Live data from Hacker News

Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

status.gandi.net

271–280 of 389 posts

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#271
post #262

The "no bullshit" motto is mentioned a few times here. A motto is just another marketing device ­– a way for a company to pretend to have any sort of principles beyond making as much money as fast as possible. Why would anyone believe a motto is anything other than a marketing device? It is only believable if people follow it contrary to pragmatism. Any company is eventually going to have a fair share of people who b…

In fact a motto is usually chosen to cover a weak spot. So "No Bullshit" reads to me as "We're Kinda Cowboys". "We Care" - "People Know We Don't care".

Fujitsu – “The possibilities are infinite” ... "The Ways in Which we can Screw this Up Are Infinite"

Intel – “Leap Ahead” and “Sponsors of Tomorrow”. "We've got to protect our entrenched position".

LG – “Life's Good”. "Life is Actually Objectively Bad".

Google - "Don't be Evil". "How We Actually Make Money is Evil But Our Mission is Good".

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#272
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure, in the past, one of the domain registrars took the liberty of actually registering your searched domain, deliberately, so that you had to go through them to get the domain later on? - I can't remember who it was, but it was an automated process. I know it was very shortly stopped once people complained, but it goes to show that it has been done before. Getting rich off domain's - sounds like a solid busine…

I've got no evidence except anecdptes, but I've heard claims that GoDaddy used to do this a lot. For this reason I've only searched a domain I was going to immediately buy, otherwise I'll do a whois lookup to see if it's registered.

Just looked about and found these:

"Does GoDaddy register domains you search?" (2011) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326790

Within this, was the comment that reminded me which company it was I was talking about (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2327152) - Network Solutions used to do this - and there is a Wiki link in there which gives the process a name! TIL! :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#273
post #191

The problem with cheap hosting is they want to use backups as an upsell, but you should still have backups to cover the companies ass even if the customer doesn’t get to use them. 123 Reg lost a load of customers VPS’s a year or two ago also thanks to a faulty script.

Not excusing them but..

with modern container hosting you really should be able to make your own. even with cheap VPS hosting. There is no reason to live in a world where a server goes down you lose anything anymore.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a human gets a dump of them and decides which to pay the $10 for. For example, asdasdahbdajsdbajdbhsbdahsdd.com... not worth the $10 ireallylikechicken.com... maybe worth the $10? (ireallylikechicken.com is available, go squat it and get rich)

ireallylikechicken.com owner. I'll give you 20 for it?

Only a 100% markup? I am sure it will be worth more than that in the future ;)

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#275
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're giving a anecdote, let me do the same. I have about 30-40 domains with Gandi, and have been using it for about ten years. I don't remember ever verifying my identity, but guess I most have done it at least once. I have not been asked to verify anything for at least the last five years of using it. Disclaimer: I don't work there or have any relationship, except I'm a happy customer

It was a matter of them refusing to keep my identity on file, and the threatening tone of each ticket. It grew tiresome quickly.

Sounds more like a bug than anything. Why would they want to not make it easier for you if they can?

Seems you missed my point though. Both of our anecdotes doesn't really say anything, in terms of if Gandi is good or bad.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. He says he has made regular backups, but now needs to restore all VPSs 2. The website says "Snapshots allow you to create a backup copy." 3. He says "No they do not allow snapshots download."

It sounds like snapshots are directly reachable from within FTP in a directory. Snapshots are a clean copy of the file system you can back up, but they are not backups. He also states he has his backups, so he's mostly just whining because he's annoyed he has to reupload stuff. Which I get, but again, he should understand what snapshots are and aren't.

As @dwild stated, that's the other type of snapshots used for web hosting (which I assume are copy-based backups due to how little storage sites usually use). These snapshots are never reachable directly to the customer; at best, they can restore a volume back to the snapshot's state or create a new volume at that state and attach it to a VM.

> He also states he has his backups, so he's mostly just whining because he's annoyed he has to reupload stuff.

Or they're annoyed that they paid for a service, at the very least billed as backup, only to be told "welp, it's gone".

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#277
post #263

This is like living in an alternate universe, I've been heavily involved in all things programming and webdev for years, following trends and whatnot and it is literally the first time I'm hearing of this particular company. What is (was?) so special about them that they attracted the HN crowd can someone briefly explain? Why would I buy domain from them when something like namecheap, even google domains exists? Why…

> Why would I buy domain from them when something like namecheap, even google domains exists? Why would I even host something there? If you're in Europe, they're cheap for many European countries' domains. Back 10-15 years ago they were special because it felt like a hacker kind of company. They gave free WHOIS privacy, what seemed like good DNS control/UI at the time. But it was the WHOIS privacy that got me onto th…

Can you explain how you not using their hosting makes it a terrible diversification?

I think majority of people buy domains for hosting websites so it makes sense they would want to setup one using one click WordPress or something similar.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#278
Azure Shared Responsibilities [0]

AWS Shared Responsibilities [1]

Flipping a switch that says "Backup" does not mean you are handing your responsibility to them. At most, they will fail to meet their SLA, write you a check for according to the TOS and be done with it. At best, you'll be able to bitch about it on Twitter, possibly threaten a lawsuit (you read the ToS?) and still be in the same position because you did not share the responsibility of securing your data.

[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals...

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/shared-responsibility-mode...

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stephan is the damn CEO of Gandi! Unbelievable.

Is is what happens when a CEO thinks everyone else is just under him/her, including their own clients. They start thinking they are beyond the normal people and that everything is a joke.

That's a wild assumption to make from a few tweets. It's just a stressful situation for both sides that leads to rough comments.
Post reply on HN