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The fact that every single comment in this thread amounts to "should have backed up" makes me a little sad. Is this really what we want to expect from companie

by janekm 10y ago

The fact that every single comment in this thread amounts to "should have backed up" makes me a little sad. Is this really what we want to expect from companies like Google? Is this acceptable? Is it just a "force of nature" that I should consider beyond the ken of man? What happened here is the abrogation of human responsibility onto algorithms, TOS, with no apparent human oversight. A very disturbing trend, and I think worth having a conversation about.

wpietri 10y ago
Definitely. My dad, a now-retired programmer, was dealing with an error at his bank in the 80s. It was a bunch of work and frustration. At some point he asked why a thing happened and the rep said, "Oh, the computer just does that." He didn't say anything to her, but he was still mad when he talked about at dinner that night. "Computers don't just do things! People make computers do things. Every thing a computer does is something humans are responsible for." I get why a hapless bank clerk would just blame the computer. But it's deeply weird to me to see technology companies blaming "the computer", except now it's blaming "the algorithm". We glory in how "software is eating the world" and we take all the money that computers produce. But that sense of responsibility often evaporates when something bad happens.
- wvenable 10y ago
  I don't think the problem is software necessarily, it's scale. Software allows for scale but it's not the underlying cause. Google is responsible for the content of maybe hundreds of millions of people; if even a small fraction of them have issues that's overwhelming. At that scale it's impossible for you to be anything other than nothing to them.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    > At that scale it's impossible for you to be anything other than nothing to them. Even if that's the case, it is not impossible. It's just a choice that they made about how to structure things. The US government has hundreds of millions of citizens, but each one of those persons has rights, responsibilities, and privileges. The Catholic Church has hundreds of millions of members, but each one can have a personal relationship with a priest. If Google is really indifferent to what people have entrusted to them, that's a choice.
    - wvenable 10y ago
      Except neither of those things is "free".
      - wpietri 10y ago
        All three need to pay the bills, but none of them charges for most of the services offered, so I'd say they are similarly free.
        wvenable 10y ago
        The government collects taxes, the church collects tithe, Google collects ad impressions...
        wpietri 10y ago
        Yes, that's exactly my point.
- DINKDINK 10y ago
  >"Computers don't just do things! People make computers do things. Every thing a computer does is something humans are responsible for." I think the angle your father was coming at this was, computers are deterministic. There are lots of times when computers don't act deterministicly, flipped bits for one, also edge cases like Race Conditions etc
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    Flipped bits don't follow any pattern where you can say "oh it does that". Race conditions are the responsibility of the programmers just like anything else programmed in.
criddell 10y ago
Sure, but even companies like Google make mistakes or suffer disasters. In the case it seems like Google intentionally deleted the data because it was a TOS violation. But imagine the data loss was the result of a coordinated, multi-site terrorist attack. The advice would be the same - you need to have a copy of your cloud data.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Google have, AFAIK, lost data (Gmail glitch if memory serves), but they try really, really, really hard not to, and mostly succeed. Odds are exceptionally high that some technical storage error is vasrptly more likely on your own kit. Loss of access, or unauthorised access, I'm not so sure of. Actually, I suspect Google can do better than almost anyone at keeping black hats out. It's the risk of getting denied access yourself that's probably greatest. Some or much of which is outside Google's hands, via legal requirements based on activity. But that should operate under law enforcement, not as administrative fiat. My argument is that if using an online service isn't safe for a child pornograpger or terrorist, it's not safe for anyone. (Substitute rights activist or homosexual in a highly conservative country if the morality of the first examples blocks yor thinking.)
erikb 10y ago
No it's not, but not backing up the majority of your work some way or another is really really bad practice. Worse than google losing one of trillions of datasets.
knorker 10y ago
Look up the case of "Thomas monopoly". Google is legally not allowed to give notice or even reason in the case of child porn. I have no idea if this is the case this time, but seems not impossible.
marcosdumay 10y ago
It is a force of nature. Other people won't always act with your best interests in mind. There are several things we can do to reduce the risks, but after a certain point they become counter-productive. That's also a force of nature, by the way. At least of "human nature", what means, it's a force of nature as long as you are dealing with humans. But yeah, there's plenty of room for arguing about that optimum level of risk. Software industry contracts are beyond absurd for decades already.
Pica_soO 10y ago
.. but its so much cheaper then a service provided by a real life human.
794CD01 10y ago
Yes, this is exactly what you should expect from a free service like Google's. No reliability, and no support. If you need an SLA, pay for one.
- dietrichepp 10y ago
  In addition, nobody sensible relies on an SLA. If I need 99.999% data integrity and you deliver that as your SLA, great! But if the SLA is violated, the contract probably gives you just some extra weeks on your contract for a violated SLA. That doesn't make me whole, I need to plan for SLA violations.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
I'm an artist - though not well known or anything, nor do I sell often or anything. I do post in a few places online, however. And I have everything backed up, on my computer and an external hard drive. My work isn't digital, so I have that. not all do. It isn't what we should expect from google, but it still stands that the artist shouldnt have relied on simply one thing to keep his stuff safe. Accidents happen places, perfectly reasonable (albeit unfortunate) ones. This is the main reason for having backups. The fact that the guy didn't have some of this already in place is, indeed, his fault. It is unfortunate that there is little to no human interface. The interrupt to his interaction with fans/customers is more unfortunate - that is more difficult to replace. However, if he had another website or public communication form, Some of these folks would look him up. The main problem with this seems to be the sort of art he produced, which wasn't welcome on all platforms.

