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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

#641

Post by BlueTemplar »

generj wrote: post #618
rswail wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managing an integrated grid using household solar and battery as part of the supply management is one thing. Adjusting people's usage for demand management is another. They need to be separated and managed differently. Instead of push adjusting HVAC for demand, they could use proper price signals with the appropriate local automation at the household that can be over-ridden by the consumer.

I agree price signals and local automation are the way to go. I would love to have my HVAC run according to the true cost of electricity, also minimizing CO2 emissions. BUT giving the grid operators emergency control over demand is a useful tool when the grid is close to failure. Too many people will just hit override unless the price signals are very high. When grid operators know people will die if their system goe…

> Too many people will just hit override unless the price signals are very high.

But that's the point of an energy market, it will adapt the price signal to the supply and the demand. People will override it without thinking only the first time. The second time they will remember the humongous bill they got because of that and will think twice.

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

#642

Post by Eric_WVGG »

wycy wrote: post #591
8fingerlouie wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never jumped on the “everything IoT” bandwagon, but recently I’ve relented a bit. I own/use exactly 4 “IoT technologies”. I have smart radiator thermostats that turn on/off the heat based on family presence, as well as “predict” the heating needs based on weather forecast, sunshine hours, etc. I have a heat pump in my vacation house that is remote controlled by the internet. Not strictly needed, but very convenient…

How could an oven or washing machine possibly be useful remotely?! I'm a fan of connectivity, but that just seems absurd for those appliances.

My new oven has bluetooth and wifi connectivity. I obviously thought this sounded completely insane, but I went ahead and googled to see what people were using it for. I was actually surprised and impressed.

First, there's a way to do sous vide cooking without one of those big circulators like the one I use. They sell a device that is a little bluetooth thermometer; you can put it in a pot of water, and the induction range can keep the water at a precise temperature. No circulation, but more than good enough imo.

Then you can use the wifi to operate it remotely. So as a case scenario, one could fill a pot with ice and water and a sous vide bagged steak, then turn it on remotely, say an hour or so before getting home. Or one could conceivably leave an uncooked cake in the oven?

I will probably never bother to enable any of this, but yeah, there are uses. I don't want it, but I get it.

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

#643

Post by ndesaulniers »

jrm4 wrote: post #632
Popegaf wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EOL should be made to legally mean: opensource or something equivalent. If Windows isn't supported on my laptop, I can nearly always replace it with Linux and still keep it alive. With stuff like this, they can decide to never update it again or just turn off some critical service and render a device unusable. It's not just a thing about owning what you purchase and having the freedom to do what you want with it, it'…

What, no "Stallman was right?" Okay. Stallman was right. I know it's cliche, I know he's weird. But I learned a LONG TIME AGO never to bet against the man's predictions and ideas on software. He called all of this, and quite a few people (especially HERE) would do well to get back to fundamentals and work on fixing it.

You're not wrong, Walter, ...

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

#644

Post by Eric_WVGG »

Algent wrote: post #371
andi999 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EOL is 3 years after purchase (if bought in 2015)? Just imagine a car and after 3 years no more spare parts? Personally everything below 10 years sounds ridiculous to me.

With modern high end smartphone it's the same issue. At best you get 2 years of patchs now, which is ridiculous because they really expect people to be able to afford >700€ phones that often.

2015 iPhone 6S's are still getting patches, in fact it'll be compatible with iOS 15 this coming fall. It'll have seven years of ongoing support by this time next year.

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

#645

Post by BlueTemplar »

myself248 wrote: post #590
fooblat wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on this one. I refuse to buy any appliance that requires a connection to the internet. I look for things that are straightforward to repair and maintain.

Agreed, but the My Book doesn't require a connection. It can use it, optionally, but I don't think it would run afoul of this prepurchase test. Now, as for how they ended up configured to be accessible from the internet, I'm not sure. Is that a user-facing option? Is it on by default? Did WD have a responsibility to disable the feature when they stopped maintaining it?

Plenty of IoThings don't "require a connection", yet end up on the Internet anyway, which is perhaps worse.

That's one of the reasons why the transition to IPv6 is good : IoT directly connected to the Internet without any NAT is going to be the default assumption.

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

#646

Post by Eric_WVGG »

andi999 wrote: post #271
zamadatix wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really no winning with this. You can release patches 6 years after your device is EoL but there will forever be more security issues and people using your ancient product (think how long it takes some versions of Windows to truly reach less than 100k active machines. Hell I wonder if Windows 3.1 has really reached that number or not. The long tail is going to be loooong). Not to mention you've created a prece…

EOL is 3 years after purchase (if bought in 2015)? Just imagine a car and after 3 years no more spare parts? Personally everything below 10 years sounds ridiculous to me.

It's difficult to imagine many of the smaller IoT companies providing support for junk made back in 2010, but I do have a daydream law/policy compromise:

Require all hardware devices to have ongoing security support for twenty years. A company can opt out of that support after three years, provided that they open source everything down to the firmware, and provide documentation and any necessary jailbreaking tools.

also an amendment to bankruptcy law that requires open sourcing propriety digital tech as part of filing.

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

#648

Post by 8fingerlouie »

wycy wrote: post #591
8fingerlouie wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never jumped on the “everything IoT” bandwagon, but recently I’ve relented a bit. I own/use exactly 4 “IoT technologies”. I have smart radiator thermostats that turn on/off the heat based on family presence, as well as “predict” the heating needs based on weather forecast, sunshine hours, etc. I have a heat pump in my vacation house that is remote controlled by the internet. Not strictly needed, but very convenient…

How could an oven or washing machine possibly be useful remotely?! I'm a fan of connectivity, but that just seems absurd for those appliances.

I guess people who cook more than I do could find it useful.

But then again, if you’d asked me 4-5 years ago if I could see the usefulness of smart radiator thermostats, I’d probably have said no. The ability to remotely turn on/off heating is not that big a deal (to me).

It’s only when coupled with AI to optimize savings it becomes a great thing. Since installing the smart thermostats, I save on average 30% on my heating bill, and save the environment from 30% of my CO2 emissions from heating.

The AI part learns about how much the house heats up from a given amount of sunshine, coupled with outside temperature and heat loss, and controls the thermostats accordingly. If the indoor temperature is 1C below the target at 6am, but it’s expected to be sunshine, it simply won’t turn on the heat.

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

#649

Post by Nexxxeh »

nacs wrote: post #627
lrem wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After using exclusively WD for some decades I've seen the WD Red fiasco[1] and decided to not use WD any more. [1]: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shin...

What are you using now? Seagate is the other big consumer brand and they also have their own set of issues. Anecdotally, I've had multiple Seagate drives die within a year or 2 whereas WD ones have kept going for years longer.

Toshiba is the remaining option. I don't end up getting through many drives a year, but N300 and above are my go-to drives now for NAS, NVR etc.

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

#650

Post by MarkusWandel »

What I haven't seen in a superficial reading of this thread: Did the device really erase the data? A quick way to do this, nowadays, is to encrypt it and, upon reset, throw away the key.

If it's an old school quick format, some types of data can be recovered. A tool like "photorec" can scan the drive and recover pictures, MP3 files and so on, mind you without original metadata like file names and dates. May be better than a total loss.

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