5 ms·

Over 2PB per cluster, thousands of clusters, but only 100's of PB of data. What do they use this for? iCloud storage related stuff?

akho 4y ago
100’s of PB seems low for iCloud. iMessage, probably.
pmcf 4y ago
On the slide shown, it says "1000s of applications."
xvector 4y ago
They use it for storing iCloud Photos without E2EE while heavily marketing privacy
- cassonmars 4y ago
  They were moving towards E2EE when everyone freaked out about the on-device perceptual hashing trade off.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    They should have wheeled out a better marketing spiel than "trust us ;)" then.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Yup. The knee-jerk privacy reaction cost us privacy.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      I don’t think it’s fair to say we need to accept either options. Yes the crime they are trying to stop is horrific and something must be done, but that doesn’t justify unlimited technological spyware. And the scope for abuse is so large. People in the UK are getting arrested for retweeting mean memes, it’s pretty easy to imagine Google and Apple added offensive images to their scanning and you get arrested for saving something that goes against the current political agenda. As well as the case where google locked the account of a parent who had taken photos to send to a medical expert.
      - MBCook 4y ago
        I have no interest in relitigating the saga or the recent Google incident. HN did that for months. I was simply agreeing with the irony. We had no privacy before, it was offered, people freaked out, we have no privacy today.
  - AmericanChopper 4y ago
    Well… you don’t actually need to make a computing device automatically report its owner to the authorities for a serious crime based on a provably flawed automated process, prior to implementing encryption E2EE for a cloud storage service. That was simply the strategy that Apple chose to pursue. Blaming the users for reacting poorly to this strictly anti-user approach is very backwards.
    - spacedcowboy 4y ago
      That wasn't what Apple was proposing though, they were quite clear [1] that it would be a human making the call to notify authorities, and only after a scoring algorithm had passed a threshold set pretty high (expected to be a trillion-to-one against false positives). [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211210163051/https:/www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211210163051/https:/www.apple....
      - AmericanChopper 4y ago
        Yes, which isn’t a massive privacy concern and is of course not also susceptible false positives. Oh, wait a minute, it is… https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil... Anytime this feature does anything, in every case, it will be acting against the interests of the user. There is no requirement, legal or otherwise, to implement this feature in order to enable E2EE for a cloud storage service. To act as if there is is simple gaslighting.
        spacedcowboy 4y ago
        shrug Every, and I mean every cloud provider is currently scanning every image uploaded to it. If every single provider is doing that, then I'm going to think there's a good reason for that, and maybe (just maybe) there's something behind it. Some reason for it. But I'm not here to change your mind - believe what you wish.
        4y ago
  - sneak 4y ago
    Or they could just deploy e2e without turning our devices into things that spy on us. It’s a false dichotomy.
    - spacedcowboy 4y ago
      Premise [1]: Anything uploaded to the cloud will be scanned for kiddy porn. Corollary: There are precisely two places that this data can be scanned 1) On the cloud servers. Anything and everything uploaded can be pushed through a scanner and anything that matches is flagged and sent off to a human to (ugh!) verify before being sent on to 3-letter agencies. 2) Within the privacy of your own device, only on things that are uploaded. Anything that "hits" is flagged and the same process (ugh!) as above is followed. This is not a false dichotomy. Once you accept that the scanning will happen (and it does), then it either happens at the source or at the destination. Right now everyone offering a cloud service scans at the destination (the cloud servers themselves), and everything is scanned. It is not possible to have e2e if the server can read the data to scan it - this ought to be obvious. Apple was offering to not do that scanning in their domain, but to trust that the device could do it in your own private domain, and that could have led to no further requirement for the server-side to be able to read the data (to do the scan). Which could have led to a fully end-to-end encrypted service for data, while still helping prevent ugly crimes. Users chose option (1), that is: scan everything uploaded on the server all the time and deny the ability for end-to-end encryption to occur. This is why we can't have nice things. ------------- [1]: This isn't quite a legal requirement, but every cloud service does it because the lawyers won't issue advice to CYA (cover your arse as the service provider) if you don't do it. To mount a successful defence against being sued, you need to make an effort to detect, seems to be the legal opinion.
      - sneak 4y ago
        Nah, if it is end to end encrypted, it is rightfully opaque to the service owner. Who would sue them, and why?
        spacedcowboy 4y ago
candiddevmike 4y ago
I thought Cassandra was bad at storing big files?
- magnawave 4y ago
  Correct, that’s what object stores are for. However, metadata on said files, is probably very handy to have in a database. I’m quite sure not all this Cassandra capacity is just file/photo metadata storage either.
- riku_iki 4y ago
  you can easily chunk big files.
  - brianwawok 4y ago
    It’s a horrible use of the tech. It’s like storing jpgs in postgres. You can do it, it’s just a really bad idea.
    - riku_iki 4y ago
      it depends, storing files in cassandra and jpgs in postgress allows you to not add another software with bugs and maintenance burden. If it works - everything is fine.
      - alexott 4y ago
        It may work, until you start to perform maintenance things, like repair, or new node bootstrap, etc. Then it may fail with high probability
    - peytoncasper 4y ago
      Depends heavily on the use case. I know multiple video related companies that chunked data for replays into 1s and 500ms segments. Having many keys, means that you can preform thousands of asynchronous requests for small pieces of data and then piece it together on the client side. Super low latency is just something else to optimize for.
bluedino 4y ago
Facebook database guru Mark Callaghan posits that Apple’s Cassandra workload likely relates more to iMessage than iTunes, but whatever the project, it’s massive… and it’s not uncommon. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/apples-secret-nosql-sauce-includes-a-hefty-dose-of-cassandra/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/apples-secret-nosql-sau...

