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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

#501

Post by dspillett »

roblabla wrote: post #381
tomnipotent wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because if you need a hard drive This is the third such major scandal from WD in as many years. First, selling SMR drives as CMR. Second, selling 7200RPM drives as 5400RPM. Now this. They've lost a lot of credibility, and I don't see any of the other manufacturers having issues rivaling WD.

> selling 7200RPM drives as 5400RPM I suppose you mean the other way around? Otherwise, what's the problem with selling a higher RPM device as a lower one? Isn't higher RPM better? (Genuine question, I don't know much about HDD).

The faster devices generally vibrate more and give off more heat, which might make them unsuitable for mass storage (i.e. in a NAS box or other multi-drive arrangement). The difference might technically even invalidate warranties.

They also draw more power, which might mean they simply don't work properly in some low-power devices, or mean that any UPS someone might have one connected to will not last as long as they expect during a power interruption.

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

#502

Post by bryanrasmussen »

majewsky wrote: post #438
pope_meat wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I hope ecological collapse nips this black mirror future were tumbling in to. Things feel bleak.

If anything, ecological collapse might hasten this future. Just last week, there was this news about the Texas power company that remotely raised temperatures on people's thermostats to save power and avoid brownouts/blackouts. This predictably caused public outrage as people discovered what was in the fine print that they signed without reading, but from the perspective of the power company, everything worked as int…

>remotely raised temperatures on people's thermostats to save power

why would raising temperatures save power? probably a silly question but I'm confused.

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

#503

Post by HotHotLava »

dannyw wrote: post #377
flatiron wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is someone figured out how to bounce commands off WD command server (customer reps helping people reset their devices) and they are spamming customer ids. Either that or these devices have unique ports on the WAN with a 0-day but that would take a lot more effort to exploit.

someone didnt just figure ut out, it wss dislosed as a 9.8 CVE in 2019 .

That CVE only shows how to factory-reset a single MyBook to which you can connect and send HTTP requests. There's still something missing to explain how it could happen to seemingly all MyBook's at once, including those behind a NAT.

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

#504

Post by harikb »

majewsky wrote: post #438
pope_meat wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I hope ecological collapse nips this black mirror future were tumbling in to. Things feel bleak.

If anything, ecological collapse might hasten this future. Just last week, there was this news about the Texas power company that remotely raised temperatures on people's thermostats to save power and avoid brownouts/blackouts. This predictably caused public outrage as people discovered what was in the fine print that they signed without reading, but from the perspective of the power company, everything worked as int…

I was counting that as an example of a tech done well! CA does this too, but afaik, it is advertised as such when one signs up for a free Smart meter and there is even a slightly better rate offered.

I just don’t see an alternate way to implement this. Prompting users via pricing is not something that will quick enough or intuitive enough. Also the sacrifice they are asked to make is at most a few degrees

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

#505

Post by detaro »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #502
majewsky wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, ecological collapse might hasten this future. Just last week, there was this news about the Texas power company that remotely raised temperatures on people's thermostats to save power and avoid brownouts/blackouts. This predictably caused public outrage as people discovered what was in the fine print that they signed without reading, but from the perspective of the power company, everything worked as int…

>remotely raised temperatures on people's thermostats to save power why would raising temperatures save power? probably a silly question but I'm confused.

because air conditioning runs less.

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

#506

Post by southerntofu »

roel_v wrote: post #453
smoe wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the difference should be whether something is the first generation of a product or an iteration. Basically somehow using the Lindy effect to determine how long it should be supported. E.g. if I had bought the very first generation of the iPhone it would have been much more out of couriosity, not long time usage expectation. But I think there now has been enough development on it, that I should be able t…

OK, well now come up with a formula that says (from a series of objective and not-readily-gameable characteristics) for a random electrical/electronic device (or, if you want to separate the two, provide a way to do so - is a 1980's microwave with an 8-bit controller for the timer 'electronics' or 'electrical'?) how long the warranty should be, how long it should be 'supported' (for a definition of 'supported') and h…

> There is a lot of 'everything should be supported for eternity for free' in this thread, but I see no (at least somewhat) concrete suggestions for better solutions. If it was easy, we would have done it people.

