Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit: Agreed.
That's a pretty stupid reason not to have backups. If anything, a lack of backups makes me feel like any safeguards for protecting PII would be sub par.
This is a very sound leap of logic you're making.
Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
31–40 of 100 posts
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#32The joys of IT. Back in the day, to wipe years of records you had to burn or shred tons of paper in multiple locations. Now you just crash one little system... Despite 20 years of Microsoft-induced crashes, clear best practices and yadda yadda, most organizations will still have a single backup system for any given data repository -- if they have one at all. And the answer when shit happens is "outsource! Go to the c…
I would consider it progress. The only data loss to Google that I was able to find was [0], where a single datacenter was hit by lightning 4 times in short succession, and 0.000001% of disk space in said datacenter was lost. And only because the lost data consisted of recent writes that had yet to be backed up. And only because the lightning affected the AUX power systems in a way that they have since committed to fi…
The only thing between your data and /dev/null in a cloud data center is a vacation and expired credit card.
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#33Sigh. When I was in university, I worked at a computer store one summer that provided IT services to local offices. One of the clients was the Mexican consulate. We were hired to do various things, including installing a tape backup system.
I was installing some service packs at about 5pm. Windows NT4. 5pm, everyone's gone home, safe, right? Server asks if I want to restart, I say yes. Then a guy walks into the server room, asks if I had restarted the server. I say yes. Whoops, OK, I guess someone was working.
Next day, the database was dead. Seemingly because I had restarted the server while someone was using it. It was a custom database job, and the contractor who had made it was on vacation in some other country. Here's the kicker. Usually tape backups have rolling tapes, right? But we hadn't started rolling tapes yet. So the good backup from 2 days prior was overwritten the night before with the crashed database. Ugh. And I was due to go back to school in 2 weeks in another city. Ouch. I still feel bad about that to this day. No idea how my boss ended up.
Never ever let someone who doesn't know what they're doing mess around with your mission critical systems where the consequences are not recoverable. Always guide them. Although in my case, it seems I may have known more than my boss at the time, so maybe wasn't possible for me....
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#34There has been too much recently of government agencies losing data due to "crashes" or "inadvertent" deletions. For example the IRS, state department, and now the Air Force. A really easy way to fix this is to make a law so that if government data such as this gets lost, then the cabinet level person responsible for overseeing the agency immediately loses their cabinet level position and is barred from further work…
Yeah, forgive me if I'm too cynical, but Hanlon's razor fails when this sort of thing involves criminal investigations of government employees. Edit: it also inspired a variation on an old joke about how the same word means different things to different people. For example, suppose the order goes out to "secure the data center." Marines report back, "We have destroyed the data center." Army reports, "We have killed e…
[deleted]
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#35There has been too much recently of government agencies losing data due to "crashes" or "inadvertent" deletions. For example the IRS, state department, and now the Air Force. A really easy way to fix this is to make a law so that if government data such as this gets lost, then the cabinet level person responsible for overseeing the agency immediately loses their cabinet level position and is barred from further work…
This seems like a great idea for incentivizing success. I'd support such legislation 100%.
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#36Dear 18F [1]: Help, please. [1] https://cloud.gov/
18F is severely outgunned. They need your help. I can't say that enough. The entire Western US is on fire, there's a drought, they have one fire hose and their next boss may turn it off.
Nice to see an encouraging response for 18F here. They are fighting the good fight, and most people don't even know what they are up against.
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#37There has been too much recently of government agencies losing data due to "crashes" or "inadvertent" deletions. For example the IRS, state department, and now the Air Force. A really easy way to fix this is to make a law so that if government data such as this gets lost, then the cabinet level person responsible for overseeing the agency immediately loses their cabinet level position and is barred from further work…
This idea is too simplistic. Although I used to support it. I've changed my position from yours to 'retrained and demotion' position. Since people make mistakes, I think being 'barred from further work' is counter-productive and the government would lose out on many able and competent workers. Heck, this idea could also be exploited by lower-level workers due to not liking their higher-up bosses; i.e. a lower-level worker intentionally screwing up and costing the job of the higher-up boss because of the 'new law' stating the higher-up is now 'barred' from further govt work. Easy way to take out the competition going up a ladder.
P.S. I think legislating accountability is an issue the public needs to debate. In all countries. The US has seen numerous gross negligence/errors (heck one is too many) in various levels of govt (fed, state, local). I hope we can come up with a better solution than 'fire them and bar them' and even mine of 'demote/retrain'. There has to be a better way to legislate govt accountability.
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#38The joys of IT. Back in the day, to wipe years of records you had to burn or shred tons of paper in multiple locations. Now you just crash one little system... Despite 20 years of Microsoft-induced crashes, clear best practices and yadda yadda, most organizations will still have a single backup system for any given data repository -- if they have one at all. And the answer when shit happens is "outsource! Go to the c…
I would consider it progress. The only data loss to Google that I was able to find was [0], where a single datacenter was hit by lightning 4 times in short succession, and 0.000001% of disk space in said datacenter was lost. And only because the lost data consisted of recent writes that had yet to be backed up. And only because the lightning affected the AUX power systems in a way that they have since committed to fi…
one point anecdote: Google's Keep lost my data after it decided to upgrade itself (gone from phone and cloud). Just some notes but still.
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#39There has been too much recently of government agencies losing data due to "crashes" or "inadvertent" deletions. For example the IRS, state department, and now the Air Force. A really easy way to fix this is to make a law so that if government data such as this gets lost, then the cabinet level person responsible for overseeing the agency immediately loses their cabinet level position and is barred from further work…
It's super convient considering congress is investigating their discipline processes after some incidents they've had.
Re: Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
#40There has been too much recently of government agencies losing data due to "crashes" or "inadvertent" deletions. For example the IRS, state department, and now the Air Force. A really easy way to fix this is to make a law so that if government data such as this gets lost, then the cabinet level person responsible for overseeing the agency immediately loses their cabinet level position and is barred from further work…
I agree. These days I don't believe it when I hear something so opportune... oh, surprise surprise, we lost all our data on criminal investigations. How convenient for some people!