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Server Failure Destroys Sidekick Users' Backup Data
Expanding on the T-Mobile data loss mentioned in an update to an earlier story, reader stigmato writes "T-Mobile's popular Sidekick brand of devices and their users are facing a data loss crisis. According to the T-Mobile community forums, Microsoft/Danger has suffered a catastrophic server failure that has resulted in the loss of all personal data not stored on the phones. They are advising users not to turn off their phones, reset them or let the batteries die in them for fear of losing what data remains on the devices. Microsoft/Danger has stated that they cannot recover the data but are still trying. Already people are clamoring for a lawsuit. Should we continue to trust cloud computing content providers with our personal information? Perhaps they should have used ZFS or btrfs for their servers."
homemade cell phone porn videos cried out and then were silenced.
This seems a rather silly point to make. I know this is Slashdot and we have to suggest Open Source alternatives but throwing out random file systems as a suggestion to fix poor management and HARDWARE issues is some place between ignorant and silly.
Perhaps they should have had at least mirrored or stripped raid, with an off-site backup every week or so?
So are we saying microsoft didn't have a backup? what about a offsite backup? Who wants to bet they were using their own backup solution? if they had a decent storage array they could have had snapshots and offsite replica's to restore from
shit, is that TSR still hanging around? goodness!
If the above means anything to you, "apt-get install joe mc" will make you smile as well.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Or this was really a software error, and the backup servers in an other datacenter, just copied the faulty data/delete command.
They should really be far to big to have all their data stored in a single datacenter with no offsite backup. (Or they should have an entry on thedailywtf.com)
This is an issue of irresponsibility. Plain and Simple. The company responsible for maintaining the data should -- at the very least -- have had some full system backup from last month. If they had some old backup somewhere at least you could chalk it up to systems failure or bad backup tape or bad admin or something.
But the fact that there is no backup anywhere indicates brazen negligence on the part of everyone responsible for the data. Everyone who had a part in designing the system and managing the system is culpable. The most ridiculous part of this is the over-reliance on server-side data storage by the sidekick designers.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Because the entire Sidekick architecture is very client-serverish, not transparent as with ordinary phones (GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/etc. through a NAT to internet at large); the server is supposed to be responsible for all that data, and the phone is just caching it. Given that architecture, asking why the local copy is on volatile RAM is analogous to asking why your CPU doesn't have a battery backup for system RAM, or even L2 cache.
That's one of the big reasons I didn't go with a sidekick, even though they have (or had, last I was shopping around) basically the cheapest internet plans available; they push all sorts of stuff that's handled by the phone in any other system off to the Danger servers,. While that does expose you to other people losing your data, as seen here, I didn't even consider that. I just like having a direct internet pipe, so I can run whatever software I want locally.
That said, there are plain benefits to the Sidekick model, for some people. Basically, if you don't want to do funny stuff on your phone, and if you're no less incompetent than the MS/Danger sysadmins, it's better. After all, if you drop your sidekick in a toilet, run over it with a truck, and vaporise it with a plasgun, you can just get a new one and have all your data back -- which is good, since if you're 95% of people, you've _never_ backed up your phone's data. But it's not for me, and given your desire to have your phone work as a PDA even if you power-cycle it in a wilderness/cave/other net-less place, it's not for you either.
Right feature, wrong server? MS understands the need for a "Rose Mary Stretch" default setting.
The congress critters have learned a lot from the "terrible mistake" of email backups.
From cute page boys to Iran contra, MS can market this as a feature.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
There are 3rd party apps out there that will let you "backup" your phone data yourself. I personally use a program called bitpim www.bitpim.org (make sure you d/l latest version). It works with many different phone models and I have used it several times to "restore" my phone data (had 2 phones with hardware issues). It restored my calendar, notes, phone book and rings tones (that last one can save you d/l $$$). It is easy enough to install and use, you do not have to be a total geek to make it functional (but having one available to help you set up backups would probably help). Been working in the IT industry too long to rely on someone else backing up my data for me, and I will not encourage Murphy to have a party in my honor!
This is unbelievably bad. The real problem is : why aren't there incremental off site backups to another server farm? A weekly binary difference snapshot would have made this failure less catastrophic.
Ultimately, with a complex application like this, you can't guarantee 100% that the code doesn't have a bug in it that could result in loss of user data. You can be ALMOST sure it won't, but 100% is not possible with current analysis techniques. (even a mathematical proof of correctness wouldn't protect you from a hacker)
But a properly done set of OFFLINE backups, stored on racks of tapes or hard disks in a separate physical facility : you can be pretty sure that data isn't going anywhere.
A server failure caused all of the data to be lost?
Maybe it was the server failure . . . maybe they only had one . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
There's some interesting background leaks on the takeover of Danger in this article which seem to imply they cut a lot of staff, and gutted the company, which is now running on a skeleton staff. So I guess it's not too surprising when this sort of mistake is made. Not the most reliable source, but they did definitely cut a lot of danger staff after the acquisition.
With all the competition in the smartphone market today, this is probably an unrecoverable error. If they manage to recover the data then they will come off as heroes for having the courage to tell their customers promptly. Otherwise they just look like they are: incompetent. No great loss, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
According to a very long article on AppleInsider:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/09/exclusive_pink_danger_leaks_from_microsofts_windows_phone.html&page=3
MS was misleading T-Mobile about the state of Sidekick support, and apparently charging hundreds of millions every year for, and I quote "a handful of people in Palo Alto managing some contractors in Romania, Ukraine, etc". This is apparently because most of the Sidekick devs had either moved to Pink or quit out of disgust.
Interesting article about the Microsoft/Pink/Danger/Sidekick relationship and leaks indicating that Microsoft are trying to kill Sidekick without telling the partners. Microsoft would never do such a thing of course ...
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
It is development dome.
Two companies enter, MS comes out, slightly fatter.
If you do business with MS, you are riding a tiger with the brains to realize that lunch is only a roll on the ground away.
MS really should be renamed to BubbaSoft. Get into the shower with BubbaSoft and you know what is going to happen.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
Need for backup seemed so far away.
Seemed my data were all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.
Anonymous
Sadly it comes to pass that every generation the Tao of Backup is forgotten and must be relearned through such trial by fire. http://www.taobackup.com/
No, it's not how Android works, or how the iPhone works either. You can have cloud enabled applications, but you can also have local storage based ones without any problems. There is nothing in the SDKs that force you to use the cloud for storage at all.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
"Epic fail" doesn't begin to describe this one.
Granted, this isn't cheap, but our data isn't either.
Microsoft bought Danger for half a billion dollars. Current estimates of the value of this data are roughly... half a billion dollars, plus a little. There's little doubt that in addition to destroying the entire value of the acquisition they've created a connection between "Microsoft", "Danger" and "data loss". In their release T-Mobile isn't being shy about tying those things together. Not good. That's going to have impacts even for some completely unrelated cloud-based products like Azure.
Somebody's about to get a really awkward performance review.
Help stamp out iliturcy.