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The affected model here, known as My Book Live, uses an ethernet cable to connect to a local network. From there, users can remotely access their files and make

by adolph 5y ago

The affected model here, known as My Book Live, uses an ethernet cable to connect to a local network. From there, users can remotely access their files and make configuration changes through Western Digital cloud infrastructure. Western Digital discontinued the My Book Live in 2015. The support forum thread was first reported by Bleeping Computer. The affected product is not a drive but a NAS solution. In terms of being a reasonable consumer my thought process is to evaluate distinctive products differently. NAS is a cheap computer with attached drives. It’s going to have computer-like failure modes.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
Well, the GP said "why should anyone ever again trust [Western Digital] to keep their data safe?" Using a Western Digital hard drive, internet connected or not, very much means trusting a WD product with your data. But I might be reading too literally. And personally, I do intend to continue purchasing Western Digital hard drives, just nothing internet connected, because I agree they're different products with different risks.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  From the quote the user you replied to posted it looks as though this is a product that was discontinued six years ago.
  - Angostura 5y ago
    I suspect they still produce NAS devices though. I wouldn’t buy one
ghostly_s 5y ago
Non-technical users don't care about this distinction. The name Western Digital is on both, and that name's brand value is destroyed forever if this indeed turns out to be irreversible. Though they could probably pivot to selling their drives in other's NAS devices without much difficulty if they want to remain in this market.
- riffraff 5y ago
  Non-technical users don't really buy hard drives individually, they would at most ask their computer-savvy friend or go to a shop who will replace it for them. I highly doubt the average non-technical user even knows who produced the hard drive they own.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    These are external drives, and I'd guess the vast majority of external drives are purchased by non-technical users.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    > Non-technical users don't really buy hard drives individually Yes, they do. My dad bought two WD My Book drives by himself as backup drives. He luckily was not aware that those things have an extra software for backups, nor how to install it, but those things are just sold like that targeted to the average user in your average computer store.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    Internal drives, you're right, likely wouldn't be bought by a non-techie alone. But THIS affected type of drive is specifically marketed to a very non-technical user, and I can certainly confirm my non-technical friends and family have bought products in this segment independently, whereas my techie friends steer clear. It's a NAS that's made to look like a drive. My techie friends would never buy it - they'd get Synology/QNAP, or do their own over-complicated time-consuming solution (slight editorial opinion there ;), or use cloud backup, or some combo. But my dad, mother in law, and other relatives have products like this, and have purchased them on their own. In fact, I think when asked, most techies would in fact go against the notion of buying cheap but internet-exposed storage device for a non-technical friend :O
    - belval 5y ago
      Your slight editorial opinion reminded me of this HN hot-take from the DropBox announcement: > For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
mnw21cam 5y ago
A NAS isn't actually distinct from a plain drive in that particular way. A plain SATA hard drive is a cheap computer with some attached hardware, just like a NAS. Literally, there's probably at least one ARM CPU core in there controlling everything and communicating over the link to your main computer. The difference is the protocol that goes over the link. In a NAS, it's SMB/NFS access to files over ethernet/wifi, and for a SATA drive it is the SATA command set accessing blocks. The difference is small.
- incrudible 5y ago
  > The difference is small. One of these things is talking to the internet on its own accord. The other is not. Small difference, huge implications.
rswail 5y ago
The fault here is because WD's backend/"cloud infrastructure" got hacked. That's on them.

by adolph 5y ago

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

Well, the GP said "why should anyone ever again trust [Western Digital] to keep their data safe?" Using a Western Digital hard drive, internet connected or not, very much means trusting a WD product with your data. But I might be reading too literally. And personally, I do intend to continue purchasing Western Digital hard drives, just nothing internet connected, because I agree they're different products with different risks.

edgyquant 5y ago
From the quote the user you replied to posted it looks as though this is a product that was discontinued six years ago.
- Angostura 5y ago
  I suspect they still produce NAS devices though. I wouldn’t buy one

ghostly_s 5y ago

Non-technical users don't care about this distinction. The name Western Digital is on both, and that name's brand value is destroyed forever if this indeed turns out to be irreversible. Though they could probably pivot to selling their drives in other's NAS devices without much difficulty if they want to remain in this market.

riffraff 5y ago
Non-technical users don't really buy hard drives individually, they would at most ask their computer-savvy friend or go to a shop who will replace it for them. I highly doubt the average non-technical user even knows who produced the hard drive they own.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  These are external drives, and I'd guess the vast majority of external drives are purchased by non-technical users.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  > Non-technical users don't really buy hard drives individually Yes, they do. My dad bought two WD My Book drives by himself as backup drives. He luckily was not aware that those things have an extra software for backups, nor how to install it, but those things are just sold like that targeted to the average user in your average computer store.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Internal drives, you're right, likely wouldn't be bought by a non-techie alone. But THIS affected type of drive is specifically marketed to a very non-technical user, and I can certainly confirm my non-technical friends and family have bought products in this segment independently, whereas my techie friends steer clear. It's a NAS that's made to look like a drive. My techie friends would never buy it - they'd get Synology/QNAP, or do their own over-complicated time-consuming solution (slight editorial opinion there ;), or use cloud backup, or some combo. But my dad, mother in law, and other relatives have products like this, and have purchased them on their own. In fact, I think when asked, most techies would in fact go against the notion of buying cheap but internet-exposed storage device for a non-technical friend :O
  - belval 5y ago
    Your slight editorial opinion reminded me of this HN hot-take from the DropBox announcement: > For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

mnw21cam 5y ago

A NAS isn't actually distinct from a plain drive in that particular way. A plain SATA hard drive is a cheap computer with some attached hardware, just like a NAS. Literally, there's probably at least one ARM CPU core in there controlling everything and communicating over the link to your main computer. The difference is the protocol that goes over the link. In a NAS, it's SMB/NFS access to files over ethernet/wifi, and for a SATA drive it is the SATA command set accessing blocks. The difference is small.

incrudible 5y ago
> The difference is small. One of these things is talking to the internet on its own accord. The other is not. Small difference, huge implications.

rswail 5y ago

The fault here is because WD's backend/"cloud infrastructure" got hacked. That's on them.