SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow5743
Google will automatically [begin a delayed - Ed] delete all of a user's Android backup files — stored in his Google Drive account — if the user does not use his phone for two weeks. After Google detects this period of inactivity, it will start a 60-day counter for old Android backup files. After that counter reaches zero, Google will delete the backup files from the user's Drive account.
The auto-delete function was discovered this week by a Reddit user who used it to create backups for a defective Nexus 6P. The user sent back the phone, and while he waited for a replacement, he saw that his Nexus 6P backup files stored were marked for deletion.
[...] People who rely on Android's built-in Drive-based backup system should keep an eye out on the Backups folder. Storing backups offline or using specialized backup & restore Android apps is an alternative.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday September 17 2017, @07:51PM (4 children)
If you store your data on someone else's servers you should expect this.
Back up your mobile devices to your own storage. That way, as long as you don't change your retention policies (as Google has done), you won't lose your data.
Most phones/phablets/tablets have proprietary (and non-proprietary) syncing apps that will back up your user files to the storage of your choice (contacts, photos, music, etc.) that will work via USB or wirelessly.
It's also a very good idea to do Nandroid backups [trendblog.net] (more info on these can be found here [xda-developers.com]) on your device(s) as well.
NANDroid backups are extremely useful in the scenario presented in TFS. Once a replacement is received (assuming the replacement is the same make/model), a simple nandroid restore will get everything back just how it was at the time of the last backup.
What's more, the NANdroid backup format recreates the folder structure of the device, so even if you get a new/different device you can, after installing your preferred apps, generally copy the application data (which includes settings, customizations and data) from the backup to the new device, et voila! your app is configured as it was on your old device.
I'd put a tl;dr section, but if you're that ADHD or stupid to read the few sentences above, you deserve whatever you get.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:23PM (3 children)
You should WANT this.
Abandoned data is subpoena-able data.
Just because you lost the phone in the lake is no reason to have google retain backups for the police to scoop up after you've moved to a new phone.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday September 18 2017, @12:06AM (1 child)
Two Words: Very long passphrases [aescrypt.com].
After two whole weeks, no one will remember such things. ;)
Strong encryption and plausible deniability are a powerful combination.
Besides, using some automated spying tool from Google to back up your unencrypted data, rather than strongly encrypting the data yourself and (only if necessary) uploading to Someone Else's ServersTM is rather dumb, don't you think?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @12:58PM
Hmmm … seems one of us has troubles counting. ;-)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 18 2017, @06:54PM
> Just because you lost her phone in the lake is no reason to have google retain backups for the police to scoop up after you've moved to a new target.
Fixed that for ... a friend who was asking.