> Local backups shall be stored in different locations (depends on importance) not reachable by network. The cloud is the server of someone else and not a backup.
That's common knowledge among tech people but blaming the victim is not the solution here. These services are marketed as safe, reliable, and not needing backups (in fact sometimes they make it difficult to take backups, even more so for a non-technical user).
Maybe the regulation should be changed that any consumer-grade storage service either needs to provide adequate SLAs & compensation, or have to advertise in bold and prominent font (at least as prominent as their selling points) "WE MAY EAT YOUR DATA AT ANY TIME, PLAN ACCORDINGLY".
Nobody is blaming the victim, they're saying that you should have a backup outside of your cloud provider.
I don't think people care enough about SLAs to pay a premium, until something happens to their data. But by then it's too late. The bold warning is cute, but have you seen cigarette packaging in Europe lately?
> The bold warning is cute, but have you seen cigarette packaging in Europe lately?
The warning served its purpose quite well though - the majority of people including smokers concede that smoking is harmful. If they are still smoking despite that, it's on them.
The same cannot be said of cloud services. Very few people outside of tech think that the cloud can fail (whether technical failure or just randomly ban you for potential unspecified violation of ToS), so the same kinds of warnings would be useful to spread awareness.
> If they are still smoking despite that, it's on them.
That's my point: the warnings don't lead to reasonable decisions.
"If you don't pay for it, you are the product" has to be one of the most echoed sentiments of the last few years, and people still demand everything for free, and prefer to pay with their data instead of paying for the content they consume (e.g. on newspapers).
If Amazon gave them a choice of "you're data is most most most likely fine" and "your data is most most most most likely fine, and we'll pay you $1000 if it's not but you pay twice the money each month", I doubt they'll see a lot of people switch over. They'll have some, but not many, because ultimately, people don't care enough.
> the warnings don't lead to reasonable decisions.
The warnings lead to informed decisions. They may not always be reasonable, but at least the person knows what they're getting themselves into.
My intention is not to outlaw "best effort" cloud storage or legally compel the providers to offer an SLA, but merely to make the limitations clear so that customers, including non-technical ones, can make an informed decision.
> I don't think people care enough about SLAs to pay a premium
Huh? People specifically pay for cloud to not lose their data. Before that my parents used to copy photos from laptop to laptop, and lose them when a hard disk failed.
Now if cloud loses your data, they might ask wtf am I paying for.
There's "cloud" and there's "guaranteed cloud with SLA and compensation if it fails", and the latter will be more expensive. The former is somewhat "best effort", and that's also why it's cheap.
Is it really cheap? For 3 years of cloud subscribtion, I can buy 2 Nas drives, drop them at the homes of two of my friends, sync my PC to NAS 1, and backup NAS 1 to NAS 2.
They are like 2 -click setup if you use Synology/Qnap/etc.
You can do that, the average person can't, so you should probably consider the time you'd spend on it, and how much it would cost the average person to hire someone to set it up for them. I don't think it'll be too cheap.
In the end, not dealing with that is most likely worth it for most people (including most people who have the necessary skill set).
I am not proposing rolling my oen linux box, I am talking about an off-the-shelf product where you plug it in and set a password. You follow a manual with pictures and there is real customer support.
This is very user friendly and good 50% of working-age population can do that.
Man, if I smoked, I'd buy a cigarette case and transfer those bad boys over. I don't wanna look at gross lungs every time I go for a cig. Of course that's the point, but yuck.
I‘m sorry if you interpret here a blame. I consider repeating common knowledge actually a necessity!
To keep tech people informed and aware and also non-tech people.
That's common knowledge among tech people but blaming the victim is not the solution here. These services are marketed as safe, reliable, and not needing backups (in fact sometimes they make it difficult to take backups, even more so for a non-technical user).
Maybe the regulation should be changed that any consumer-grade storage service either needs to provide adequate SLAs & compensation, or have to advertise in bold and prominent font (at least as prominent as their selling points) "WE MAY EAT YOUR DATA AT ANY TIME, PLAN ACCORDINGLY".