What do people do when they get a new computer, do they copy over all settings automatically, usually, or not?
and your time is so worthless to you that you don’t mind spending hours or days reinstalling.
The annual failure rate was 0.9% for Hitachi drives… let’s say, 1%. So, for example, if the full backup costs $100 per year, the reinstalling would needs to cost $10 000 assuming linearity. Which is an overestimate due to possibly higher probability of accidentally deleting your data with your own hands, things getting stolen, etc, yes, I know. Why you keep repeating “time is so worthless”?
In the context of you being a salesman, the regular person, they don’t know what is the failure rate of the drive, they have to trust you that it is high enough, and you being a salesman, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to trust you. You can’t somehow prove from the first principles that the rate is high enough. It is not obvious that the rate is high enough. In fact for some manufacturers the rate can well be not high enough, unless we are speaking of operating system failures, human errors, and such.
edit: misremembered some other failure rate, fixed.
edit2: to summarize, between them backing up the most valuable data manually, the low probability of failure, and their low confidence in the words of a salesman, you can have a rational decision here. (I’m of course playing the advocate for “stupid people” not present to advocate themselves)
What do people do when they get a new computer, do they copy over all settings automatically, usually, or not?
If it’s a Mac, I think they do, because it’s so easy. In my experience they certainly do.
backing up the most valuable data manually
Uh, but if they back up their data “manually”, then they have thereby followed my advice. I don’t know why you keep drawing this distinction. My exhortations have always been to back up somehow. I never said “and you absolutely must do so with the following preapproved backup technology which you must buy, and certainly not any solution you may already have access to”.
The annual failure rate was 0.9% for Hitachi drives
The following are nitpicks, but still: a) not everyone has Hitachi drives; b) failure rates were higher in the past; c)
As for your monetary value argument, it ignores nonlinear marginal utility of money, risk aversion, and difficulties in translating value of time into money. (As do most such arguments.)
Uh, but if they back up their data “manually”, then they have thereby followed my advice.
Ahh, ok. Albeit there’s the second point with regards to the full backup.
As for your monetary value argument, it ignores nonlinear marginal utility of money, risk aversion, and difficulties in translating value of time into money. (As do most such arguments.)
Yeah, I know. I’d still backup. The point is, those are variables and may differ quite a bit, especially for the full-backup advantage.
On the other side of spectrum though, I know a lawyer whose opinion is that you should not keep durable records unless you actually really need to have them. (I think he often does divorce dispute cases and such).
On the other side of spectrum though, I know a lawyer whose opinion is that you should not keep durable records unless you actually really need to have them. (I think he often does divorce dispute cases and such).
Interesting. That’s certainly a perspective I hadn’t considered. One sort-of-related situation is one of political dissidents, activists, etc.: such people would almost certainly not want to use Dropbox and similar cloud storage solutions for e.g. lists of contacts, but they might want more private backups (off-site over-network backup solutions, for instance) to protect data against government seizure of their computers.
Certainly, if your concern is having your data accessible by entities (such as the government) that will take coercive measures to get it, then the equation changes.
such people would almost certainly not want to use Dropbox and similar cloud storage solutions for e.g. lists of contacts
It depends on whether they consider themselves vulnerable to rubberhose cryptography. If not, they can backup encrypted files anywhere they want to, including Dropbox, etc. But if they do, then it becomes a game of steganography and the local hard drives of their machines aren’t safe either.
Indeed, although the truly paranoid may rig their hard drives to self-destruct, or take some similar measure, in the event of the police breaking down their door.
I imagine active destruction of that kind might create huge legal problems of it’s own. On the technical side you can store the key in a file you can securely destroy.
I heard somewhere that in the US and UK, an average law abiding citizen, from the formal standpoint, rather frequently breaks various laws by accident. No idea about other jurisdictions. This is why NSA is such a big deal.
I imagine active destruction of that kind might create legal problems of it’s own.
If your fear of rubberhose cryptography is well-justified, “legal problems” are a minor part of your worries.
By the way, it’s hard to destroy a hard drive to the extent that a determined government wouldn’t be able to extract data from it. At least hard during the time it takes the police to break down your door.
