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How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

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Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#61

Post by morganvachon »

restlessmedia wrote: post #22

We live in a convenient age, but also a fickle one. I laugh when my wife prints 100 hundreds of digital photos although her disaster recovery process is more stable than mine.

My wife does the same; she has a Snapfish account. She will have them print and mail her the most important pictures from a set, while trusting the ones she doesn't care as much about to our home server and Facebook (the former for long-term storage, the latter for convenient access). Since she has to order a certain number of prints every year to keep the account open, and it comes with unlimited free storage, it works out well for her.

The only exception was our wedding photos. We have a set of prints directly from the studio hired to take the pictures, as well as a digital copy on DVD from them. We also have those digital files backed up on our home server, a computer at my parents' house, Dropbox, Snapfish, and both of our Facebook accounts. The photography company also has long-term storage that we would have access to if all else failed. That's about as redundant as we can get without spending a ton of money, but it's more than most people seem to have.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#62

Post by Silhouette »

dspillett wrote: post #52
gabemart wrote: post #13

I think this bug should be considered completely separately from how unwise it is to use a cloud service as the sole storage of important files. Regardless of the circumstances, losing user files against the wishes of the user is the absolute worst thing a cloud backup provider can do . Even for files that are deleted intentionally and unambiguously by the user, I'm astonished that Dropbox actually deletes the files…

> I think this bug should be considered completely separately from how unwise it is to use a cloud service as the sole storage of important files. YES: from DropBox's point of view - this is a serious bug even ignoring what other actions the users have/not taken to protect their data. And NO: this sort of thing is one of the key reasons not to use such a service as a sole backup - linking the two when trying to educa…

Of course this is a fair bit of work for something that won't happen often

If you think about it, that sums up almost any robust back-up system you go to the effort of setting up, properly testing, and maintaining over time. For that matter, it applies to almost any insurance policy in any context.

I expect most of us would still agree that potential catastrophic damage if you're the unlucky one can justify spending the time/money/resources to set up proper back-ups and insurance, though, and surely this is the case if you're running a service where robust file handling is your major value proposition.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#63

Post by icebraining »

tomp wrote: post #51
colanderman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 30 day deletion deadline has passed, but I have managed to restore the most recent version of your dissertation. Then you have the opposite problem; privacy-centered users complaining " Dropbox keeps your data even when they say it's permanently deleted! Here's proof!! "

Why would privacy centered users use Dropbox?

Privacy isn't an on/off switch. I might be OK with the danger of my files leaking out as long as I know they'll be deleted when (or not long after) I tell them to.

Like any other security measure, it's a question of tradeoffs.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#64

Post by icebraining »

raverbashing wrote: post #50
gabemart wrote: post #13

I think this bug should be considered completely separately from how unwise it is to use a cloud service as the sole storage of important files. Regardless of the circumstances, losing user files against the wishes of the user is the absolute worst thing a cloud backup provider can do . Even for files that are deleted intentionally and unambiguously by the user, I'm astonished that Dropbox actually deletes the files…

" from how unwise it is to use a cloud service as the sole storage of important files." I disagree (a little bit) There are some issues here: - Using a free service - Using a service that "thinks" when you want to add or remove stuff. Yes, it's easier to use, but it's not explicit, and it usually fails spectacularly. - Thinking that this "magical save thing" is equivalent to a backup.

You have knowledge that most people don't. If that's important to safely use Dropbox, it's their responsibility to inform the users.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#65

Post by lh7777 »

bruceboughton wrote: post #25
egypturnash wrote: post #19

Sync is not backup. Sync is not backup. Sync is not backup. My strategy: a big external drive used for Time Machine, and a subscription to Backblaze. Both of these are all about retaining multiple versions, recovering from accidental deletion, and continuously backing up in the background. Dropbox is about syncing stuff between computers.

I too am a Backblaze customer but beware: backups of deleted files are deleted after 30 days.

