3 ms·

Government Builds Free Cloud-Based Backup for an Ungrateful Nation

90 points by isbn 13y ago

cemerick 13y ago
Medium, a better place to read things…that show up in the bathroom stalls at the Onion? And, on the HN frontpage, apparently.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  Medium: The medium that you can post in where it will get upvoted no matter what because the text is formatted to be pretty. This Medium thing is getting out of hand. I think I've read possibly two or three articles that were legitimately good, informative, and offered new thoughts.
- methehack 13y ago
  Awe, dude... I thought it was funny.
  - cemerick 13y ago
    Somewhat amusing, maybe. Front page amusing? 74 points amusing? Goodness no, not when e.g. http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com has only ever gotten 4.
dllthomas 13y ago
Cute.
bobwaycott 13y ago
Medium offering up satire? What's next? "Obama Goes 'All the Way' to Prove to Americans Just How Wrong the Bush Administration's War on Terror Is: NSA Scandal a Lesson in Absurdity".
- pivnicek 13y ago
  True satire is very welcome, especially considering the sad state of public opinion.
  - bobwaycott 13y ago
    I enjoy satire that strikes my subjective determinants of good satire. But what exactly is true satire? Do you mean satire that actually exposes and criticizes people's stupidity in the context of contemporary politics and culture? Cos if so, this post misses that mark. I was unaware, before this post, that Medium even had the 'Pulling Pranks' section. This piece, however, strikes as less good than what I'd read in The Onion--and even that is more comedy than satire, most times.
ChrisAntaki 13y ago
>> A few thousand Americans are currently enrolled in a beta phase version of the program that would successfully backup all of their data. That beta program went live in 2006. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/05/mark_klein_docu/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/05/mark_klein_docu/
cagenut 13y ago
Interesting example of how not having the title in the url hurts share-ability (even though that was originally done for seo). I pasted this link to friends, but had to provide a followup paste of the title.
ddoolin 13y ago
Cute, yes. I'm honestly confused on why some others are complaining about the satirical nature of the piece. Seems just what some people might need at this point...
ck2 13y ago
I've been wondering why hard drive prices haven't gone down to pre-flood prices. Apparently the NSA has been buying every platter available via unlimited taxpayer dollars. Sounds like a joke but think about it...
- criley2 13y ago
  When I look at the multi-billion dollar NSA datacenter in Utah... I can't help but realize that the annual IT budget at Google or one of the big financial companies dwarfs that number, and does so every year.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    Sorry, bit confused - are you saying that NSA is spending more than Google / CitiBank or the other way round?
    - criley2 13y ago
      Sorry, my point is that Google and Goldman Sachs et al spend several times the NSA's big multi-year project every single year. As in, that datacenter ran the NSA ~$2 billion to build, but those companies are spending several times that every year on IT alone. I'm reminded of the SEC whose yearly budget is several times smaller than even a single large banks IT budget. I guess the NSA could have as astronomical black budget and is creating such an enormous amount of hidden demand that the market is that effected... but where's the datacenters holding that market-shifting amount of harddrives? Even the one being built isn't as impressive as some of the Google/Facebook datacenters popping up, so it seems ridiculous to me that the US Gov is affecting HDD prices when Google/Facebook/Banks et al are not.
      - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
        Good point - thank you. I suspect you are right in orders of magnitude - we will not really know the exact figures, but I suspect that Intel suddenly building a new plant to cope with demand that no-one can explain would get noticed by the financial analysts (well, the good ones anyway)
chiph 13y ago
I've been using this service for a while now, but haven't been able to get a restore to work. My data comes back with large parts of it blacked out -- no idea why. Has anyone else been able to do a successful restore?
haxxorfreak 13y ago
Not that I condone the NSA's practices in any way but it's interesting to think of how some of this data might serve as a historical record of our daily lives in the future. Never before have there been such detailed records of public and private communications, websites, photos and who knows what else the NSA has flagged for "permanent storage." Archive.org could only dream of having so much ephemeral data and the capacity to store it.
- krapp 13y ago
  Archive.org could only dream of having so much ephemeral data and the capacity to store it. Jason Scott must have the most awkward boner right now...
pvnick 13y ago
Thanks Obama!
mtgx 13y ago
> "safely stores all American’s phone and email contacts so that they can be retrieved at any time in the future" Right. I know it's a joke, but this type of joke is starting to get on my nerves, considering how far from reality it is. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/06/1221694/-NSA-Rejecting-Every-FOIA-Request-Made-by-U-S-Citizens http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/06/1221694/-NSA-Reject...
confusedev 13y ago
* Nations
mrt0mat0 13y ago
a lot of my friends knew nothing about the NSA illegalities going on. if they read this, they probably wouldn't get that it's a joke. They'd start searching for the sign up page online... i need new friends