I heard somewhere that an average law abiding citizen, from the formal standpoint, rather frequently breaks various laws.
Interesting. I’m curious what kind of laws are frequently broken… at company level I know there’s a plenty of regulations related to health and safety which are here for a good reason when people are working with, say, dangerous machinery, but are silly in the office context.
edit: how many laws would a company break if a computer scientist replaced a light bulb?
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”—Cardinal De Richelieu
What do people do when they get a new computer, do they copy over all settings automatically, usually, or not?
The annual failure rate was 0.9% for Hitachi drives… let’s say, 1%. So, for example, if the full backup costs $100 per year, the reinstalling would needs to cost $10 000 assuming linearity. Which is an overestimate due to possibly higher probability of accidentally deleting your data with your own hands, things getting stolen, etc, yes, I know. Why you keep repeating “time is so worthless”?
In the context of you being a salesman, the regular person, they don’t know what is the failure rate of the drive, they have to trust you that it is high enough, and you being a salesman, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to trust you. You can’t somehow prove from the first principles that the rate is high enough. It is not obvious that the rate is high enough. In fact for some manufacturers the rate can well be not high enough, unless we are speaking of operating system failures, human errors, and such.
edit: misremembered some other failure rate, fixed.
edit2: to summarize, between them backing up the most valuable data manually, the low probability of failure, and their low confidence in the words of a salesman, you can have a rational decision here. (I’m of course playing the advocate for “stupid people” not present to advocate themselves)
If it’s a Mac, I think they do, because it’s so easy. In my experience they certainly do.
Uh, but if they back up their data “manually”, then they have thereby followed my advice. I don’t know why you keep drawing this distinction. My exhortations have always been to back up somehow. I never said “and you absolutely must do so with the following preapproved backup technology which you must buy, and certainly not any solution you may already have access to”.
The following are nitpicks, but still: a) not everyone has Hitachi drives; b) failure rates were higher in the past; c)
As for your monetary value argument, it ignores nonlinear marginal utility of money, risk aversion, and difficulties in translating value of time into money. (As do most such arguments.)
Ahh, ok. Albeit there’s the second point with regards to the full backup.
Yeah, I know. I’d still backup. The point is, those are variables and may differ quite a bit, especially for the full-backup advantage.
On the other side of spectrum though, I know a lawyer whose opinion is that you should not keep durable records unless you actually really need to have them. (I think he often does divorce dispute cases and such).
Interesting. That’s certainly a perspective I hadn’t considered. One sort-of-related situation is one of political dissidents, activists, etc.: such people would almost certainly not want to use Dropbox and similar cloud storage solutions for e.g. lists of contacts, but they might want more private backups (off-site over-network backup solutions, for instance) to protect data against government seizure of their computers.
Certainly, if your concern is having your data accessible by entities (such as the government) that will take coercive measures to get it, then the equation changes.
It depends on whether they consider themselves vulnerable to rubberhose cryptography. If not, they can backup encrypted files anywhere they want to, including Dropbox, etc. But if they do, then it becomes a game of steganography and the local hard drives of their machines aren’t safe either.
Indeed, although the truly paranoid may rig their hard drives to self-destruct, or take some similar measure, in the event of the police breaking down their door.
I imagine active destruction of that kind might create huge legal problems of it’s own. On the technical side you can store the key in a file you can securely destroy.
I heard somewhere that in the US and UK, an average law abiding citizen, from the formal standpoint, rather frequently breaks various laws by accident. No idea about other jurisdictions. This is why NSA is such a big deal.
If your fear of rubberhose cryptography is well-justified, “legal problems” are a minor part of your worries.
By the way, it’s hard to destroy a hard drive to the extent that a determined government wouldn’t be able to extract data from it. At least hard during the time it takes the police to break down your door.
I know I do :-)
There is this book, for example.
And, of course:
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” -- Cardinal De Richelieu
I was thinking of “or else” crypanalysis .
Interesting. I’m curious what kind of laws are frequently broken… at company level I know there’s a plenty of regulations related to health and safety which are here for a good reason when people are working with, say, dangerous machinery, but are silly in the office context.
edit: how many laws would a company break if a computer scientist replaced a light bulb?
Yeah.