by janekm 10y ago

wpietri 10y ago

Definitely. My dad, a now-retired programmer, was dealing with an error at his bank in the 80s. It was a bunch of work and frustration. At some point he asked why a thing happened and the rep said, "Oh, the computer just does that." He didn't say anything to her, but he was still mad when he talked about at dinner that night. "Computers don't just do things! People make computers do things. Every thing a computer does is something humans are responsible for." I get why a hapless bank clerk would just blame the computer. But it's deeply weird to me to see technology companies blaming "the computer", except now it's blaming "the algorithm". We glory in how "software is eating the world" and we take all the money that computers produce. But that sense of responsibility often evaporates when something bad happens.

wvenable 10y ago
I don't think the problem is software necessarily, it's scale. Software allows for scale but it's not the underlying cause. Google is responsible for the content of maybe hundreds of millions of people; if even a small fraction of them have issues that's overwhelming. At that scale it's impossible for you to be anything other than nothing to them.
- wpietri 10y ago
  > At that scale it's impossible for you to be anything other than nothing to them. Even if that's the case, it is not impossible. It's just a choice that they made about how to structure things. The US government has hundreds of millions of citizens, but each one of those persons has rights, responsibilities, and privileges. The Catholic Church has hundreds of millions of members, but each one can have a personal relationship with a priest. If Google is really indifferent to what people have entrusted to them, that's a choice.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    Except neither of those things is "free".
    - wpietri 10y ago
      All three need to pay the bills, but none of them charges for most of the services offered, so I'd say they are similarly free.
      - wvenable 10y ago
        The government collects taxes, the church collects tithe, Google collects ad impressions...
        wpietri 10y ago
        Yes, that's exactly my point.
DINKDINK 10y ago
>"Computers don't just do things! People make computers do things. Every thing a computer does is something humans are responsible for." I think the angle your father was coming at this was, computers are deterministic. There are lots of times when computers don't act deterministicly, flipped bits for one, also edge cases like Race Conditions etc
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  Flipped bits don't follow any pattern where you can say "oh it does that". Race conditions are the responsibility of the programmers just like anything else programmed in.

criddell 10y ago

Sure, but even companies like Google make mistakes or suffer disasters. In the case it seems like Google intentionally deleted the data because it was a TOS violation. But imagine the data loss was the result of a coordinated, multi-site terrorist attack. The advice would be the same - you need to have a copy of your cloud data.

dredmorbius 10y ago
Google have, AFAIK, lost data (Gmail glitch if memory serves), but they try really, really, really hard not to, and mostly succeed. Odds are exceptionally high that some technical storage error is vasrptly more likely on your own kit. Loss of access, or unauthorised access, I'm not so sure of. Actually, I suspect Google can do better than almost anyone at keeping black hats out. It's the risk of getting denied access yourself that's probably greatest. Some or much of which is outside Google's hands, via legal requirements based on activity. But that should operate under law enforcement, not as administrative fiat. My argument is that if using an online service isn't safe for a child pornograpger or terrorist, it's not safe for anyone. (Substitute rights activist or homosexual in a highly conservative country if the morality of the first examples blocks yor thinking.)

erikb 10y ago

No it's not, but not backing up the majority of your work some way or another is really really bad practice. Worse than google losing one of trillions of datasets.

knorker 10y ago

Look up the case of "Thomas monopoly". Google is legally not allowed to give notice or even reason in the case of child porn. I have no idea if this is the case this time, but seems not impossible.

marcosdumay 10y ago

It is a force of nature. Other people won't always act with your best interests in mind. There are several things we can do to reduce the risks, but after a certain point they become counter-productive. That's also a force of nature, by the way. At least of "human nature", what means, it's a force of nature as long as you are dealing with humans. But yeah, there's plenty of room for arguing about that optimum level of risk. Software industry contracts are beyond absurd for decades already.

Pica_soO 10y ago

.. but its so much cheaper then a service provided by a real life human.

794CD01 10y ago

Yes, this is exactly what you should expect from a free service like Google's. No reliability, and no support. If you need an SLA, pay for one.

dietrichepp 10y ago
In addition, nobody sensible relies on an SLA. If I need 99.999% data integrity and you deliver that as your SLA, great! But if the SLA is violated, the contract probably gives you just some extra weeks on your contract for a violated SLA. That doesn't make me whole, I need to plan for SLA violations.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

I'm an artist - though not well known or anything, nor do I sell often or anything. I do post in a few places online, however. And I have everything backed up, on my computer and an external hard drive. My work isn't digital, so I have that. not all do. It isn't what we should expect from google, but it still stands that the artist shouldnt have relied on simply one thing to keep his stuff safe. Accidents happen places, perfectly reasonable (albeit unfortunate) ones. This is the main reason for having backups. The fact that the guy didn't have some of this already in place is, indeed, his fault. It is unfortunate that there is little to no human interface. The interrupt to his interaction with fans/customers is more unfortunate - that is more difficult to replace. However, if he had another website or public communication form, Some of these folks would look him up. The main problem with this seems to be the sort of art he produced, which wasn't welcome on all platforms.