops an internal disaster recovery tool that creates backups of data files that can't be touched by the creating application, and that can be read back in a disaster event to recover the data.

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

#279

Post by sandworm101 »

crazygringo wrote: post #271
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #206

This sounds to me like the classic “replication is not backups” situation where (at best) all of the user files were stored in RAID array someplace and that is what the malware ate. If there had been actual backups and effective backups then it should have been trivial to restore non-corrupted files. It also sounds like someone made the decision not to backup the raw images because they were “big” - that is actually…

Do any cloud providers create backups on top of replication though? Backing up databases (terabytes) is feasible, they're not that big. But an entire cloud storage for photo and video for millions, we're talking maybe exabytes. The notion of making "separate" backups seems cost-prohibitive. I am curious, though -- for services like Dropbox or Google Drive, how many replicas are there of your files? I know there must…

>> we're talking maybe exabytes

I don't see the size as the big problem. If one cloud can handle the size, the backup storage system can too. For me, the real issue is timing. How do you backup a cloud full of constantly changing data? Do you draw a line in the sand, an image of the cloud state at a particular moment? Is that even possible? You have to do backups of smaller chunks, individual accounts, but eventually that just looks like another software-managed internal array structure rather than a true duplicate. Your backup system is just as susceptible to deletion error as the cloud it lives within.

Mandatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1737/

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

#280

Post by ignoramous »

crazygringo wrote: post #271
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #206

This sounds to me like the classic “replication is not backups” situation where (at best) all of the user files were stored in RAID array someplace and that is what the malware ate. If there had been actual backups and effective backups then it should have been trivial to restore non-corrupted files. It also sounds like someone made the decision not to backup the raw images because they were “big” - that is actually…

Do any cloud providers create backups on top of replication though? Backing up databases (terabytes) is feasible, they're not that big. But an entire cloud storage for photo and video for millions, we're talking maybe exabytes. The notion of making "separate" backups seems cost-prohibitive. I am curious, though -- for services like Dropbox or Google Drive, how many replicas are there of your files? I know there must…

> Do any cloud providers create backups on top of replication though?

Any serious database does offer backups in addition to replication, and that kind of validates OP's point. As for object stores there are a variety of techniques [0].

> But an entire cloud storage for photo and video for millions, we're talking maybe exabytes. The notion of making "separate" backups seems cost-prohibitive.

Cold-stores like the one Facebook built would be apt [1].

> I know there must be redundancy in case a disk fails, but do they keep 2 instances of your data or more? And are the instances spread out geographically, some or all?

See [0]. Backblaze do share quite a bit too about the space, too [2][3]. With minio, one could run their S3-like system on-premise [4].

[0] https://maisonbisson.com/post/object-storage-prior-art-and-l...

[1] https://engineering.fb.com/core-data/under-the-hood-facebook...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10540361

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17550837

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12392081

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