Judge sets framework for Nine PBS to retrieve archival data

qqingcharles about 4 hours ago 22 commentsRead Article on current.org

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hn_throwaway_99•about 1 hour ago

I think stories like these highlight the need for clearer (not necessarily more) regulations around contractor/subcontractor/client relationships and what happens when one of them goes tits up.

There were rampant issues in the fintech world that exploded when Synapse, a banking as a service provider, went bankrupt and their ledger didn't match what partner banks had in their accounts. End users were told "your deposits are FDIC insured", but in bankruptcy court the judge was sort of at a loss over how to rectify things - the banks weren't insolvent, and the FDIC (rightfully) said "hey, this isn't our problem, our regulated entities are in compliance". Looks like a similar situation happened here, where the contractors are both doing the "not it" thing.

I feel like a lot of tech innovation and "business process innovation" over the past 15 years was just ignoring regulations that were built up over decades, only discovering the reasons for those regulations when the tide went out and seeing that lots of companies had been pantsless the whole time.

ww520•8 minutes ago

Whoever claims "your deposits are FDIC insured" needs to be prosecuted as fraud and scam artists. “Your” the company’s deposits in the bank is FDIC insured. My deposit with you the company is not. When the bank goes belly up, your deposit is FDIC secured up to the account limit which is tiny in the scale of things. When your company goes belly up, my deposit is gone.

js2•24 minutes ago

Open Source Storage (OSS), the vendor in question, was around for two decades before going out of business last year. The first and last archived versions of its web site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040628023451/https://www.ossto...

https://web.archive.org/web/20250329140721/https://www.ossto...

(The first version isn't too exciting. It's a broken Flash site.)

boscillator•about 2 hours ago

The ruling seems fair and reasonable, and I'm surprised they couldn't come to the same conclusion without a court.

trebligdivad•7 minutes ago

They couldn't really - I doubt Iron Mountain actually objected to giving the data, but in the end it probably wasn't in a position to know what data belonged to PBS and what belonged to other clients of OSS and you'd get very worried if a data storage company gave a companies data to someone else without authorisation.

Jtsummers•about 2 hours ago

Sometimes these things can go better for companies like Iron Mountain when there's a court order/decision in place to cover them. Nine PBS, in order to access their own data, could end up accessing data belonging to other people and that may not be properly covered under existing contracts and policies. It's a risk for Iron Mountain if this happens. Having a court decision and court set procedures that essentially force them to participate and also establishes third party review of the data will give them some cover if one of those other clients of the now defunct OSS discovers that Nine PBS accessed or inadvertently retained their data.

bluGill•about 2 hours ago

A court is needed for cover since it is possible that sometimes else's data will be seen or even corrupted in the process. This way they can say they were doing what the court asked for. That is legal cover for everyone to do what they want. Also legal limits on what they can do.

That is how I interpret the article anyway

s1artibartfast•about 2 hours ago

Im curious why this topic has been popping up in the news. It seems like a bog standard contractor/subcontractor obligation case.

dylan604•about 2 hours ago

If Iron Mountain made a deal with PBS-affiliate, they'd be breaking the terms of the contract with their customer (the fact it is defunct is just an asterisk). If you were an Iron Mountain client and one of your customers made an end run around you to go directly to Iron Mountain because they refused to pay your bill, you'd be pissed at Iron Mountain.

By solving this as they have done, Iron Mountain can assure other clients they will not just let a third person circumvent their clients. They can now say they only did it by a court order even if they were more than willing to accept the asterisk and do it on principle. Everyone is happy. Everyone is whole.

telotortium•about 1 hour ago

The initial reporting implied it was some catastrophic data loss, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire. The truth, while concerning, is a lot more boring.

Also some articles and people on social media were unclear that it was just a single PBS station involved, rather than all PBS content. I saw comments that thought that all the archives for Sesame Street were lost.

kotaKat•13 minutes ago

Apparently PBS doesn't have some kind of massive conglomerate backup or archives of things that its member stations produce. It's up to every station to archive or back up their own stuff. No standardization as to storage formats, NASes, tapes, or anything.

Sometimes things are transmitted in painful ways like rebroadcast in off hours over microwave links between members so they can re-record what they lost.

Plus the endless game of "hey does anyone have that one obscure episode of this one program we made?" to your colleagues...

Barbing•about 1 hour ago

A non-profit in a deeply unfair situation tugs at the heartstrings.

doctorpangloss•8 minutes ago

This audience thinks data center operators are Jedi.

anigbrowl•about 2 hours ago

Archival/secure storage is big business with big liability headaches if you make a bad decisiion.

Magicrafter13•about 1 hour ago

> These archives represent an important part of our region’s history, and we look forward to ensuring their preservation and protection through the Court-approved process.

Apparently you didn't find them important enough to have backups. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in net income and they couldn't afford a cheap NAS with 4 disks. Incredible.

MadnessASAP•about 1 hour ago

They did, they contracted with a vendor to store and backup the data. If that is insufficient then just about every customer of AWS, Azure, GCP, OCP, and every other managed storage provider is guilty of the same sin.

aaronmdjones•about 1 hour ago

I have to agree with GP here, this is pretty incredible. They contracted with a vendor to store their data, not to back it up. It's not a backup if you can lose it in the same instant you lose the data.

You're right, they are. If your data can't survive a single storage host vanishing from existence, you don't have a backup. If your data can't survive one predictable or regularly occurring catastrophic act of nature, you don't have a backup. If your data can't survive a piece of malware -- with all of the credentials you have -- erasing it, you don't have a backup.

EDIT: Also, if you don't regularly test that your backups actually work, you probably don't have a backup. Lots of companies learn that one the hard way.

jambalaya8•about 1 hour ago

If you do not have at least one, but usually two copies of a backup in your physical possession, you do not have a backup. |o-o|

stronglikedan•about 1 hour ago

Then that is just the 1 in 3-2-1 backups, and neglecting the 3 & 2 is a sin (wrt backup strategies).

Barbing•about 1 hour ago

I wonder the proportion of companies who store backups with a minimum of two separate vendors. Low?

alexthedigger•about 1 hour ago

So many activist judges, you just have to shop around until you find the right one. It’s amazing, no downsides, no penalties. In my next career I’m going to be a judge.

pavel_lishin•11 minutes ago

How exactly is the judge an activist judge in this case?

Did you just find a random HN article that had "judge" in the name, and register an account to air an unrelated grievance?