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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

#361

Post by chiph »

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?

External USB drives for me. One set of drives is stored in a fire safe at home, one set of drives is stored at the office, and one set is stored at a relative's house in another state. The ones at home get refreshed most often, the ones stored at the office get refreshed about once a quarter, and the one at the relative's house get refreshed during holidays and family get-togethers.

The drives are encrypted (Truecrypt) since they will be outside my physical control. The ones at the office I am prepared to abandon should I get fired/laid-off.

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

#362

Post by strombofulous »

galoisgirl wrote: post #210
jarym wrote: post #158

So today I learnt: 1. Canon don’t have any backup procedures in place for their cloud platform. Any hacker now will be salivating at the idea of pulling a ransomware hack I imagine. 2. Canon developers follow the ‘test in production’ methodology of continuous integration.

How do you know that? Gitlab had 5 backups and could restore none.

Is it a backup if it can't be used like one?

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

#363

Post by hatsunearu »

bscphil wrote: post #292
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…

> It also sounds like someone made the decision not to backup the raw images because they were “big” - that is actually the one thing they should have backed up because all of the smaller files can be regenerated from the raw ones. Ironically my experience has been exactly the opposite. It's the demosaic-ed, fully developed copies of my photos that are larger and harder to preserve than the original RAWs. And these f…

> Even open source programs, like RawTherapee and Darktable, use entirely different and incompatible approaches, algorithms, and instructions.

`git checkout v3.0.2`

`./build.sh`

No idea what you're talking about. As long as you have your RAWs and your sidecar file you can trivially reproduce the picture, at least that's how it works in darktable.

Hell, the old code that is deprecated and "hidden" in the newest versions is actually all still there and if you import your stuff in the newest version it is practically guaranteed to look exactly the same. In fact there is a CI system that checks for delta-Es in each release.

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

#364

Post by hatsunearu »

ISL wrote: post #319
bscphil wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also sounds like someone made the decision not to backup the raw images because they were “big” - that is actually the one thing they should have backed up because all of the smaller files can be regenerated from the raw ones. Ironically my experience has been exactly the opposite. It's the demosaic-ed, fully developed copies of my photos that are larger and harder to preserve than the original RAWs. And these f…

So far, I have found that Darktable's edits have survived changes in versions. Someday there will probably be breaking changes, but I haven't yet felt it personally.

every single "dead" code is still in marketable and isn't accessible unless you try to import a sidecar from a previous version. LR might be shitty but the fact that the guy says darktable has this problem is just silly.

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

#365

Post by codeisawesome »

galoisgirl wrote: post #209
jiofih wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A “calculated risk” doesn’t make it okay when the risk is all on the consumer losing their memories. This corporate view on business risk alone is unethical.

There is no such thing as lack of risk in this world. When a restaurant takes your reservation for Friday night, there's a 0.00001% (or so) risk that they will burn down on Thursday or that half the staff will get heart attacks or something. Should they not do reservations at all?

Losing a restaurant reservation on a single night when surrounded by alternatives (aka - lots of backup plans) is not the same as losing data that people trust as the backup plan for their data - the loss of which causes a lot more harm. Especially if it’s a respected brand.

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

#366

Post by Ensorceled »

menybuvico wrote: post #293
Ensorceled wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of a mechanism where you can lose the customer's database records but can still recover files associated with that customer ...

Total systen compromise. The backup for the files worked. the ones for the DB didn't.

Right, but how to you figure which customers own which files? I don't label the assets FrankPJonesPortlandOregonUSA9095551212.jpg. If I've lost the database record I have no idea who owns cat_picture.jpg

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

#368

Post by XorNot »

Xylakant wrote: post #238
droopyEyelids wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you're failing to address the 'knew they were going to kill people' part. Everyone can always do better, but everyone doesn't know exactly which of their decisions will end up killing another person. If you DO know that, then you're obligated to change things.

Everyone entering a car today knows that given the wrong combination of events, they may kill someone, maybe even a toddler chasing a ball. Yet, millions of people still drive daily. Even cyclists are not free from that risk - when I leave later and take my cargo bike to pick up my kid, I might be distracted in the wrong instant and run over someone else’s child. I try hard not to, but the safest way to reduce that r…

We balance risks which have uncontrollable inputs. Not controllable ones for which we now have an answer. That's the difference. You note it right in your comment - that you in fact do take measures to be safe, and try to be specifically aware of elements of the dynamic situation which require attention.

That's very different to say, if you planned on reversing a car and decided it took too much effort to look behind you before you do. Sure - chances are most of the time you won't run over a child doing this...

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

#369

Post by ISL »

owenmarshall wrote: post #358
teawrecks wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sold. In the cases where you lose the raw vs a post processed image, one of those is significantly more lost information. It may be non trivial to reproduce a post process image from a raw image, but the other way around is usually impossible. In one case you've lost original sensor information, in the other case you've lost some parameters and possibly the algorithm used. The former is infinitely more diffic…

My wife shoots weddings. A wedding lasts an hour, the reception maybe three or four. She’ll spend the better part of a week editing the whole event. Raw images seem to be very important until the very moment they’ve been edited (or, hell, rejected from editing). Then their worth is very little.

Some images require hours of painstaking editing. There are some photographers who will spend days or more editing an image. The edited image is as much an instantaneous snapshot of the photographer as it is the scene in front of the lens. Looking at my Darktable catalog, it is easy to estimate that I spend at least 250 hr/yr editing images.

Raw files, and sidecars, retain their value because sometimes one wishes to revisit an image/edit. If I had to pick one or the other, I might prefer to lose the edited images. That is because I believe I have more/better days of my editing life ahead of me and because I underestimate how much editing I have done. Moreover, there are plenty of RAW images awaiting the day they come to life.

In commercial work, like weddings, the final product is the edit. If there is one thing that must be retained, that is it.

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

#370

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #286
amiga_500 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you retrieve the data slowly it's cheap. It's expensive if say you are a retailer who needs their database restored asap. I use a Linux perl client!

I suppose the biggest risk is failure-to-pay, as with all cloud backups/storage. If I allow my payment card to expire, Amazon aren't obligated to continue to store my data. If I drop off the grid for an extended holiday, that could be a real risk. To my knowledge, Amazon offer no means of prepaying.

> Amazon aren't obligated to continue to store my data. If I drop off the grid for an extended holiday, that could be a real risk. To my knowledge, Amazon offer no means of prepaying.

Another option I've been meaning to set-up is two-way Synology sync between sites. My parents have a Synology box and now that they have a decent internet connection (DOCSIS, not ADSL's 768kbps upstream) we could backup each others' data on each other's Synology boxes. I just need to figure it out...

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