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For those who have worked in bank IT, I have some questions. So these days there's very little physical money. Most of my "wealth" is just entries in various

by habosa 8y ago

For those who have worked in bank IT, I have some questions. So these days there's very little physical money. Most of my "wealth" is just entries in various digital ledgers. My bank says I have $XXX and my brokerage says I have $YYY and my retirement account says I have $ZZZ. Let's go with the bank account case. Is it possible that a catastrophic accident or attack could wipe my balance down to $0 with no way to recover? What if a data center was nuked? What if two data centers were nuked? How much redundancy is in the system? Are there third-party agencies that track private bank ledgers? How hard is it to take them out too? Ever since I read "The End of Alchemy" (a great book, btw) this thought has haunted me.

40acres 8y ago
Generally I think here is where the FDIC and SPIC would come in.
- bowmessage 8y ago
  Do they also have backups of account balances across all insured accounts then?
- gdubs 8y ago
  I’d love someone who knows the details to explain how that claim process would work, because while the FDIC would insure in the event a bank goes under, in that scenario there’s usually records. What would happen if there were no records? Surely there’d be lots of people making significant deposits in between snapshots. If you’re “paperless” I’m not even sure how you’d reconstruct your balance. Would certainly be time consuming, and in this case time would certainly be money.
  - Aloha 8y ago
    You presume the live system is the only record - its not, there are backups of those, then historical records to reconstruct what might have been there. Bear in mind the live records are only one part of what a bank keeps.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  I can't even imagine the hellish process that you would have to go through to prove that you actually owned the money you did to receive the FDIC or SPIC pay. I'm genuinely curious what the process would look like, if it even applies. Where would you even start if the bank just suddenly says "you have $0"?
  - ams6110 8y ago
    I guess I'd start with last month's statements.
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      I don't get those in the mail anymore, just an email with a link to their site. But even if I did, what do you do from there? Call someone and say "I have a piece of paper that says I should have $x but they say I have $y"?
      - ams6110 8y ago
        Yeah my bank is the same. I could download the statements, not sure who really does that accept the extremely paranoid. Civil claims are based on a preponderance of the evidence. if I go into court with a piece of paper from the bank saying that I have $5,000, and the bank has nothing to say that I do or don't have any money there, I have more evidence on my side than they do on theirs. In reality it's probably not that simple.
thecatspaw 8y ago
I would assume that banks have some cold backups in a mountain somewhere, like this for example: https://www.mount10.ch/en/mount10/swiss-fort-knox/ https://www.mount10.ch/en/mount10/swiss-fort-knox/ Although I'm not sure if it could withstand a nuke, its in a mountain, so, maybe?
- mulmen 8y ago
  Are the backups any good if the infrastructure is vaporized?
powdernine 8y ago
Not very possible. There are typically extensive business continuity plans with multiple geolocation backups. The auditors should be making sure every financial is doing their diligence in this area. I can tell you that at the credit union I work at we test our disaster recovery plans frequently including remote working, backup office space, alternate data centers and cold storage data backups. We also structure our operations to run live from multiple locations. We might be better than most but in a real disaster most financials would be able to recover financial information with a minimal amount of data loss. If you are talking about actual nuking then the story might be different. Not all backups can survive an EMP. I expect the biggest problem would be getting people to care about bringing the system back up. I think food and shelter would be of primary concern.

by habosa 8y ago

40acres 8y ago

Generally I think here is where the FDIC and SPIC would come in.

bowmessage 8y ago
Do they also have backups of account balances across all insured accounts then?
gdubs 8y ago
I’d love someone who knows the details to explain how that claim process would work, because while the FDIC would insure in the event a bank goes under, in that scenario there’s usually records. What would happen if there were no records? Surely there’d be lots of people making significant deposits in between snapshots. If you’re “paperless” I’m not even sure how you’d reconstruct your balance. Would certainly be time consuming, and in this case time would certainly be money.
- Aloha 8y ago
  You presume the live system is the only record - its not, there are backups of those, then historical records to reconstruct what might have been there. Bear in mind the live records are only one part of what a bank keeps.
Klathmon 8y ago
I can't even imagine the hellish process that you would have to go through to prove that you actually owned the money you did to receive the FDIC or SPIC pay. I'm genuinely curious what the process would look like, if it even applies. Where would you even start if the bank just suddenly says "you have $0"?
- ams6110 8y ago
  I guess I'd start with last month's statements.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    I don't get those in the mail anymore, just an email with a link to their site. But even if I did, what do you do from there? Call someone and say "I have a piece of paper that says I should have $x but they say I have $y"?
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Yeah my bank is the same. I could download the statements, not sure who really does that accept the extremely paranoid. Civil claims are based on a preponderance of the evidence. if I go into court with a piece of paper from the bank saying that I have $5,000, and the bank has nothing to say that I do or don't have any money there, I have more evidence on my side than they do on theirs. In reality it's probably not that simple.

thecatspaw 8y ago

I would assume that banks have some cold backups in a mountain somewhere, like this for example: https://www.mount10.ch/en/mount10/swiss-fort-knox/ https://www.mount10.ch/en/mount10/swiss-fort-knox/ Although I'm not sure if it could withstand a nuke, its in a mountain, so, maybe?

mulmen 8y ago
Are the backups any good if the infrastructure is vaporized?

powdernine 8y ago

Not very possible. There are typically extensive business continuity plans with multiple geolocation backups. The auditors should be making sure every financial is doing their diligence in this area. I can tell you that at the credit union I work at we test our disaster recovery plans frequently including remote working, backup office space, alternate data centers and cold storage data backups. We also structure our operations to run live from multiple locations. We might be better than most but in a real disaster most financials would be able to recover financial information with a minimal amount of data loss. If you are talking about actual nuking then the story might be different. Not all backups can survive an EMP. I expect the biggest problem would be getting people to care about bringing the system back up. I think food and shelter would be of primary concern.