[LAD] [OT] Richard Stallman warns against ChromeOS

[gene heskett]

On Thursday, December 16, 2010 08:12:34 am Arnold Krille did opine:

> On Thursday 16 December 2010 01:13:24 Dan Kegel wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 10:48 PM, gene heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> 
wrote:
> > > Now, if we can just get a law that when I have ... issued the delete
> > > to the server, it truly was deleted
> > 
> > For what it's worth, Google's caution in promising deletion
> > is probably because it's not quite sure how to do that
> > quickly.  Users would be Very Very Angry if a disk outage
> > or a fire in a datacenter resulted in the loss of their stored
> > email, so Google probably has some sort of offsite backup
> > arrangement, and that might complicate prompt deletion.
> > ... yup,
> > http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7401
> > says
> > "residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up
> > to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our
> > backup systems."
> > 
> > So, if you were google, would you use tape backup?  If so,
> > how would you do that permanent deletion thing?  If not,
> > how would you make darn sure you didn't anger users by
> > losing messages during a disaster?
> 
> I don't think google uses magnet-tapes or similar for any backups except
> the vital core data of its business. Given the number and size of their
> data- centers around the world, they just sync the data to a different
> part of the world an be done with it. Of course the deletion has to be
> synced to all remote-copies and probably also forwarded to older
> backups but once such a mechanism is implemented it should do the
> actual delete within a day...
> 
> There are even universities that decided against a new tape-library and
> in favor of a big stack of disks for long-term backup because these
> where cheaper, similar reliable and much faster for restore. And they
> don't need a special tape-library-managing app to access the data, a
> file-browser or the command-line is enough...
> 
> Have fun,
> 
> Arnold

I run amanda here every night, but no tape, big disks instead.  Much more 
usable come recovery times.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
The real reason psychology is hard is that psychologists are trying to
do the impossible.