The Cloud: Convenient Until a Stranger Nukes Your Files

jfruh writes "Thanks to a plethora of cloud storage accounts, Dan Tynan thought his days of carrying a thumb drive around with him and worrying about email stripping out his attachments were over. But that was before he discovered that his Box.com account and all the files in it had vanished without a trace. With tech support coming up empty, Tynan had to put on his journalist hat to track down the bizarre sequence of events that ended with his account handed over to another user, who didn't ask for it and didn't even know who Tynan was."

svn

[Anonymous Coward]

Run it at home, commit/checkout works flawlessly.

Re:The Cloud will save us all!

[TWX]

Another issue with handing problems to consultants or third-parties, even if those companies have an interest in taking care of your problems, the employees of those companies may not. In short, you call with a problem, and there are layers of management and bureaucracy up your chain of authority and down theirs before the hammer can be brought down on an employee of a different company that fails to do his or her job or to otherwise provide service.

When a person who takes care of your stuff works for your organization, generally there are fewer hoops to jump through to compel that employee to do his or her job, as there's both an ability to personally address that employee, and there's a greater ability to discipline an employee that fails to do one's job.

That having been the stick, there's also the carrot, the employee in one's own company that manages to play Scotty and save the day will receive more recognition from his or her fellow coworkers than the employee of a consulting firm, so the motivation to take care of the assets is also greater with the personal connection to coworkers.

Re:He gave away his login....

[dan tynan]

I'm the author of the post. You are completely and utterly wrong, and clearly ignorant about how Box.com works. I invited others to share some, but not all, of my box folders. I can actually control the level of access they have to each. I didn't give them my own login and passwords, they created their own. They didn't have access to my entire Box account, only the folders I chose. I could allow them to simply view files, or to edit and upload. So nobody had my password and login but me and Box. I did not violate anyone's TOS. And if I had not identified myself as a member of the press who was writing a story about this, it is highly unlikely I would have gotten any answers from Box at all. dt