Living in the Cloud - Suesa Rambles

_{By peter_py on pixabay.com}

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Today, after about 10 years of using (my own) computer, it finally happened: I suffered significant data loss. Luckily, not in the password department (thanks @reggaemuffin for talking me into 1Password). Still, what I lost were 10 years of carefully categorized bookmarks.

Back when I switched from my first laptop to a newer one, I carefully copied every single url in my bookmark folder into a word file, which I then saved on an external hard drive. Not necessarily the fastest way to do it, but it was the only available option.

When I switched laptops again, Firefox had already implemented the Firefox sync, a wonderful feature that let me easily import my bookmarks, cookies, history, saved passwords, ...

Soon, I started putting everything in clouds. Firefox, Google, Dropbox, Grammarly, Steam, Origin, didn't matter. The clouds helped me a little bit transitioning between devices (which I really, really hate).

So, when my not-yet-2-years-old laptop decided to give me the second bluescreen for today, after already giving me some over the past few weeks, I decided to purge everything and start new with factory settings.

I have everything saved in clouds, right?

I didn't check if Firefox sync is correctly set up.

Apparently, it was not.

I'm now left to grieve hundreds of websites that were useful for something - but what? Why? What were their names? I don't even fully know what I've lost.

I know, I know, could have been worse.

... actually, yes, it could have been worse!

"There is no cloud, it's just someone else's computer." (Random quote from the internet)

While the above quote isn't entirely correct, there's still truth in it. All my data (probably a good chunk of your data too) is stored on other people's servers. Most are protected through backups, to avoid data loss, but ... what if something drastic happens?

"Won't happen", you say. But why? There have already been incidents where something small caused huge waves. I recently learned of the "left-pad fiasco". A programmer unpublished a lot of code, which resulted in applications using it crashing. (For more info click the link, I'm not a programmer so I won't go into detail.)

Breaking one small thing can have a huge impact.

What would happen if Dropbox suddenly lost all data entrusted to them?

1Password?

Google?

Sure, some might rejoice, as now their data isn't sold anymore. But how many of us rely on those services to keep our backups? How many of us still have physical hard drives to keep backups on? How often do you actually do backups?

We're telling newbies to keep their Steem keys safe, to protect their passwords. How well do you protect your password?

Still, despite losing all that data (which really devastated me or I wouldn't make a post, ffs), I will probably still not change my habits.

Ok, scrap that "probably", I will definitely not change my habits. Because I know I might do backups for a week, for a month, but not for longer than that.

I will keep living in the cloud, trusting several faceless companies to keep my data more secure and better backed up than I do. And I honestly already see the day coming when I will really, really regret that.

How about you?

_{From "The Simpsons"}