Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by maxxxxx on Friday February 15, 2019 @03:35PM
(#19174473)
Isn't it pretty safe to assume that nothing will ever get really deleted? I wonder if the GDPR will change this.
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Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by nightfly on Friday February 15, 2019 @04:29PM
(#19174901)
My first thought when people bring up deleting things is backup tapes. Sure it might or might not be "deleted" from the live data set, but it's almost always gonna live on in backups for probably forever.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by NullPrefix on Friday February 15, 2019 @04:38PM
(#19174970)
GDPR affects backup tapes too
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by kradroy on Friday February 15, 2019 @04:45PM
(#19175012)
It does, but not like you'd think. If the backup is dormant, the right-to-be-forgotten portions can remain there. Once it comes out of cold storage, those RTBF requests have to be processed over the restored data. Although, in most cases, the dormant backups will expire and be deleted as per a data retention plan.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by fh973 on Saturday February 16, 2019 @07:54AM
(#19178371)
This is usually solved by encrypting and throwing away the key or seed to effectively delete.
Tape is no excuse to violating data retention policies.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by msh on Saturday February 16, 2019 @07:10AM
(#19178258)
That does not seem to be entirely correct: https://blog.quantum.com/backup-administrators-the-1-advice-...
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by guitarbill on Saturday February 16, 2019 @12:22PM
(#19179643)
Which part isn't correct? What op described sounds like a good and easy way to do it (as long as you have sane retention periods) and doesn't seem to conflict with the article you linked in any way (in fact, they agree).
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by msh on Sunday February 17, 2019 @08:01AM
(#19184258)
In addition you have to tell the customer how long you retain your backups (and only retain them for a reasonable time) and only restore for purely technical reasons.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by porpoisely on Friday February 15, 2019 @11:55PM
(#19177143)
I agree. I find it hard to believe that anyone is going to transport all the physical tapes from cold storage and look through all the physical tapes.
My guess is that the data is removed on production and recovery sites. The data will be left on tape since they will most likely never see the light of day again.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by fh973 on Saturday February 16, 2019 @07:52AM
(#19178368)
This is usually solved by encrypting and throwing away the key or seed to effectively delete.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by code_duck on Monday February 18, 2019 @09:52AM
(#19190964)
Doesn’t that just effectively delete it until it is common to have sufficient computing power to crack the encryption?
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by brootstrap on Friday February 15, 2019 @05:11PM
(#19175195)
If people are using a real database, likely there is just a boolean flag for that record getting flipped to True/False to signify deletion. Unless you use mongo, then your shit is probably gone already and you dont even know it.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by wbronitsky on Friday February 15, 2019 @05:23PM
(#19175279)
Wait what? Why are you randomly crapping on Mongo? You can use Mongo in exactly the same way as you described.
Re:Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete direct messages
by thanatos_dem on Friday February 15, 2019 @09:12PM
(#19176568)
Because crapping on Mongo is “in” right now. Years ago it used to be “in” to crap on it for its deaign choices, especially its tendency to lose data (seems to be what the parent comment is referencing; see [1] for a summary of some issues from 2013).
More recently it’s “in” for their business decisions, with the relicensing and the rise of API-compatible alternatives pushing some users away.
But yeah, really no reason to mock them in this discussion, apart from going for internet cool points from an audience that may also be critical of Mongo.