Writer's Nightmare: Not backing up

[Wanderlog]

No, Backup is separate and needs properly managed, not included in every "corporate" purchase.

I'm an IT infrastructure designer and implementer, so I'm not completely in the dark here.

What about smaller businesses? Tools prices starts at "free" (open source).

Free cheese exists only in mousetraps. Or TANSTAAFL, if you prefer it. However, we don't discuss such businesses. We're talking about writers and, possibly, other home non-business users. Of course, any business needs a much better backup system than a thumb drive regardless of its size, no arguing here.

 

[Dan Jones]

Of course, any business needs a much better backup system than a thumb drive regardless of its size, no arguing here.

Unless you're the MOD, natch

 

[Wanderlog]

Unless you're the MOD

Er-r... what?

 

[Venusian Broon]

Er-r... what?

Our own Ministry of Defence have a track record of leaving all sorts of classified information in IT infrastructure, such as USB sticks and lap tops on the back seats of taxis and other public places. Not that they claim any of it was that important when such breaches come to light, but then unless we knew what it was, how do we know?

 

[Wanderlog]

Our own Ministry of Defence have a track record of leaving all sorts of classified information in IT infrastructure, such as USB sticks and lap tops on the back seats of taxis and other public places.

Ah! Now I recall that I heard about it. Well, what do you want from state functionaries? Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't even teach, manage.

 

[Phyrebrat]

those who can't, teach; those who can't even teach, manage.

Excuse me?

pH

 

[Wanderlog]

Excuse me?

(C) Bernard Shaw. Or Mencken's Law, if you like it more.

http://murphyslaws.net/by_topic.htm

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'm aware of the saying just not a fan of having my career denigrated

 

[Wanderlog]

just not a fan of having my career denigrated

A simple MSc like me can't understand greatness of supreme beings.

 

[Dan Jones]

Our own Ministry of Defence have a track record of leaving all sorts of classified information in IT infrastructure, such as USB sticks and lap tops on the back seats of taxis and other public places. Not that they claim any of it was that important when such breaches come to light, but then unless we knew what it was, how do we know?

Yes, that's the stuff. @Wanderlog - was just an in-joke from someone who's experienced the way the MOD works over the years. They do love an encrypted flash drive. But at least they're encrypted, I suppose.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

ROT13

 

[Wanderlog]

was just an in-joke from someone who's experienced the way the MOD works over the years.

I already got it. I was simply unsure what MOD stood for in your message. Well, the military is a tough nut to deal with in any country.

ROT13

...is weak against frequency analysis. Steganography rulezz!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Yes ROT13 was a joke. Insecure for maybe 700 years now.

 

[Brian G Turner]

When you set up Google Drive on your PC, you do have a local copy. This is the master that is uploaded to the Google Drive account, and can then be accessed from other devices. Same with Microsoft's OneDrive.

Hmm...slightly worrying to rely on even a single Cloud backup solution, after even Google managed to lose data after lightning strikes on one of its datacentres:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33989384
https://status.cloud.google.com/incident/compute/15056#5719570367119360

 

[Droflet]

In case anyone hasn't mentioned it, backing up on USB sticks works for me.