_Codemonkeyism

I'm paranoid and tell people to print out data they can't backup and put it in a safe. I've always had some essential data printed out put in a fireproof safe :-) But yes Google is bad at this.

If you have critical data that can cost your company that you can't backup, your're living a risky life. Hopefully they've checked with their colleagues that those agree with living that risky life.

Why would it give me a feeling of superiority?

I could have said: Been there bought the T-shirt and I feel your pain. Which would be true. The person would have not felt better in any way because the data is gone, and would not have learned something either.

Does the person feel worse because of my comment? Don't think so. Either he already new and agrees with 'Yes, d* it should have done that, you're right' - what I felt someone said this to me - or he learned something. Perhaps if getting kicked hard enough he will not skip backups next time.

Does he feel bad? Sure.

Does anyone think about the people who he dragged down with him because he didn't have backups which would have been something he is paid for but didn't - do risking the jobs of everyone around him.

When consulting the FIRST thing I ask:

DO YOU HAVE BACKUPS FOR YOUR AWS/GOOGLE/... DATA?

And if not do it now - although the usually answer is: This is the cloud I don't need backups because they backup the data/redundancy/S3/... What about someone deleting it? By accident or itention? What about you getting sued by A/G/MS/...? What if they kick you of like XXX (Parler, ...)?

Most do backups to a another provider the same day.

Not having backups if you're the one responsible is not the same as getting cancer or being hit by a car. It's you've screwed up very badly endangering many other people.

And still, after years and years and years people do not have backups, especially if they have their data in the cloud. From my experience the number of backups people make went down not up.

If my comment helped one iota to make backups more likely next time, I did good.

You're probably glad that you had the basics in place and made regular back ups of your data. Hopefully you didn't follow the "it's in the cloud so I don't need to backup" philosophy.

Many "Christians" follow more Moses than Jesus - and ignor Jesus teachings - and would better be called Mosians. Though amassing gold was also not Mosianic.

As I've said I stand corrected. I just could not imagine people being shocked after PHOENIX [0], COINTELPRO [1] and ECHOLON [2], but even tech savvy people were shocked as you say.

[0] US government knows no limits [1] US government does domestic espionage [2] US governemnt listens in on everything

I've upvoted your replies, because I stand corrected as I've said.

My comments though have tanked Karma.

"It's easy to forget how things were before the Snowden revelations, since privacy issues have been covered much more extensively by the media since then."

No it's not. I can't find any data to this narrative. There were (media) discussions on the government collecting all the data it can in the 70s, and they come up with every census.

There have been huge discussions around ECHOLON. There have been huge discussions about COINTELPRO.

Shocking to whom? I never met anyone who was shocked. Did you? Were YOU shocked by the fact that the NSA was listening in on the internet? Was your mom shocked that the government listened in on the internet? Who are those "many people"? Is there a poll or any substantial data? I really would like to hear from someone who thinks that it was a conspiracy theory that the NSA was listening in on the internet and then was shocked by the Snowden revelations.

I've read all three articles and none has any data or facts about the "many people" or any sources. What are many people? Where does this come from?

The parent comment claims:

"considered a baseless conspiracy theory before the Snowden leaks."

Considered by whom?

EDIT: Ok, thanks telling me you were shocked that the NSA was listening in on the internet. I would not have thought that someone on HN was shocked, especially after ECHOLON - I stand corrected.

We build and scaled a startup based on Scala code and successfully sold it, so - with all the Scala problems [0] in mind - Scala will always have a place in my heart. Using IntelliJ since a decade+ I wish those guys the very best with Kotlin.

[0] Binary incompatibilities, very very slow compilation speed, atrocious build tool

Where would the conspiracy therory on MK Ultra be? That the CIA has a research programm using drugs and psychology to find a truth serum against spies of the Soviet Union? And people said this is a conspiracy theory and then the Church commission proofed it not to be one?

How would the Phoenix Program also be a conspiracy theory?

Where is the difference between a secret government agency program and a conspiracy?

Not exactly sure what you mean by that one word [0], but: You would consider it a conspiracy theory saying that an agency that is funded to listen in to everything [1] is listening in to everything? And it turns out not to be a conspiracy theory when Snowden reveals that the agency funded to listen in to everything has a program to listen in to everything?

Or does the conspiracy theory have any finer details I'm not getting or is different?

Was it a conspiracy of the agency to listen in on everyone? Or is the conspiracy that the government ('people in the know') conspired to keep it (a secret agency program) secret?

[0] "PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies." Wikipedia

[1] "The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT)." Wikipedia

"That's impressive, but wouldn't really surprise me, as we know for a fact that some even more impressive success stories of several government intelligence agencies dismissed as "conspiracy stories" for decades turned out to be true."

I would be interested in these, any Wikipedia links?