begin quoting JD Runyan as of Tue, Apr 19, 2005 at 12:00:48PM -0500: [snip] > Protecting data is my job. I recognize very well that data is > important. There is only one effective way to protect data, have > multiple independent copies of the data made from the master on a > regular, and preferable in an automated manner.
There's that darn never-lose-anything filesystem again. > Email seems to be the > most important kind of data. This can be protected, by encouraging users > to use IMAP instead of POP3. With the IMAP box being run by someone who *does* do backups, presumably. > The other important thing to most users are > bookmarks, and stored passwords. You'd think that 'stored passwords' wouldn't be recommended, as that's just asking for disaster. Then again, password management is /hard/, and there's lots of bogus passwords being asked for. > A lot of home users use their personal > computers primarily for entertainment purposes. I would say that system > availability is at least as important as a users data integrity. If you take their most important data and store it offsite, yeah. But that leaves us to ask the question of our theoretical user: "Would you rather have your data-storage service and IMAP provider lose all of your data and all of your email, or would you rather have your machine blow up?" [snip] > Remember we are talking about non-technical users. They don't reinstall > anything. Erm, you work with different non-technical people than I do. > If the integrity of the OS is not maintained, and their system > becomes unusable, then data integrity be damned. In their mind the > system is a POS. And if the system routinely trashes their data but 'stays running', all is peachy? You _do_ work with different non-technical people than I do. > If those who serve the average home user fail to > protect what they don't understand, then we are at fault for the > problem. I will not accept that protecting their data is enough. The OS > must be protected, such that loss of use of the computer is kept to a > minimum. That's not the question. It's one of "if we don't protect the data, does it do any good to protect the OS?". People keep turning it around into "You have to protect the OS to protect the data", but that's multi-user thinking. > Most users I know use their computers more for browsing the web, and > email. Availability is more important to them than data integrity, > because much of their data lives on the web. You /do/ have different non-technical users. Web+Email doesn't need a computer. It needs a thin client. You can do away with local disk (except for cashing) entirely. > Some examples are bank > information, remote access to work via citrix or VPN. A word processor > is just a way to get something to print nicely. My wife, for example, > clicks on the no button almost every time she asked if she wants to save > a document upon closing OpenOffice. She just wanted to print the page > with a pretty font, and a text editor wouldn't do that easily. The non-technical users I have in mind have documents, spreadsheets, financial information, email, and digital pictures (lots and lots) as data. If the system were to gulp all that data and throw it away, they'd be unhappy. If the system were rendered unusable (which happens), they're not happy, but as their data isn't lost, it's no big deal. > If backups are made simple, then most users will do so when prompted. > Make the recovery process as easy, and when there is a problem, they > will be impressed by how easily they were back up and running. Most > users have come to accept that computers are machines, and they break. > They are not happy when they lose things that are important to them in > the process. Yup! > ********************************************************************** ??? > To simply choose that protecting the users data as the only important > factor, is simply tunnel vision. Ranking it first as "most important" isn't the same as claiming it is the "only important" concern. It's the _most_ important concern, and once that's assured, system availibility is right there in the #2 spot. So the tunnel vision is insisting that availability is the only important thing, and that if data is lost, no worries, so long as the system is available. > Protecting the system's availability, > the users data, and the systems data are important. I would gamble that > those of us who are technical are more concerned with our data, than the > average user. That's education and experience. Given the data, all else is mere work. Without the data, we're doomed. > We tend to rely on our computers more, since we know how > to recover the OS if there is a problem. ...and have probably done so. > I think the most important step > to protecting all of this, is to make smart things easy, and dumb things > hard. When I say dumb things, I mean anything that requires a certain > level of competence to measure the risk, and then mitigate it. If it is > hard, then the average user will usually solicit a little help, and the > risks may be kept to a minimum. That doesn't sound like UNIX anymore. -Stewart "Dumb things or clever things depends entirely on context." Stremler
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