The End of the World as We Know it?

[Dannager]

So the easiest thing to envision, that would cut you off from both local and cloud storage, would be a criminal invasion of a system, in order to exploit the local system and co-opt any and all storage that's available. I've seen it from a Windows system, from which a Unix-based production printer was exploited over a network. The PC was left unusable while the passwords to the printer's storage were altered, locking out legitimate users, so that it could be used to store illicit files.

This is, at most, a temporary inconvenience (at least as far as your D&D stuff is concerned) that can be resolved via simply getting in touch with your cloud storage service and explaining that your system was compromised. Any major cloud storage provider will be able to restore access to your account and reverse any changes made to your stored data in a relatively short amount of time.

Meanwhile, if you've stored your data locally in an unconnected media (external hard disk drive or portable memory), it's likely that you'll have no problem simply pulling it up on an unaffected device.

I was hit by a rootkit two years ago. Thanks to responsible backup handling, I lost nothing important and had secure access to all my online accounts and my system itself restored within two days.

Now, in the event of criminal invasion of your home that results in your physical material getting stolen (granted, I've never heard of thieves breaking into a house to steal D&D books, but I have heard of thieves breaking into a car to steal them), good luck getting the police and insurance company to fully resolve your case in that kind of time frame.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'll give you the way that's easiest to understand, given today's computer experience; computer exploitation.

Here is another. 90% to 95% of all security breaches of any consequence are caused by a person screwing up. Not hardware, not procedures not being in place, not outside events, not a really clever criminal--just a person screwing up. Good security procedures take this into account, on the basis of a "chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and our weakest link is most definitely people."

But I say that because I've found in my work in IT that this applies to more than just security. Backups and disaster recovery (DRA) in general are equally susceptible. Sure, a lot of your stuff in the cloud, backed up in some data center, with redundant hardware, hardened bunkers, and backup files shipped regularly far enough away to avoid local earthquakes, tornados, floods, and hurricanes--will still be there. Probably.

However, of all the people relying on that infrastructure, a sizable number of them are going to be unpleasantly surprised to learn that junior backup delivery guy dumped the Friday files in a damp warehouse every week. Or those automated scheduling jobs to do the backups didn't actually run for 7 months in late 2012 because some guy set up the passwords wrong, and thus you have some empty backups. Or that your data got corrupted due to a change in format or encryption when it was sent, because some guy didn't test properly.

Knowing this, of course, you can find ways around it. You can backup with three different such centers, do some backup of the most critical stuff your self, test regularly to verify that you can get it all back out, and so forth. Your chances of being one of the ones left out in the cold will then be trivial. Not many people are going to do that for a gaming article.

I've done some of this stuff for a living off and on in my career, which is why I mostly agree with Danny. Well, that and I just don't want my data following me everywhere I go. That means that someone can call/text/annoy me at lunch and expect an answer Right Now!

I think people have been saved from themselves at times by information being perishable. It makes us think a second about what is worth keeping. There is a book that I really like, G. K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday," that I've lost six times. I've lost it in a move. I've lost it loaning it. I've lost it in the blackhole where slim paperbacks disappear. And I've always replaced it, because I know I like it. In contrast, I've lost a bunch of printed and electronic media through the years that I haven't missed all that much.

I do wish books would go back to using hemp for paper, like they did before the 60's--though I hear that the new bamboo pulping process may produce something similar. A lot of the books published in the 60s and 70s were too perishable, and the stuff since then is only marginally better, due to paper coating. I've got some books printed between 1890 and 1940 that were ill-treated before I got them used, but still in very good shape.

 

[Ryujin]

And 90-95% of people won't sufficiently protect their data, as they don't do it now. I once had to rebuild a user's data, twice, because he used a utility that corrupted his directory structure, the same utility, twice. He had ordered the system with a CDRW drive, a ZIP drive, and a LS-120 drive because he wanted multiple backup methods. He never used one of them.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Apocalyptic collapse of modern infrastructure doesn't count - I've acknowledged that this would probably result in the data being unrecoverable, but frankly, if something like this happened the idea of needing to shepherd my D&D books would be juuuuuuust about the furthest thing from my mind.

Does companies deciding that storing your files for free is a bad business model count? I mean you're essentially saying "hey Mr Sociopath, could you look after all my stuff for me?". He's going to store it up to the point where it's no longer beneficial to him to do so.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Lets add random freaking glitches to the menu of potential disasters.

Once upon a time, I was a student in a small but prestigious preps school in Irving, Tx, and I had a 10 page history paper to do on Emperor Justinian. Back in those days, I was a religious, habitual "backer-upper," so I was pretty unlikely to lose data...until that night.

It was the last night before due date, and I had finished the paper. It was done. All I had to do was print it. But before I did that, I wanted to save it one last time, to make sure the final version of the paper was stored before it went to print. You know, just in case.

And right after I did the save, but before I hit the print command, I noticed my screen was funny. "Emperor Justinian" was now "Emperor <Some random, non-existent, rune-like symbol>ustinian." In fact, every "j" in the paper had been changed to that symbol. I tried reloading it from the saved version onto another computer...that symbol was part of the saved document.

So I had to go through the entire paper, not page by page but letter by letter to find all instances of the letter "j" and find synonyms for the corrupted words.

