Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
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Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
1–10 of 70 posts
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#2This is really, really unacceptable. I don't know how you screw something up this badly.
HINT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE...
Additionally, I suspect we're going to see these customers really hesitate on future cloud-based services.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#3Yikes. I assume they didn't have offsite backups, and some dude did a 'rm -rf *' or ran a 'delete from table cascade' command.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#4The timing of this is a bit suspicious. I just read an article late last week from an "insider" detailing what a major clusterfuck the Danger acquisition has been for Microsoft and how they've completely neglected the SideKick platform in favor of their own failed attempts to create a competing device. The speculation from this insider being that Microsoft had zero interest in the NetBSD based SideKick and only bought Danger to kill the SideKick and launch their own product to replace it. Most of the original developers are long gone so that makes me wonder who was taking care of the SideKick backend servers. Are they perhaps UNIX based servers? Did Microsoft perhaps throw a bunch of Windows Server guys at them? (that never ends well)
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#5This probably (definitely?) makes me a jerk but I have to say it: They deserved it.
I'm sorry but in this day and age anyone trusting their data to a device that stores it exclusively on the server deserves what they get.
Some will say "the type of person who uses these devices isn't the type of person to understand where their data is located" but I say that's BS. We're in a data centric world now and I don't think it's asking that much for people to be aware of where their data is kept and to make sure they have some kind of "backup" guarantee.
To Anyone Downvoting This: Let me ask you one question. If someone without a seatbelt gets hit by a drunk driver does the fact that the accident's the drunk driver's fault mean it was ok for them not to wear a seatbelt? Or can someone be responsible for their own irresponsibility even though the damage was caused by a party that was more to blame?
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#6Yikes. I assume they didn't have offsite backups, and some dude did a 'rm -rf *' or ran a 'delete from table cascade' command.
I mean this could count for criminal negligence. I wish they would release more info on how the failure happened and why the backups aren't working.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#7This probably (definitely?) makes me a jerk but I have to say it: They deserved it. I'm sorry but in this day and age anyone trusting their data to a device that stores it exclusively on the server deserves what they get. Some will say "the type of person who uses these devices isn't the type of person to understand where their data is located" but I say that's BS. We're in a data centric world now and I don't think…
If you use Gmail, Facebook, or any kind of SaaS, you are very much from "this day and age" and using the latest from the greatest and is trusting your data exclusively to a server!
Heck, you trust your money to a bank! You trust your bus driver not to crash the bus, your doctor to properly heal you, and your lawyer to put you out of trouble, you also trust your cook to make the meal you like.
Everyday, you give trust to many individuals and entities to whom you delegate tasks that you may or may not know how to do.
Sidekick screwed up, but I would never blame the ones who trusted them what they(the clients) did is completely normal!
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#8This is a good reason to think of what are the quickest ways to bring one of your own sites down and try to prevent them.
In 2002 I lost the data to a small (~200 users) hobby site I built and to this date it still haunts me as my biggest failure. So now I'm taking precautions such as offsite backups, forbidding DELETE for all SQL users, etc., to limit the chance of such a thing happening.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#9The timing of this is a bit suspicious. I just read an article late last week from an "insider" detailing what a major clusterfuck the Danger acquisition has been for Microsoft and how they've completely neglected the SideKick platform in favor of their own failed attempts to create a competing device. The speculation from this insider being that Microsoft had zero interest in the NetBSD based SideKick and only bough…
I don't know, why did they buy them in the first place? Just to kill them?
Did they fire the whole system staff they used to have? I just can't believe they just know stopped running backups and let it die. Sounds odd, and prone to being sued by T-Mobile quick. (Maybe Microsoft is going after T-Mobile for android?)
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#10This probably (definitely?) makes me a jerk but I have to say it: They deserved it. I'm sorry but in this day and age anyone trusting their data to a device that stores it exclusively on the server deserves what they get. Some will say "the type of person who uses these devices isn't the type of person to understand where their data is located" but I say that's BS. We're in a data centric world now and I don't think…
Uh, what?
Every day there are posts here about how great the Cloud is, and how we should just dump our data there and not have worry about data centers ourselves. Isn't that exactly what was done here - individual handheld users put their personal data into "the Cloud" (in this case, Microsoft's cloud) and then got hosed when the Cloud busted, as happens in traditional Cloud-computing applications. Should we now say that everyone who loses data when EC2 crashes deserves what they get as well?
As for your second point about where users knowing where their data is located, I call BS on that. The majority of people out there over the age of 40 have no concept of the abstract notion of "data", or that it has a location. For them, data is located where they physically access it. Technology is (should be?) about making life simpler and abstracting away bits that people don't need to know about or have the knowledge to make decisions about - for 95% of people, this includes where the contacts on their mobile phone are stored.
If you think people should know where their individual bits of data are, try explaining to my mom how her contacts could live on her SIM card, in her device's memory, and on her desktop computer, and then ask her what the best place is for them.