akho 4y ago

100’s of PB seems low for iCloud. iMessage, probably.

pmcf 4y ago

On the slide shown, it says "1000s of applications."

xvector 4y ago

They use it for storing iCloud Photos without E2EE while heavily marketing privacy

cassonmars 4y ago
They were moving towards E2EE when everyone freaked out about the on-device perceptual hashing trade off.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  They should have wheeled out a better marketing spiel than "trust us ;)" then.
- MBCook 4y ago
  Yup. The knee-jerk privacy reaction cost us privacy.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I don’t think it’s fair to say we need to accept either options. Yes the crime they are trying to stop is horrific and something must be done, but that doesn’t justify unlimited technological spyware. And the scope for abuse is so large. People in the UK are getting arrested for retweeting mean memes, it’s pretty easy to imagine Google and Apple added offensive images to their scanning and you get arrested for saving something that goes against the current political agenda. As well as the case where google locked the account of a parent who had taken photos to send to a medical expert.
    - MBCook 4y ago
      I have no interest in relitigating the saga or the recent Google incident. HN did that for months. I was simply agreeing with the irony. We had no privacy before, it was offered, people freaked out, we have no privacy today.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago
  Well… you don’t actually need to make a computing device automatically report its owner to the authorities for a serious crime based on a provably flawed automated process, prior to implementing encryption E2EE for a cloud storage service. That was simply the strategy that Apple chose to pursue. Blaming the users for reacting poorly to this strictly anti-user approach is very backwards.
  - spacedcowboy 4y ago
    That wasn't what Apple was proposing though, they were quite clear [1] that it would be a human making the call to notify authorities, and only after a scoring algorithm had passed a threshold set pretty high (expected to be a trillion-to-one against false positives). [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211210163051/https:/www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211210163051/https:/www.apple....
    - AmericanChopper 4y ago
      Yes, which isn’t a massive privacy concern and is of course not also susceptible false positives. Oh, wait a minute, it is… https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil... Anytime this feature does anything, in every case, it will be acting against the interests of the user. There is no requirement, legal or otherwise, to implement this feature in order to enable E2EE for a cloud storage service. To act as if there is is simple gaslighting.
      - spacedcowboy 4y ago
        shrug Every, and I mean every cloud provider is currently scanning every image uploaded to it. If every single provider is doing that, then I'm going to think there's a good reason for that, and maybe (just maybe) there's something behind it. Some reason for it. But I'm not here to change your mind - believe what you wish.
        4y ago
- sneak 4y ago
  Or they could just deploy e2e without turning our devices into things that spy on us. It’s a false dichotomy.
  - spacedcowboy 4y ago
    Premise [1]: Anything uploaded to the cloud will be scanned for kiddy porn. Corollary: There are precisely two places that this data can be scanned 1) On the cloud servers. Anything and everything uploaded can be pushed through a scanner and anything that matches is flagged and sent off to a human to (ugh!) verify before being sent on to 3-letter agencies. 2) Within the privacy of your own device, only on things that are uploaded. Anything that "hits" is flagged and the same process (ugh!) as above is followed. This is not a false dichotomy. Once you accept that the scanning will happen (and it does), then it either happens at the source or at the destination. Right now everyone offering a cloud service scans at the destination (the cloud servers themselves), and everything is scanned. It is not possible to have e2e if the server can read the data to scan it - this ought to be obvious. Apple was offering to not do that scanning in their domain, but to trust that the device could do it in your own private domain, and that could have led to no further requirement for the server-side to be able to read the data (to do the scan). Which could have led to a fully end-to-end encrypted service for data, while still helping prevent ugly crimes. Users chose option (1), that is: scan everything uploaded on the server all the time and deny the ability for end-to-end encryption to occur. This is why we can't have nice things. ------------- [1]: This isn't quite a legal requirement, but every cloud service does it because the lawyers won't issue advice to CYA (cover your arse as the service provider) if you don't do it. To mount a successful defence against being sued, you need to make an effort to detect, seems to be the legal opinion.
    - sneak 4y ago
      Nah, if it is end to end encrypted, it is rightfully opaque to the service owner. Who would sue them, and why?
      - spacedcowboy 4y ago

candiddevmike 4y ago

I thought Cassandra was bad at storing big files?

magnawave 4y ago
Correct, that’s what object stores are for. However, metadata on said files, is probably very handy to have in a database. I’m quite sure not all this Cassandra capacity is just file/photo metadata storage either.
riku_iki 4y ago
you can easily chunk big files.
- brianwawok 4y ago
  It’s a horrible use of the tech. It’s like storing jpgs in postgres. You can do it, it’s just a really bad idea.
  - riku_iki 4y ago
    it depends, storing files in cassandra and jpgs in postgress allows you to not add another software with bugs and maintenance burden. If it works - everything is fine.
    - alexott 4y ago
      It may work, until you start to perform maintenance things, like repair, or new node bootstrap, etc. Then it may fail with high probability
  - peytoncasper 4y ago
    Depends heavily on the use case. I know multiple video related companies that chunked data for replays into 1s and 500ms segments. Having many keys, means that you can preform thousands of asynchronous requests for small pieces of data and then piece it together on the client side. Super low latency is just something else to optimize for.

bluedino 4y ago

Facebook database guru Mark Callaghan posits that Apple’s Cassandra workload likely relates more to iMessage than iTunes, but whatever the project, it’s massive… and it’s not uncommon. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/apples-secret-nosql-sauce-includes-a-hefty-dose-of-cassandra/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/apples-secret-nosql-sau...