I got the paper done, pulling the first all-nighter of my life. Unbeknownst to me, my folks called the school, and my Headmaster/History teacher met me on the stairs up from the parking lot- taking the paper and telling me to go home.

When we took the computer in for repairs, the guy said that some single, tiny little something or the other on the computer's mother board had gone all wonky-jog, and the "rune" was now how it would always do the letter "j".

Said motherboard was replaced.

I've never had anything like that happen to me again, but I've never forgotten. And as well-made as these things are today, I'm sure such random crap can still occur.

 

[Dannager]

Does companies deciding that storing your files for free is a bad business model count? I mean you're essentially saying "hey Mr Sociopath, could you look after all my stuff for me?". He's going to store it up to the point where it's no longer beneficial to him to do so.

Ignoring that this is a borderline-paranoid mentality to take, given that we haven't seen this behavior from any major cloud service providers in recent memory, I mentioned backing up your data locally specifically to compensate for any failure on the cloud-storage side. If your cloud provider decides to be awful out of the blue, you shrug, take your local copy, and upload it to a new cloud provider. Problem solved.

Are people just not reading what I'm writing? I've mentioned redundant storage like ten times now.

 

[Danzauker]

Conversely for me to make use of the old dead tree formats I had to:

Copy the article I liked somehow, or lug the magazine(s) with me to a game.

Either option required me taking a magazine or stack of magazines to some place either a game or a copy machine, or me retyping the parts of the article.

I also had to have some way to memorize or log where articles were if I decided I wanted to use them later on down the road.


Now I can just cut and paste what I need, or quickly just print off an article. I can also use the search function to help me better find the articles (though I agree that the archives they have needs some extra work.)

It's all around easier for me to actually make use of the stuff I get (especially the adventures.)

All things have drawbacks though, for instance at this point it's harder for me to read the articles on the can, or just curled up on my couch or soemthing... But again I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, since I primarily buy the subscription to make use of the content.

For say "Draft Magazine" another thing I subscribe to, if they went to an all digital format, I would be much less inclined to subscribe.

There's a lot of truth in what you say, and of course one's experiences may vary.

But you start from the assumption that you have read the material, which is a prerequisite before you use it.

With the current I'm beginning to think it's not worthy to read the material at all, so the fact that is more usable or not, is secondary.

I still at the current time and level of development, the advantages of print in regards of PDFs still outweight the drawbacks. For me at least.

I liked to read the magazine cover to cover. Or half the mail section and the reviews, then getting back to the mail.

I liked to be able to read whenever and wherever I wanted, thing that currently is NOT possible (some people may think differently, but until eReaders will be able to fully support color, fixed page layouts, images and tables, the only option to completely enjoy PDFs is a computer, which can not be used everywhere a magazine can).

The current day-by-day deliver content does not satisfy me in the first place. On top of that I'm forced to use a laptop just to read the material.

That's why I subscribe only on months where I know, from the reviews in ENWorld, that there's a bunck of stuff I might like to read, like this month for themes.

 

[Danzauker]

And yet you also had to flip past 10 times as many ads as now while doing it. So I don't see why the online ad issue *is* an issue.

It's not the "ad" issue. It's the wasted click/refresh/time issue.

There's a banner advertisevent right on top of this page, and does not bother me at all. I don't have to look at it and does not hinder the naviggation in any way.

It's the "ads" that interrupt my navigation flow, like the nagging ones that come on top of pages in some sites until you close them, or unnecessary page flips like this case that annoy me.

I don't remember who first talked about advertisement being the rationale for needing to pass from the article archive page to, for example,

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Merindaelion, Barony of the Emerald Blade)

before reading the actual article.

Anyway, I think it's unnecessary and annoying. I don't care if the middle page contains a blurb of the article, a picture of a naked woman or ad ad. Stills it's in the way of something I want and I have paid for.

It would literally cost nearly nothing to avoid this for subscribers and leaving on for the others, so it's only bad design.

Plus, really, skipping 10 pages of ads in a magazine takes me less than the time of a click to the middle online arcicle page and back. I tried.

 

[Pentius]

Of course, if we're going to count all these ways simple mistakes and human errors can screw up electronic storage, we should really be counting all the ways dead tree storage can fail, too. Ways I've lost my dead tree products include losing it, loaning it out and never getting it back, spilling a drink on it, having the dog eat it, accidentally getting it mixed with a pile of other dead tree products I threw out, theft, and of course, good old wear and tear. Dead trees aren't exactly foolproof.

 

[Ryujin]

Of course, if we're going to count all these ways simple mistakes and human errors can screw up electronic storage, we should really be counting all the ways dead tree storage can fail, too. Ways I've lost my dead tree products include losing it, loaning it out and never getting it back, spilling a drink on it, having the dog eat it, accidentally getting it mixed with a pile of other dead tree products I threw out, theft, and of course, good old wear and tear. Dead trees aren't exactly foolproof.

No, it isn't, but the upside is that if it's right in front of you, then it's accessible. There's little that's more frustrating than having your electronic device in front of you, and yet not being able to access what you need.

... as in I can get to the Wizards site, but it doesn't acknowledge my log-in.