WD My Book users wake up to find their data deleted

Post by slipframe » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:21 AM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #399

slipframe wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many My Book customers would even understand the meaning of your [correct] advice? When companies fuck people over with a defective product, we should resist the urge to tell the victims to be more tech savvy and not use those sort of products. Particularly when those products are intended for the general public.

It's always the same old thing. But the fundamental problem will never vanish: computers are complex, and no matter how hard you try with neat packaging and software, this complexity cannot be hidden. Sooner or later the illusion bursts at its seams and the user discovers another failure mode that they weren't even aware of. WD really messed up there - but they and others will mess up again, so if the user's goal is…

Post by YuccaGloriosa » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

Post by ec109685 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 3:48 AM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #534

ec109685 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. This is a huge security flaw and they decided to not patch it. Winning is patching this. This is so disingenuous (from the first report of this flaw): “Western Digital takes the security of our customers’ data seriously, and we provide security updates for our products to address issues from both external reports and regular security audits.”

> Huh. This is a huge security flaw and they decided to not patch it. Winning is patching this. "Winning" isn't "gee if we could just say we'll patch every discontinued product forever and imagine it had no downsides wouldn't that be great" - that's known as "dreaming".

Post by usr1106 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

benlivengood wrote: post #657

southerntofu wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also important to point out that despite using more energy because it's older hardware, it'll use considerably less energy during its all life, than it takes to produce a new computer. Replacing old hardware with "more energy-efficient" hardware is a trap from green capitalism and the numbers do not add up usually.

I find this claim a little hard to believe. Data centers routinely replace ~3 year old computers because the number of old computers they would need to keep running and cooling exceeds the cost of new more efficient hardware. The price of new hardware includes all the energy costs of producing it. Obviously the environmental externalities of energy aren't fully priced in, but that is also the case for data center ene…

Post by labawi » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #321

petertodd wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's really no winning with this. There is: don't release devices with security flaws in the first place. The fact is, they released a fatally flawed device. That the flaw was discovered later doesn't change that fact. I think the way we talk about security patches and updates obscures the fact that they're correcting fundamentally flawed software. In other circumstances, this would result in product recalls. Th…

Software should be more secure. However I don't think it's realistic to expect bug-free perfectly secure software. There is no field of engineering where 100% perfect tolerances are possible, and when you start getting past 99% the resource requirements to get to the next fraction of a % quickly go non-linear. This is why 1) Security patches will pretty much always be necessary and 2) relying on perfect software alon…