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WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

arstechnica.com

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Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#21

Post by function_seven »

tyingq wrote: post #17
function_seven wrote: post #9

It may sound a little unfair, but the MyBook has been on my personal Ban List for 14 years now. (has it been that long ?) I don't know if they still do this, but there was a time their NAS would refuse to allow access to MP3 files over a network. To fight piracy. https://www.theregister.com/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_c... (Was www.wired.com/2007/12/western-digital)

Ironically, story is posted on a paywall site :)

That is ironic. I visit Wired so rarely now I guess I got my one free article.

Better link? https://www.theregister.com/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_c...

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#22

Post by askvictor »

romwell wrote: post #12
acchow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, that includes cloud sync (Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically Dropbox allows you to roll back changes and undelete files https://www.dropbox.com/features/cloud-storage/file-recovery...

...if you pay for it, and if your account doesn't get hacked, and if nothing goes wrong on Dropbox's side, and... That's to say, Dropbox is not a backup .

... and you notice the file corruption/deletion before the 30/180 day recovery period has ticked over...

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#23

Post by WalterBright »

> “It is very scary and devastating that someone can do factory restore on my drive without any permission granted from the end user,” one user wrote.

I'll say again: backup drives must have a physical write enable switch on them. To all the people who argue against this - just you wait till it happens to you!

Not having multiple backups is also a very bad idea. One day my 8T drive slipped out of my hand and smacked on the floor. That was the end of it. But I wasn't out my data, just out the cost of another drive.

Cloud backup is a stupid idea. At any moment it could go dark, for any reason, and you have no recourse. Might as well bare your throat and hand some random stranger a razor.

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#24

Post by anonymousisme »

function_seven wrote: post #21
tyingq wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, story is posted on a paywall site :)

That is ironic. I visit Wired so rarely now I guess I got my one free article. Better link? https://www.theregister.com/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_c...

Works fine with JS turned off (via NoScript).

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#25

Post by thaumasiotes »

tyingq wrote: post #17
function_seven wrote: post #9

It may sound a little unfair, but the MyBook has been on my personal Ban List for 14 years now. (has it been that long ?) I don't know if they still do this, but there was a time their NAS would refuse to allow access to MP3 files over a network. To fight piracy. https://www.theregister.com/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_c... (Was www.wired.com/2007/12/western-digital)

Ironically, story is posted on a paywall site :)

I don't see anything. The site isn't DRMed either; I'll demonstrate by pasting the text of the article:

> It doesn't matter what the files are: If you try to share these formats over a network, Western Digital assumes not just that you're a criminal, but that it is its job to police users. You see, MP3, DivX, AVI, WMV and Quicktime files are copy-protected formats.

> The list of banned filetypes includes more than thirty extensions. Some of them are bizarre: .IT files are banned — these are Amiga-style music modules composed with Impulse Tracker, a particularly well-loved tracking sequencer that hasn't been updated in almost a decade. I composed with IT myself, back in the day, and still have all my shitty compositions, none of which Western Digital would have me share. (Try MOD vs. Speak&Spell masterpiece Eddie Dreams of Women, if you dare: IT, MP3)

> Isn't it cute how the only data it views as worthy of policing are music and movies? These are the only copyrights that matter under corporate monkey law.

> It's the most astonishing example of crippled equipment I've ever seen. A DRM'd hard drive! Whatever next? Dreaming meat?

> *UPDATE: The manual's appendix and online support site provide setup instructions for SAMBA, allowing access over IP instead of with the DRM-infested and poorly-reviewed client app, elsewhere claimed to be "required." *

> *MOAR! Samba not enough? Gut the firmware and install made-to-measure Linux: An entire community of folks is here to help you hack your MyBook: mybookworld.wikidot.com.

Internal formatting was stripped in the copy-and-paste process. I could add it back, but that would detract from the purity of the approach. ;D

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#26

Post by munk-a »

WalterBright wrote: post #23

> “It is very scary and devastating that someone can do factory restore on my drive without any permission granted from the end user,” one user wrote. I'll say again: backup drives must have a physical write enable switch on them. To all the people who argue against this - just you wait till it happens to you! Not having multiple backups is also a very bad idea. One day my 8T drive slipped out of my hand and smacked…

> Cloud backup is a stupid idea. At any moment it could go dark, for any reason, and you have no recourse. Might as well bare your throat and hand some random stranger a razor.

I really disagree - physical storage in your home is the common alternative for a lot of consumer users - and that physical storage will involve maybe unplugging your external hard drive between backups - but otherwise never checking for the consistency and accuracy of the data nor the hardware. If you're working in a data center then it's your job to do these things and it doesn't take very much time... for normal folks cloud backups are likely going to be more reliable.

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#27

Post by askvictor »

romwell wrote: post #3

There are two kinds of users: those who back up their data, and those who haven't experienced a data loss yet. This is your daily reminder that anything that's connected is not a backup . Yes, that includes the hard drive in your machine. For that matter, RAID is not a backup solution. Yes, that includes cloud sync (Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically. That's not backup. And that includ…

It's more nuanced than that. Many of those things you mention are backups, just not necessarily that reliable for certain threats. By your standards, you'd probably say tapes, removed from their drive, are a backup. Yet, buildings burn down, taking the tapes with them. If restoring backups from off-line, off-site storage is going to take days or weeks, then for some organisations, you may as well not have a backup. Cloud sync, duplication, connected devices are fine for a backup, but probably not as the only backup. But they still reduce the likelihood of total data loss compared to not having them.

Diversity and risk analysis are what's important here.

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#28

Post by wvenable »

WalterBright wrote: post #23

> “It is very scary and devastating that someone can do factory restore on my drive without any permission granted from the end user,” one user wrote. I'll say again: backup drives must have a physical write enable switch on them. To all the people who argue against this - just you wait till it happens to you! Not having multiple backups is also a very bad idea. One day my 8T drive slipped out of my hand and smacked…

You must have multiple copies of data. Assume you always have one less copy than you actually have. Drives fail for any number of reasons.

Cloud backup is perfectly fine as long as it's one of those copies -- I cloud backup my desktop and it saved me from a lot of loss.

Re: WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

#30

Post by nucleardog »

romwell wrote: post #12
acchow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, that includes cloud sync (Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically Dropbox allows you to roll back changes and undelete files https://www.dropbox.com/features/cloud-storage/file-recovery...

...if you pay for it, and if your account doesn't get hacked, and if nothing goes wrong on Dropbox's side, and... That's to say, Dropbox is not a backup .

By that logic _nothing_ is a backup. A disconnected hard-drive could be lost in a fire, theft, physical damage, you could stop paying your rent and your landlord could repossess it...

Telling people that any redundant copy that isn't 100% reliable (i.e., everything) isn't a backup is not a good way to get people to take backups.

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