90 points by isbn 13y ago

Medium, a better place to read things…that show up in the bathroom stalls at the Onion? And, on the HN frontpage, apparently.

rfnslyr 13y ago
Medium: The medium that you can post in where it will get upvoted no matter what because the text is formatted to be pretty. This Medium thing is getting out of hand. I think I've read possibly two or three articles that were legitimately good, informative, and offered new thoughts.
methehack 13y ago
Awe, dude... I thought it was funny.
- cemerick 13y ago
  Somewhat amusing, maybe. Front page amusing? 74 points amusing? Goodness no, not when e.g. http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com has only ever gotten 4.

dllthomas 13y ago

Cute.

bobwaycott 13y ago

Medium offering up satire? What's next? "Obama Goes 'All the Way' to Prove to Americans Just How Wrong the Bush Administration's War on Terror Is: NSA Scandal a Lesson in Absurdity".

pivnicek 13y ago
True satire is very welcome, especially considering the sad state of public opinion.
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  I enjoy satire that strikes my subjective determinants of good satire. But what exactly is true satire? Do you mean satire that actually exposes and criticizes people's stupidity in the context of contemporary politics and culture? Cos if so, this post misses that mark. I was unaware, before this post, that Medium even had the 'Pulling Pranks' section. This piece, however, strikes as less good than what I'd read in The Onion--and even that is more comedy than satire, most times.

ChrisAntaki 13y ago

>> A few thousand Americans are currently enrolled in a beta phase version of the program that would successfully backup all of their data. That beta program went live in 2006. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/05/mark_klein_docu/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/05/mark_klein_docu/

cagenut 13y ago

Interesting example of how not having the title in the url hurts share-ability (even though that was originally done for seo). I pasted this link to friends, but had to provide a followup paste of the title.

ddoolin 13y ago

Cute, yes. I'm honestly confused on why some others are complaining about the satirical nature of the piece. Seems just what some people might need at this point...

ck2 13y ago

I've been wondering why hard drive prices haven't gone down to pre-flood prices. Apparently the NSA has been buying every platter available via unlimited taxpayer dollars. Sounds like a joke but think about it...

criley2 13y ago
When I look at the multi-billion dollar NSA datacenter in Utah... I can't help but realize that the annual IT budget at Google or one of the big financial companies dwarfs that number, and does so every year.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Sorry, bit confused - are you saying that NSA is spending more than Google / CitiBank or the other way round?
  - criley2 13y ago
    Sorry, my point is that Google and Goldman Sachs et al spend several times the NSA's big multi-year project every single year. As in, that datacenter ran the NSA ~$2 billion to build, but those companies are spending several times that every year on IT alone. I'm reminded of the SEC whose yearly budget is several times smaller than even a single large banks IT budget. I guess the NSA could have as astronomical black budget and is creating such an enormous amount of hidden demand that the market is that effected... but where's the datacenters holding that market-shifting amount of harddrives? Even the one being built isn't as impressive as some of the Google/Facebook datacenters popping up, so it seems ridiculous to me that the US Gov is affecting HDD prices when Google/Facebook/Banks et al are not.
    - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
      Good point - thank you. I suspect you are right in orders of magnitude - we will not really know the exact figures, but I suspect that Intel suddenly building a new plant to cope with demand that no-one can explain would get noticed by the financial analysts (well, the good ones anyway)

chiph 13y ago

I've been using this service for a while now, but haven't been able to get a restore to work. My data comes back with large parts of it blacked out -- no idea why. Has anyone else been able to do a successful restore?

haxxorfreak 13y ago

Not that I condone the NSA's practices in any way but it's interesting to think of how some of this data might serve as a historical record of our daily lives in the future. Never before have there been such detailed records of public and private communications, websites, photos and who knows what else the NSA has flagged for "permanent storage." Archive.org could only dream of having so much ephemeral data and the capacity to store it.

krapp 13y ago
Archive.org could only dream of having so much ephemeral data and the capacity to store it. Jason Scott must have the most awkward boner right now...

pvnick 13y ago

Thanks Obama!

mtgx 13y ago

> "safely stores all American’s phone and email contacts so that they can be retrieved at any time in the future" Right. I know it's a joke, but this type of joke is starting to get on my nerves, considering how far from reality it is. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/06/1221694/-NSA-Rejecting-Every-FOIA-Request-Made-by-U-S-Citizens http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/06/1221694/-NSA-Reject...

confusedev 13y ago

* Nations

mrt0mat0 13y ago

a lot of my friends knew nothing about the NSA illegalities going on. if they read this, they probably wouldn't get that it's a joke. They'd start searching for the sign up page online... i need new friends