That's the easy, concrete solution. It's just not "profitable" from a capitalist perspective, and that's why no manufacturer is doing it.

Well not exactly nobody. Some manufacturers like FACOM (probably others) that are not into electronics have (or used to have) lifetime warranties and will happily repair or replace a product that is decades old.

The question is: as a society, do we want to pursue everyone's good and make things more efficient and ecological? or do we want more profits for the industry owners and more inequality and damage to the environment?

These two paths are fundamentally opposed. There is no conciliating them. If you want "nature" and "consumer rights", then you need to abolish "capitalism".

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

#507

Post by blowski »

pope_meat wrote: post #412
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as most products become connected you will have to pay a premium for products that are not - especially as companies try to make profits from tracking (as in SmartTvs). People who are not rich enough to buy everything single purpose will have to pick and choose.

Personally I hope ecological collapse nips this black mirror future were tumbling in to. Things feel bleak.

Said every generation ever.

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

#508

Post by vertis »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #278
ivraatiems wrote: post #199

According to Western Digital[1], the CVE involved[2] has been public and unpatched since 2019. That's insane. There's "we don't support end-of-life devices" and then there's "we refuse to fix absolutely critical, crippling security vulnerabilities in devices just a few years old." This is well over the line. I smell (but have no idea of the merits of) a class action lawsuit. [1] https://www.westerndigital.com/support…

Wow. This is the ultimate IoT failure scenario, the product is in use but no longer supported and an exploit can hit it from the Internet. I suspect there will be litigation, but I am not a lawyer. I will be interested to see it though, what is the responsibility for using things post end-of-life? What we might see is a new “your on your own” mode built into this sort of appliance that once EOL hits it asks you to af…

If you sell me a HD/IoT, and say it does X/Y/Z and then no longer want to provide X/Y/Z, I should get my money back.

This whole, "ah sorry we decided to end-of-life that because we couldn't make any more money off it" is so many levels of bullshit.

It's also part of a broader attitude on not repairing anything. Battery dead in your activity tracker? throw it out and buy a new one. Worse still, the band has degraded but the electronics are all fine? still throw it out (or put it in a drawer to never come back out).

Closely aligned to a recent story where Amazon is/was destroying masses of products that hadn't been sold. The waste is just extraordinary.

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

#510

Post by Someone »

southerntofu wrote: post #496
iSnow wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not exactly great, tbh. A car can easily run for 10y (mine is due for a replacement at 19yo), so 7y seems ecologically unnecessarily wasteful. I get that it doesn't make sense to offer parts for 20yo cars, but if we want to live in a sustainable future, people need to stop replacing cars after 5y or so.

> I get that it doesn't make sense to offer parts for 20yo cars Why not? Personally i believe a hardware manufacturer should be bound by law to sell parts for any vehicle it sold in the past, as long as it exists. Yes even if it was produced 40 years ago. There's no reason for it to be otherwise. If this was mandated by law all the tiny incompatibilities that they introduce with very varied models will suddenly go aw…

“a hardware manufacturer should be bound by law to sell parts for any vehicle it sold in the past, as long as it exists”

Cars would get extremely expensive. Imagine Ford still having to supply model T wheels and engines.

They either would have to have kept a production line and employees knowing to operate it around, or have stocked ‘enough’ parts, where ‘enough’ is very hard to estimate up front. Also, stocked parts deteriorate, so for, for example, tyres, they would have to keep a production line running.

And that’s the easy case. At least Ford can ballpark know how many model T’s still exist. what if a car of a model that we thought didn’t exist anymore gets discovered in a barn?

And of course, that wouldn’t work in cases where manufacturers get bankrupt.

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