You're probably glad that you had the basics in place and made regular back ups of your data. Hopefully you didn't follow the "it's in the cloud so I don't need to backup" philosophy.
At least with office 365 you have a cached version of your email.
Google drive is hard as the only way is to setup continuous Google takeout's or use a third party service for backups which the last time I looked several years ago.
And still, after years and years and years people do not have backups, especially if they have their data in the cloud. From my experience the number of backups people make went down not up.
If my comment helped one iota to make backups more likely next time, I did good.
Except the problem is that you can't really back up Google documents. The file format is closed. You can, of course, periodically export them into common document formats. But you can't restore the same Google document and expect it back with all its functionality.
For the rest, you're completely right. Everything possible should've been backed up. It just has nagged me that a real backup isn't possible, and it has bitten me in the past (corrupted drawing, which corrupted related documents as well). Since then, I have only used the Google sheets/documents/etc. for throwaways and drafts.
There are multiple third party services which use the API to make daily copies of your documents, exporting them as MS Office documents. Yes, this isn't perfect, and you can lose some info in the files, it is pretty good for the most part. Nobody shpould be using G Suite without this, IMHO, because this happens too often.
I'm paranoid and tell people to print out data they can't backup and put it in a safe. I've always had some essential data printed out put in a fireproof safe :-) But yes Google is bad at this.
If you have critical data that can cost your company that you can't backup, your're living a risky life. Hopefully they've checked with their colleagues that those agree with living that risky life.
I could have said: Been there bought the T-shirt and I feel your pain. Which would be true. The person would have not felt better in any way because the data is gone, and would not have learned something either.
Does the person feel worse because of my comment? Don't think so. Either he already new and agrees with 'Yes, d* it should have done that, you're right' - what I felt someone said this to me - or he learned something. Perhaps if getting kicked hard enough he will not skip backups next time.
Does he feel bad? Sure.
Does anyone think about the people who he dragged down with him because he didn't have backups which would have been something he is paid for but didn't - do risking the jobs of everyone around him.
When consulting the FIRST thing I ask:
DO YOU HAVE BACKUPS FOR YOUR AWS/GOOGLE/... DATA?
And if not do it now - although the usually answer is: This is the cloud I don't need backups because they backup the data/redundancy/S3/... What about someone deleting it? By accident or itention? What about you getting sued by A/G/MS/...? What if they kick you of like XXX (Parler, ...)?
Most do backups to a another provider the same day.
Not having backups if you're the one responsible is not the same as getting cancer or being hit by a car. It's you've screwed up very badly endangering many other people.
Many "Christians" follow more Moses than Jesus - and ignor Jesus teachings - and would better be called Mosians. Though amassing gold was also not Mosianic.
I see more parallels between pop Christianity in the USA and Mithraism or the Roman imperial cult. It was shocking years ago to read the gospels and realize they are not following the actual teachings of Christ at all. In some cases those teachings are radically different and opposed to what most American Christians seem to advocate, especially on things like economics and militarism.
The parallels are particularly strong with the Roman imperial cult now that so many seem to want to worship a Caesar. I see this trend as independent of Trump per se. I saw it around Bush II, but IMHO it didn't take there because Bush did not want to be emperor. I get the impression that Bush actively rejected that role, especially seeing the quiet life of apparent personal recovery he has pursued after the presidency.
IMO this phenomenon reflects the struggles that society has with communications. Mass communication is both miraculous and horrifying, and as controls weakened with deregulation in the 80s, and disappeared with the internet, we’re faced with a world where any idea can spread.
You have places like HN that fill a certain purpose for the audience, but you also have places where neonazis and other repugnant fringes can do their thing.
We build and scaled a startup based on Scala code and successfully sold it, so - with all the Scala problems [0] in mind - Scala will always have a place in my heart. Using IntelliJ since a decade+ I wish those guys the very best with Kotlin.
[0] Binary incompatibilities, very very slow compilation speed, atrocious build tool
"That's impressive, but wouldn't really surprise me, as we know for a fact that some even more impressive success stories of several government intelligence agencies dismissed as "conspiracy stories" for decades turned out to be true."
I would be interested in these, any Wikipedia links?
Not exactly sure what you mean by that one word [0], but: You would consider it a conspiracy theory saying that an agency that is funded to listen in to everything [1] is listening in to everything? And it turns out not to be a conspiracy theory when Snowden reveals that the agency funded to listen in to everything has a program to listen in to everything?
Or does the conspiracy theory have any finer details I'm not getting or is different?
Was it a conspiracy of the agency to listen in on everyone? Or is the conspiracy that the government ('people in the know') conspired to keep it (a secret agency program) secret?
[0] "PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies." Wikipedia
[1] "The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT)." Wikipedia
I never met anyone who said it was a conspiracy theory that the intelligence agencies would listen in to everything on the internet and fullfilling their self stated purpose [0]. Even my mother thinks that is their job.
But it seems you have met people that claim the NSA doing it's job is a conspiracy theory.
What would those people say the job and purpose of the NSA is to explain it's existence?
[0] "The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both signals intelligence (SIGINT) [1] and information assurance (now referred to as cybersecurity) products and services, and enables computer network operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances." https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission-values/
[1] "Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people or from electronic signals not directly used in communication" Wikipedia
It's easy to forget how things were before the Snowden revelations, since Internet privacy issues have been covered much more extensively by the media since then.
(Edited to add "Internet" above.)
