Content Insider #921 – It’s Yours
By Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com
“When I’m done, you won’t even be a memory of a memory.” – Luke Wright, “Safe,” Lionsgate, 2012
After months of watching people rush to develop/release bigger, badder AI and often half-cooked as well as the chaos of the US government’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) running rampart through Washington’s infrastructure, we started to think about the perfect storm and “our” data.
A NYTimes article by a very knowledgeable friend of ours, Jude Biersdorfer, and a couple of her cohorts, made us take a long hard look at data (ours) and its protection.
Okay, we’ve never really believed the line, “Hi we’re from the government and are here to help you.”
But when you have a bunch of young testosterone dudes flailing around all of the data the government has accumulated over the years, saying they know how to fix it, we’re a little skeptical.
After all, the government – any government – still has systems, software and storage units that are even older than you.
Governments have stuff on microfiche, 12/14/5 1/4-in optical disks, tape, floppy/Jaz disks and virtually every type of storage device the industry has made that’s too valuable to throw out and too expensive to update.
We’ve visited some of those facilities where storage racks seem to go on forever and can only imagine how the DOGIEs giggled as they think about how they can “improve”, streamline the whole mess.
After all, they’re young, really smart and know how to get the most out of AI to fix anything–especially when it comes to digging into your data.
Okay … that’s not cool.
But it’s necessary for them because they have to move fast, break things and just as in the film industry … fix it in post.
The problem is that it really doesn’t even work in the movies.
Not only are we “a little” concerned about the young DOGIES kicking up dust in the government systems but also the holes they leave behind when they move on to the next thing they’re going to fix.
Of course, that “fixing” has often been done in a rushed, haphazard manner–especially in sensitive and critical systems.
As much fun as they have modifying/fixing the government systems, they probably don’t give a second thought to the fact that it’s not government data but … your data.
According to the DOGIEs themselves, in their rush to “fix things” they have also lost/exposed some confidential information and that as much as 31 percent of their “great work” may have suffered from compliance failures.
That’s what certain groups and some nation states like to hear because they spend 100 percent of their time poking around for weak points in the government systems so they can also get some of that data.
Jude and her fellow Times writers emphasized that ordinary folks like you and me can’t control the chaos that DOGIES are creating.
However, we can do the next best thing…protect our collective data.
Growth – In today’s digital age, the volume of data of all types continues to grow in leaps and bounds, especially as the entertainment industry streams films, shows and music to people around the globe.
And in today’s world, that’s a lot of data!
Currently it’s estimated that the world’s online population will create about 402.75M Terabytes of data a day or 181 Zettabytes of data this year.
That’s too big of a number to even imagine, so let’s just focus on what each of us create … about 146,880 MB of data every day.
This includes data created, captured, copied or consumed.
Facebook folks do a lot of that – 4,000TB a day while YouTube processes about 4.3PB of data a day (720,000 hrs. of video).
Entertainment – More than 80 percent of the content that is sent across the internet is video entertainment as well as social media photos, videos and stuff.
Actually, much of the data created/stored is entertainment, images and video, all created and sent around the globe for you to enjoy on your smartphone and/or big screen.
And all of that data is tracked, monitored by your government and ours because some of the 146,880 MB of photo/video data you create every day “might” be of interest/value.
And you wonder why Jude “encouraged” folks to protect their own data/content?
Yeah!
The most common recommendation is to move all of your content – photos, videos, data – to the cloud so that it’s safe, secure and available.
And when people (usually IT experts) make that recommendation, they’re talking about everything for everyone — mobile phone videos/photos, bridge/highway toll images, airport security video, streaming HD video, live events, medical records, credit card usage, political discussions and business activity–all stored in a clean, pure cloud.
We use the cloud for most of our work – especially when working with others – because it’s fast, convenient, easy.
And much as we like to look up at the clean fluffy clouds, the cloud is really a bunch of data centers spread around the globe.
.
Data Warehouses – More than 11,800 data centers around the world process and store data that requires a constant increase of the electrical power produced.
According to the last count, there are 11,800 of these data centers. More are being built every day as organizations rush to build more to process/store more data and make room for AI technology.
AI is projected to require a 10x expansion of processing/storage – to work its magic.
In case you’re curious, the largest locations are in Northern Virginia (close to DC) with 2,552 facilities and Beijing with 1779 centers.
But the biggest constraint they have is that they all need power to run – lots of power – which is an issue everywhere except Reykjavík, Iceland.
They’re 88 data centers use about 60 MW of power to operate which is okay since the power generated is geothermally and hydroelectrically produced.
In other words, 100 percent is renewable and has a zero carbon footprint.
Yeah, that’s a lot better than you can say for the power-sucking facilities in the US, Europe and SEA.
But still, we’re not super enthused about stuffing our data into the cloud along with yours and everyone’s because all it means is another big set of targets for hackers and whackers.
And … things happen.
So, while we work in the cloud, we also rely on high-capacity local storage that is also backed up to a secondary storage system that is kept by a friend across town.
Some people tell us our approach to storage is more “brute force” than elegant and with the times, but we’ve taken a hint from many of the filmmakers and postproduction people we’ve worked with over the years.
The two main storage systems – one across town – are 40TB OWC ThunderBay 4 units with SoftRAID redundant data protection.
Once a month, we’ll sync the two externals so there is never more than 30 days of data difference.
When we’re on the road as we were last month, we take along one of their 4TB pocket-sized pros with all the files we think we’re going to need and space for backup.
We’re often asked why we need so much storage capacity, and we probably don’t; but admit it, storage is cheap today compared to lost files – especially if they’re film files most folks in the entertainment industry create.
We also store a lot more semi-offline since personal/business data is so important to us. All of it is double password protected because hackers/whackers/cyberthieves also might find it interesting:
- All of our PC/server files, log files and metadata backed up from our personal cloud weekly
- Social security, bank/credit card records/reports, home files, tax records and the family’s medical records
- Digitized and stored will/trust/investment records
Our kid, who doesn’t have anything more valuable than a couple of thousand songs, a slug of video games, the films he has downloaded to watch … soon, and a little bit (very little) of classwork, thinks we’re a little paranoid about our storage; but we don’t mind.
We prefer Mei’s observation in Safe, “You’re a crazy man, but not so stupid.”
In fact, with the recent firestorms, we’ve had here in California as well as those on the East Coast, we’re seriously considering adding another layer of security that someone recently suggested … a fire and waterproof chest. We’ll see.
Unfortunately, it’s rather sad that people have to secure their data from their own government. We always thought our country was better than that.
But as Luke Wright said, “One day at a time, Mei. One day at a time.”
However, on the bright side, people backing up and protecting their personal and private data has to be good for the data storage industry.
Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com – is an author of more than 800 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertainment, consumer electronics, software and applications. Internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant with a broad range of technical and industry expertise, especially in storage, storage management and film/video production fields. Extended range of relationships with business, industry trade press, online media and industry analysts/consultants.