One of the reasons I switched to Crashplan. Their Java client is pretty terrible performance-wise, but it's still the best cloud backup I've tried.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#66

Post by snowwrestler »

gabemart wrote: post #38
egypturnash wrote: post #19

Sync is not backup. Sync is not backup. Sync is not backup. My strategy: a big external drive used for Time Machine, and a subscription to Backblaze. Both of these are all about retaining multiple versions, recovering from accidental deletion, and continuously backing up in the background. Dropbox is about syncing stuff between computers.

Dropbox keeps deleted files and previous versions of files for 30 days. With Packrat, a free feature for all paid accounts, Dropbox keeps deleted files for the lifetime of the account. How is Dropbox not a backup provider? It may not be a very good backup provider, depending on your point of view, but it clearly markets itself as a backup provider ("your stuff is always safe in Dropbox and can be restored in a snap")…

To me it sounds like Packrat is a backup feature, but this person chose not to take advantage of it.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#67

Post by icebraining »

Aardwolf wrote: post #42

I don't trust anything called "sync". I trust file operations "move", "copy" and "remove". But "sync" could mean anything: which side is syncing to which side? If something is not present on one side, will it delete it on the other? I wish the term didn't exist, and apps/clients/... would copy or even just load or show things, and if you want to "sync", then rsync with clear source and destination. Same with mail for…

Here "sync" means what Dropbox says it means. The answers to your questions are well defined in their software, even if to some other software, they might be different.

I wish the term didn't exist, and apps/clients/... would copy or even just load or show things, and if you want to "sync", then rsync with clear source and destination.

The source and destination is always clear. It's to the server and from the server. Dropbox uses a star topology, not P2P.

You'd get the same result if you used rsync with source and destination, if you passed --delete, which is equivalent to what Dropbox does.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#68

Post by snowwrestler »

_delirium wrote: post #54
jackweirdy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Backups should be read only. If I can delete parts of a backup, it's just as susceptible to the same human mistakes that make them necessary in the first place.

By that definition, most corporate backup systems aren't backups! It's pretty common to overwrite old tape backups with newer backups, and yes, that does mean you need to be organized enough to make sure you don't accidentally overwrite the only backup of something.

Maybe a better way to put it is that backups are isolated from current "production" data operations.

Backups are not invulnerable, so yes, it's still possible to overwrite the backups, but that involves engaging the backup system specifically. Just doing file operations or settings changes on the production system won't do it.

Dropbox is not isolated from production data operations. In fact the whole point is to synchronize production data operations as fast as possible. That makes it dangerous.

(This does not excuse the bug is this story; sync setting changes should be obviously be atomic transactions that are confirmed on the server.)

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#69

Post by morganvachon »

mahouse wrote: post #5

Well, sorry to say this, but if all of your photos were stored only online...

It depends on how you look at it. They were stored online (Dropbox servers) as well as locally (Macbook). The problem is that a bug in Dropbox's client turned a de-sync operation into a delete operation. So one way to see it is that even having local storage was not safe because the sync was flawed. Another possible way to look at it is if your only local copy is synced with the cloud, then effectively your only storage is online.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#70

Post by artmageddon »

pierreio wrote: post #32

> "you should backup" What about in 10, 20 years? Photo libraries will keep inflating. Local storage will not. As of now I backup from a SSD Mac. What happens when I don't have a computer anymore? Interestingly, people don't value "bits" or information. We value moments and emotions and work and art. There's no successful current consumer business model for people to store and backup photos (Backblaze is mainly prosu…

> And so aren't social networks the real backups by now?

I hope not. I cringe when I see people who treat them like they are. What do you do when your account password gets cracked(it happens to people on Facebook a lot), or the site itself goes away(MySpace)? Also, you're not able to store the images in their original form; I'm pretty sure sites like these will have limitations on what you can upload. I'm not a pro-photographer by any means, but there's no way I could upload a RAW file to Facebook.

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