> Until Snowden, the idea that Western governments would routinely collect, store, and analyze our personal data sounded like a conspiracy theory to many people.
> The revelations were shocking: the scope and depth of the NSA’s collection of private data stopped looking like a conspiracy theory and became a cold, hard reality we all had to face.
"It's easy to forget how things were before the Snowden revelations, since privacy issues have been covered much more extensively by the media since then."
No it's not. I can't find any data to this narrative. There were (media) discussions on the government collecting all the data it can in the 70s, and they come up with every census.
There have been huge discussions around ECHOLON. There have been huge discussions about COINTELPRO.
Shocking to whom? I never met anyone who was shocked. Did you? Were YOU shocked by the fact that the NSA was listening in on the internet? Was your mom shocked that the government listened in on the internet? Who are those "many people"? Is there a poll or any substantial data? I really would like to hear from someone who thinks that it was a conspiracy theory that the NSA was listening in on the internet and then was shocked by the Snowden revelations.
I've read all three articles and none has any data or facts about the "many people" or any sources. What are many people? Where does this come from?
The parent comment claims:
"considered a baseless conspiracy theory before the Snowden leaks."
Considered by whom?
EDIT: Ok, thanks telling me you were shocked that the NSA was listening in on the internet. I would not have thought that someone on HN was shocked, especially after ECHOLON - I stand corrected.
The key words in here are "scope and depth". Before Snowden, the idea that the American government would collect the communications of hundreds of millions of people who are not under investigation en masse was considered a conspiracy theory by the average American Internet user. I'm not aware of any studies done on this topic, but it's a common sense observation.
Yes, I was shocked by the PRISM disclosures in 2013. Feel free to contact the authors of these articles if you want to argue with them, since they agree.
Edit: You apparently disliked my replies enough to downvote all of my recent comments on other threads.
I was shocked. Most of my tech savvy and industry friends were shocked. My parents were shocked. It was BLANKET metadata collection (and probably more). A Google engineer who eventually encrypted traffic between their internal data centers was shocked: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/00235225143/pisse...
I know people were "absolutely sure" before PRISM leaked, but it was a revelation to many.
As I've said I stand corrected. I just could not imagine people being shocked after PHOENIX [0], COINTELPRO [1] and ECHOLON [2], but even tech savvy people were shocked as you say.
[0] US government knows no limits
[1] US government does domestic espionage
[2] US governemnt listens in on everything
the only reason why MK Ultra was discovered was through a cache of just under 100k files that were supposed to be destroyed but ended up being found on accident. This forced the CIA to shut it down after it being unknown to the public for over 30 years. aka we don't really know how far back it goes and most likely will never understand the entirety of its reach. The Water gate scandal had everyone in the CIA destroying everything under strict rules if my memory serves correct.
Where would the conspiracy therory on MK Ultra be? That the CIA has a research programm using drugs and psychology to find a truth serum against spies of the Soviet Union? And people said this is a conspiracy theory and then the Church commission proofed it not to be one?
How would the Phoenix Program also be a conspiracy theory?
Where is the difference between a secret government agency program and a conspiracy?
Which would be? I am living in Germany and I am pretty disappointed so far.
GDPR has (intentionally?) a huge loophole: It is up to national agencies to enforce it, with no individual right to sue. These are heavily underfunded thus enforcement is weak to non-existent.
Well, I made some input to data protection agencies and got some feedback, so I'm rather happy on how things do progress.
That said I assume nearly all companies out there are not in compliance. To the point of the article, privacy policies are mostly not detailed enough and it will take some time before companies come into compliance.
This is the trade off between a strict PCI level compliancy policy with a strict checklist of things to do and the "vague" GDPR compliancy which was created that way to be independent of technology changing over time. The downside is it's not clear how to be really compliant and companies do the very minimum on what they think they get away with.
Also there are so many huge violations, that yes, the data protection agencies can't cover everything, so they start from the top with the companies that get the most complaints (1&1 getting a 10M EUR fine) or have the biggest missteps. I assume the Buchbinder fine will be much larger than the 1&1 fine, and it will for the first time proof to companies that they are still responsible when they hire an IT company to manage their data - which was the point of the parent.
Until the GDPR arrived data leaks were just "Ooopsy" moments to companies. This culture has festered for decades and it will take some time to change.
And my comment was to the parent "and the information they sell to the end user? Is it secretly there deep in some terms of service" where the GDPR requires you to tell people what you do with the data in terms that they understand it without obfuscating the message or hand weaving. I would have wished that companies need to open their process directory to the public though.
After maintaining an OLAP cube system for some years, I'm not that sure after reading the article.
The nice thing of an OLAP cube is the UI and how business users can easily drag and drop items to explore data (standard reports are best created automatically and don't need an OLAP layout/setup).
If the UI (Tableau, Excel Power Pivot) is the same, then yes, OLAP cubes are a thing of the past. Otherwise not.
Where the deal is, we don't put you to jail for 50+ years, you agree to be guilty and go for 10 years. With the prospect of ending your life in prision, everyone does a deal.
"I was at Mozilla for a while and it was a two-class system. The execs flew first class, stayed in fancy hotels, and had very expensive dinners and retreats - sometimes in the high five-figures."
Mozilla was captured by career executives and people with an ageneda - and money for years was not spend on engineering but squandered. I've been using FF since Mosaic days on and off (lately on again as Brave doesn't block more and more ads) and I'm said there is no alternative (FF hangs Twitch for me for which I need to use Chrome, WHY?)
