Gmail Accidentally Resets 150,000 Accounts

tsj5j writes "Many users have reported loss of their Gmail accounts, as they signed in to find their email accounts reset — losing years of email history. This appears to be a result of a bug which treats existing owners as new users. For those affected, Google is currently trying to resolve the problem. For the rest of us, perhaps this is a timely reminder to backup our data and be less trusting of the cloud."

Comments

IMAP

[jdb2]

This is *exactly* why I have my Gmail account linked to Thunderbird via IMAP and I perform regular backups.

jdb2

I think I'd be okay if my inbox got erased..

[intellitech]

At least, I wouldn't then have to clean it.

What idiot trusts the cloud?

[dtmos]

I mean, even its name is vaporous.

Re:What idiot trusts the cloud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. "Oh, I think I'll put all my important information completely under someone else's control. That way, when it's lost, I can just point the finger at the cloud instead of taking responsibility for my own data."

Re:What idiot trusts the cloud?

[delinear]

Actually, given the technical ability of the average person, that's probably not a bad thing. This way they have at least some chance of someone technically competent at Google solving the issue for them. If they'd stored it locally and wiped it they'd probably be kissing goodbye to it instead of having a reasonable chance of recovering it. For most people's lolcat and pyramid mails that's a good enough solution - obviously if you're relying on it for storing your company accounts then that's another matter.

Re:What idiot trusts the cloud?

[nexttech]

Because its safer then my hard drive.

It would be interesting to see how many users had their hard drive crash and lost everything yesterday.

Re:What idiot trusts the cloud?

[LordLimecat]

It comes down to who you trust more. I have several clients who are looking at email solutions; two options are "host it inhouse with exchange and backup to tape / backupexec", or "Google Docs, and let a dedicated team handle it".

At the end of the day, they arent going to want to pay for my time to monitor backups, or perform restore testing, or rotate tapes daily. So do i trust that non-technical users will remember to rotate daily (I have several who forget, not realizing its importance despite reminders), or do I trust that Google will overall have less downtime and fewer disasters than a server with no physical monitoring or weekly maintenance?

I will note that gMail's track record is pretty darn good since its inception; I only remember seeing 2-3 other stories like this in that time, with % affected being very low in a few cases, and I do not ever remember seeing a permenant data-loss scenario. Contrast to the real world, where I go to do a restore for said clients, and it turns out they havent rotated tapes in ages, or the tape drive has needed cleaning for years, or their online backup that they picked out (sans my advice) doesnt actually capture exchange or system state... etc.

So sure, make claims that "the cloud" is untrustworthy... but there are scores of companies that rely on consultants for server setup and then never have an IT person set foot in the "server room" for several years thereafter-- and thats PRECISELY the market that "the cloud" is perfect for. You offload IT work from non-skilled folks to skilled folks, with the downside of relying on connectivity (though gmail has offline mode...).

Only I value my data enough to protect it properly

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one person in the world who values my data enough to protect it properly, and that person is me.

Seems like a good place to suggest backup solution

[Mascot]

A stand-alone application seems the safest way to go. Personally, I use MailStore (free home edition) to ensure a local backup of my Gmail mails.

I suspect offline access via Gears wouldn't help much in this case. It's supposed to stay in sync so I guess logging into an empty account would sync the local gears data into oblivion as well. The same would presumably be true of a local IMAP client (though that could at least be recovered from a backup and then opened in offline mode).

I haven't paid anything for this but

[carou]

I demand my money back!

Gmail-Backup

[dHeinemann]

This is exactly why it's important to keep backups. Gmail Backup is a pretty straightforward way to back up your Gmail account. You can also use it to upload emails from one account into another.

Re:Only I value my data enough to protect it prope

[camperdave]

There is only one person in the world who values my data enough to protect it properly, and that person is me.

...And I don't eve trust that person to do it properly.

Re:Only I value my data enough to protect it prope

[1s44c]

There is only one person in the world who values my data enough to protect it properly, and that person is me.

Dam right. Trusting your email to a company who's main business is mining data can't be safe either. Having your data spread out over god knows how many countries and subject to the whims of who knows what government agencies doesn't sound like a good idea.

I run my own mail server and do nightly backups of my whole mailstore. Any decent linux admin should be able to setup a cheap virtual machine and a BackupPC server at home to do the same. In fact any decent linux admin should enjoy setting it up.

Re:Only I value my data enough to protect it prope

[dkleinsc]

...And I don't eve trust that person to do it properly.

