Yikes. I assume they didn't have offsite backups, and some dude did a 'rm -rf *' or ran a 'delete from table cascade' command.
Seems like a big assumption since we don't know any details. Perhaps a malicious sysadmin?
Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
11–20 of 70 posts
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#12The 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?)
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/09/exclusive_pink...
The most relevant bits:
"The final operator who is going to be pissed is T-Mobile, who has been just as loyal of a partner to Danger as Sharp has been. I don't know exactly what Microsoft has been telling them, but they have no doubt realized that they've been cut out of this deal in favor of their largest competitor. What's worse is that apparently Microsoft has been lying to them this whole time about the amount of resources that they've been putting behind Sidekick development and support (in reality, it was cut down to a handful of people in Palo Alto managing some contractors in Romania, Ukraine, etc.).
"The reason for the deceit wasn't purely to cover up the development of Pink but also because Microsoft could get more money from T-Mobile for their support contract if T-Mobile thought that there were still hundreds of engineers working on the Sidekick platform. As we saw from their recent embarrassment with Sidekick data outages, that has clearly not been the case for some time."
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#13Oh. My. God.
I was one of the first Sidekick customers, long before the MS buyout. It was an amazing email/texting device, far easier and more comfortable to use than a Blackberry. Plus the web browsing was decent, and the UI was simple and elegant. All in all, a really cool phone.
Unfortunately, the first generation of hardware was super flaky. I had five of them die on me in a year, often failing within weeks. Since there wasn't any PC sync tool, the only thing that saved my bacon was the server-side data model. When a phone died, I'd get a replacement, drop in the SIM card and all my stuff would be there same as always.
Back in the day, there was no data sync with your PC. I think they eventually released Outlook syncronization, but most consumers don't use Exchange/Outlook. I would guarantee that a huge number of Sidekick owners (most? all?) have never had any of their phone data anywhere but the Danger servers.
To make matters worse, the Sidekick becomes kind of a brick when the servers are down. I can see a lot of people resetting their device because it's suddenly become unresponsive, just expecting their data to magically come back from the server.
This is an unmitigated disaster.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#14Yikes. I assume they didn't have offsite backups, and some dude did a 'rm -rf *' or ran a 'delete from table cascade' command.
Based on the wording of the statement it seems likely they had no usable backup solution at all. Offsite or otherwise. Even a 24 hour daily backup should have provided some data. Sounds like a classic case of neglect to me. They probably had a solution in place but didn't verify it was actually working.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#15The dangers of the cloud...
Edit: Long live local copies!
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#16This 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…
Are you storing your Hacker News comments client-side? To use the Internet is to trust servers.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#17This 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…
I'd agree with you if you said that they deserved an outage of a few hours; that's the risk you run when someone else controls your data. Once in a while, things fail; when it happens to you and you control the data, you spend those few hours fixing whatever's wrong. When your data are in someone else's hands, you sit around writing angry tweets about it until it's fixed.
In the worst case, maybe you'll lose up to 24 hours of changes in case a backup needs to be restored.
For the data to be lost entirely, with no backup whatsoever, simply beggars belief.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#18This is incredible. In no way is it even remotely acceptable for them not to have backups.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#19This 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…
I'd agree with you if you said that they deserved an outage of a few hours; that's the risk you run when someone else controls your data. Once in a while, things fail; when it happens to you and you control the data, you spend those few hours fixing whatever's wrong. When your data are in someone else's hands, you sit around writing angry tweets about it until it's fixed. In the worst case, maybe you'll lose up to 24…
But what you're missing is they had no guarantee that the data would be backed up. No one told them the data would be backed up.
If you hand priceless data over to someone who openly tells you they won't back it up they might be the idiot but you're still irresponsible.
Re: Microsoft/Danger lose Sidekick user data in server failure
#20This 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…
I'm sorry but if you are content to leave the only copy of priceless things such as contacts, treasured photos, etc... in the hands of companies with no contractual obligation to you than yes, you're a fool.
The bank legally owes me my money. The bus driver is guilty of a crime if he crashes the bus. The Doctor is guilty of malpractice. If gmail deletes your account you have absolutely not recourse what so ever. None, Zip. Zilch. Zero.
Sidekick did screw up but it doesn't make the people who lost their data innocent either. You have to take responsibility for that which you value.