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So, I was really pissed off when they said they'd start deleting pictures instead of hiding them like the old Flickr. I was never going to re-upload all my pict

So, I was really pissed off when they said they'd start deleting pictures instead of hiding them like the old Flickr. I was never going to re-upload all my pictures if I decided to go Pro again in the future. So I thought Flickr was effectively dead to me. However, in the 2 years since they announced that, all my 6000+ photos were still there. I never checked to see how many were still publicly visible, though. I wonder if they exposed only the newest 1000 public photos. That might account for the "63% of images lost" stat above. Finally, this fall I needed a photo-sharing site again and decided I still like Flickr with its shitty "new" UI better than most other sites. I particularly like collections of albums and the maps of photos. Plus, the overall UI for browsing an album is simple. No annoying sales-catalog style layouts. I have OneDrive for my camera uploads (habit carried over from Windows Phone) and other private uploads, but anything I want to share publicly will go on Flickr. They had a pretty good sale on Black Friday, so I ended up signing up for a year. Still keep backups of my photos locally of course and I am ready to bail if they change it to look like Smugmug :-)

derefr 5y ago
I bet what they actually did, is to only delete pictures from accounts that were clearly created by systems that used images as steganographic containers for arbitrary private data storage. (The use of such systems is why Google Photos — originally offering unlimited storage — had to later limit free storage to 5GB.) Flickr had to make it clear that any free-tier user could potentially be impacted; but in practice the impact was limited to users who were actually abusing the system (though in a way that was previously "within the letter of the law.")
- jcun4128 5y ago
  > steganographic containers for arbitrary private data storage I'd be curious how you sell that. I understand you can have some API to take whatever data, put it into the images, upload the images, reverse for use. But some portal somewhere is like "buy secret storage" or something? I guess it is worth the processing/possible data loss efficiency. Or is it just using bandwidth?
  - rocqua 5y ago
    You build an app that will create your backups for you using your free image sharing account. Or maybe instead of backups it's for big filetransfers, or sharing somewhat secret documents. The main point is to make use of the effective endless storage, rather than to store things hidden in plain sight.
    - codetrotter 5y ago
      I remember also back when GMail first became available to people by invitation, and at the time the amount of storage you were given, while not as impressive by today’s standards, was pretty significant at the time. And someone created a system to allow you to backup files from your computer onto your GMail. I wonder if that system inspired Google to build Google Drive. Here’s an article from the time, and an excerpt from said article: > As many of you know, Gmail is Google's free web mail service that gives you 2+ Gigs of free storage for your email and attachments. Now that is a lot of storage; actually more storage than most people really need. So what can we do with all that extra storage you may be wondering? What if I told you that we could use all this extra storage to act as an online hard drive for you to store files? https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-use-gmail-as-an-online-drive/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-use-gmail-... And the original page, which is still around too. http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm > GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium. Windows XP. Good times :) If Google did take inspiration from it when later creating Google Drive then maybe that’s even where they took the name for Google Drive from. Speaking of Google, storage space, and that time period, here’s a comic strip I remember from back then :) http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/669.html http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/669.html
      - mkr-hn 5y ago
        People were clamoring for Google to make Google Drive in the same way people were clamoring for Apple to make the iPhone.

derefr 5y ago

I bet what they actually did, is to only delete pictures from accounts that were clearly created by systems that used images as steganographic containers for arbitrary private data storage. (The use of such systems is why Google Photos — originally offering unlimited storage — had to later limit free storage to 5GB.) Flickr had to make it clear that any free-tier user could potentially be impacted; but in practice the impact was limited to users who were actually abusing the system (though in a way that was previously "within the letter of the law.")

jcun4128 5y ago
> steganographic containers for arbitrary private data storage I'd be curious how you sell that. I understand you can have some API to take whatever data, put it into the images, upload the images, reverse for use. But some portal somewhere is like "buy secret storage" or something? I guess it is worth the processing/possible data loss efficiency. Or is it just using bandwidth?
- rocqua 5y ago
  You build an app that will create your backups for you using your free image sharing account. Or maybe instead of backups it's for big filetransfers, or sharing somewhat secret documents. The main point is to make use of the effective endless storage, rather than to store things hidden in plain sight.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    I remember also back when GMail first became available to people by invitation, and at the time the amount of storage you were given, while not as impressive by today’s standards, was pretty significant at the time. And someone created a system to allow you to backup files from your computer onto your GMail. I wonder if that system inspired Google to build Google Drive. Here’s an article from the time, and an excerpt from said article: > As many of you know, Gmail is Google's free web mail service that gives you 2+ Gigs of free storage for your email and attachments. Now that is a lot of storage; actually more storage than most people really need. So what can we do with all that extra storage you may be wondering? What if I told you that we could use all this extra storage to act as an online hard drive for you to store files? https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-use-gmail-as-an-online-drive/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-use-gmail-... And the original page, which is still around too. http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm > GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium. Windows XP. Good times :) If Google did take inspiration from it when later creating Google Drive then maybe that’s even where they took the name for Google Drive from. Speaking of Google, storage space, and that time period, here’s a comic strip I remember from back then :) http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/669.html http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/669.html
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      People were clamoring for Google to make Google Drive in the same way people were clamoring for Apple to make the iPhone.