After all, a simple typo can completely screw up the meaning of an automated backup script!

Re:Gmail has always been somewhat of a crapshoot

[linuxgurugamer]

Happened with Bigfoot.com. They advertised free unlimited email, then one day they started limiting it to 20 messages a day. I left them as soon as I was able to change all the accounts pointing to it.

Now I have my own domain, and while it's on a CPanel-based box somewhere in Texas, I can do regular nightly backups of everything, and if I need to can move it to another host and simply change the DNS.

Not so much of a story, really

[RivenAleem]

Google has already stated they have a resolution, but it may take a little time to implement. They have backups, and will restore the accounts. This seems like a case of:

Something went wrong, they're fixing it.

The End.

Re:Not so much of a story, really

[Daley_G]

This is all true, but would there be as much traffic on this article had the headline read something like "Gmail Accidentally Resets .004% of the Total Number of Accounts, and they'll have it fixed soon" ? Media generates hype. Hype generates income.

Re:Not so much of a story, really

[marcosdumay]

They do that often. We get tons of people complaining that the cloud isn't reliable (mylself included), some people arguing that the cloud is more reliable than most PC out there, some people arguing you should have a backup, and some people arguing that Hotmail is crap and asking if somebody still uses it.

Well, the only difference I can see is that there is nobody arguing that gmail is crap and asking if somebody still uses it.

An opportunity to start afresh

[mmsimanga]

Perhaps living in Africa has given me a liaise faire approach to archiving mail. Life goes on with or without your years of email. In my working career I have always diligently backed up all mailboxes as I moved from one exchange server to another all with the belief that one day I would go back and read through my mails. I have never done this and I doubt I will be doing so in the near future. Over the years I have lost/misplaced some of the DVDs containing my vast collection of email and I have never felt the need to dig through the attic to locate some DVD with an important email stored on it.

I am struggling to read through my day to day mail. I am not going to bother setting up a backup server because I do not have the time to maintain it and I doubt I will do a better job that the "professionals" at Google. To those who lost their data I feel your pain but believe me there are worse things that can happen in life. Have a glass of wine and start your Inbox afresh.

Re:User education about faults and backups needed

[Ephemeriis]

Honestly, I think that for most people this just isn't a concern.

Most folks have been bitten by the lack of a backup at some point. You can't tell me they've never been working on a paper for a class and had the machine crap out on them - losing many pages of work. You can't tell me they've never been playing a game and had the machine crap out on them - losing a couple hours of progress. You can't tell me they've never sent an SD card through the laundry - losing some irreplaceable photos. You can't tell me they've never clicked "submit" on some forum comment or Facebook post and had the website malfunction - losing whatever witty thoughts they had at the time.

It happens all the freaking time.

But, for the most part, that information isn't all that valuable.

Folks will curse and mutter... And then re-type their paper, or re-play the game, or live without those pictures.

Folks won't feel like they need to back up their data until they're really burned by it. Just telling people that they need to make backups is not enough. Just teaching it in class isn't enough. Folks need to lose something that they care about.

How many people really know how to do backups?

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea that everyone should personally handle backing up their email is insanity. If you're a professional at this stuff, then fine, do it at home as well. But for nearly everyone in the population, gmail is going to be vastly more reliable than any backup scheme they come up with at home.

For the average smtp/pop user, email works like this:
1. Grab all the new messages off the server.
2. Read a few, respond to fewer.
3. Leave all of them on the PC's non-backed-up hard drive forever.
4. Eventually buy a new computer, losing all previous messages.
5. Discard the old computer with all the old mail sitting wide open on the HD, along with Quicken, etc., for any attacker who happens upon it.

Gmail is a _vast_ improvement in security and reliability over what non-technical people wind up doing with smtp-based mail.

Re:IMAP sync

[qubezz]

I suppose a prudent question: when you do an IMAP sync, does it wipe off the local copies just when the remote copy has been flagged deleted, or does it also go further: if you sync to a "reset" remote account, would Tbird's IMAP recognize the local emails no longer exist at the remote and toast your local folders? Will IMAP sync easily upload a whole gmail mailbox back up to a reset account? Time to look at IMAP protocol a little more closely, since we can't 'reset' our own gmail accounts this way to test recovery techniques.

Backing up your local profiles regularly to recover against a "gmail wiped all my emails" or even a "hacker deleted all my emails" scenario would seem a reasonable precaution.