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TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2269 Posts

Initially Posted - 06/28/2017 : 19:04:11

I have literally thousands of photos embedded in message board postings created over the last ~10 years. Like many of you, I used Photobucket for this service. They openly encouraged doing it.

Now every one of those posts is BROKEN thanks to Photobucket. They've suddenly, and without warning, turned off this hosting, asking for a small remittance for this useful service. So I went to gratefully pay them to continue this service so my thousands of posts are not ruined. I figured I'd gladly fork over $10 or $20 a year for this convenience. So what are they asking for this little service?

400 friggin' dollars per year!!!

So it's time for a giant "FU" to Photobucket. I apologize that my many photographed posts are now ruined, littering your message boards. But I'll never have time to go back and edit all of them.

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Edited by - TakeFive on 06/28/2017 19:06:52

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 06/28/2017 : 20:30:19

Almost like the "data locking" ransom schemes going around... Are they asking for Bitcoin payments?

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 06/28/2017 20:47:45

TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2269 Posts

Response Posted - 06/28/2017 : 20:48:00

quote:
Originally posted by Stinkpotter

Almost like the "data locking" extortion schemes going around... Are they asking for Bitcoin payments?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the comparison. I pretty much said the same thing on Sailnet:

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/general-discussion-sailing-related/289121-photobucket-sucks.html#post3976057

quote:
The more I learn about this, the more it sounds like a ransomware racket. I'm surprised they're not asking for the payment in Bitcoin.

I thought that the little substitute photos that they're putting up (see below) are just a mask for the real picture. But when I go into my Photobucket account, every single picture has been removed and replaced by their "ransom request" picture. So pictures that I backed up to Photobucket from my iPhone are now GONE unless I pay them $400. Oh sure, they say "don't worry, they're safe." That means I can get them back AFTER PAYING $400. Until I pay, the pictures are not accessible.

Like I said, their use of the word "safe" is very much like the ransomware people saiying that "your data has been encrypted for your safety."

Secondly, this new "policy" went into effect today. I've searched my email extensively, and there was no advance notice provided for this sudden change. This is just downright slimy of them to lock up my pictures and demand $400 to get them back.

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 06/29/2017 : 04:36:22

This might be a case for the DOJ.

Makes me glad I back up my phone to my PC, and back up the PC to an external hard drive. Old-school...

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2269 Posts

Response Posted - 06/29/2017 : 13:23:52

More info:

http://www.laurenwayne.com/2017/06/photobucket-phail-how-to-ruin-host-site.html

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 06/29/2017 : 14:43:34

So far so good on Flickr but now that Yahoo (owner of Flickr) is now part of Verizon I wouldn't be surprised if the new "Oath" platform may want to change the rules.
Did you know that our humble little forum offers a photo-hosting service? I've reviewed many of the collections and it's a great utility.
But mounting a wholesale data migration from the offending service to another platform constitutes very real work and countless hours.
This is one peril of cloud hosted services - it's sort of like your checking account: the bank holds your money and can change the rules as they see fit!!! And it usually costs you $$$!

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

GaryB
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4275 Posts

Response Posted - 06/29/2017 : 16:30:30

And if they get away with this ransom process you can bet it won't be long before some of the others follow suit.

This is why I refuse to save anything to the "cloud". Once it's out there it very well may disappear one day and there won't be a thing yo can do about it.

I'm like Dave, old school. Goes straight to an external drive and then I back that drive p to another external drive just in case.

Association Member

GaryB
Andiamo
'89 SR/WK #5862
Kemah,TX

TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2269 Posts

Response Posted - 07/01/2017 : 05:34:12

The tech press is starting to notice:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/354711/photobucket-breaks-image-links-across-the-internet

Is it possible that this guy is driving the extortion attempt?

http://www.morningstar.in/posts/41657/1/how-this-angel-investor-became-a-billionaire.aspx

quote:
First, his driving force is investing in businesses where he knows he can personally impact the outcome...

He will not invest in a company where he does not have the advantage to make it more likely to win. It�s not just companies that need his capital, but those that value his guidance and business acumen. If he can have a material impact on the company that will improve its odds of success, it has its attention.

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 07/01/2017 : 06:24:19

Of course, "old school" is now enhanced by having a terabyte of storage each in my little notebook and in my pocket-size external drive. I remember back in the '80s when one of the insurance companies here in CT was the first company to reach a total of a terabyte of disk drives in their huge data center...

Old school, indeed! (With nano-technology, it won't be long before you can have a terabyte in your watch.)

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 07/01/2017 06:28:08

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 07/01/2017 : 12:27:29

Rick - we're seeing more and more activist investors driving product and business decisions in major companies. I heard a radio story about one such who purchased only 1% of Nestle's stock making all kinds of suggestions and changes to the company's board and management.
Not that 1% is so huge (still several $1MM), but the guy's track record is such that he gets the attention of other large shareholders and influencers. Taking an existing business like this and changing one usage rule will allow the business to "better monetize" their investment. And at the end of the day, business is all about monetization.
And because they have built a huge critical mass of users who'd rather not migrate their TBs of video and photo content, they've got you right where they want you.
Of course, I'd have been a little sneakier to have increased the likelihood of fuller consumer adoption of the change: I'd have provided a 6 month discount to "valuable long time customers ", then let the discount expire gradually over time. That's when the $200 bucks woulda hit!

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 07/01/2017 : 12:36:54

Dave, oddly enough I work for a company that sells storage that's similar to Amazon's S3 storage.
Our smallest installation is about 800 TB, and we commonly install 10's or 100s of petabytes (PB).
The next level of storage size is exabytes. Some companies are closing in on this number this year.
A study from a large consulting firm recently claimed that by 2018, the amount of storage world wide would be measured in zettabytes!
Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, "that's gazillions and gazillions of ...."

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 07/01/2017 : 20:14:04

Imagine what Google has in their neural network of ?00,000 servers worldwide--maybe I'm short a digit or two by now! All I know is they know what I'm looking for before I can finish telling them, and they have the answers from anywhere in the world before I can get my finger off the keyboard!

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

dmpilc
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4593 Posts

Response Posted - 07/05/2017 : 09:00:44

Moral of the message: keep the important stuff stored on your own equipment and upgrade when needed.

DavidP
1975 C-22 SK #5459 "Shadowfax" Fleet 52
PO of 1984 C-25 SK/TR #4142 "Recess"
Percy Priest Yacht Club, Hamilton Creek Marina, Nashville, TN

GaryB
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4275 Posts

Response Posted - 07/05/2017 : 18:28:43

How long before You Tube tries to do the same thing?

Association Member

GaryB
Andiamo
'89 SR/WK #5862
Kemah,TX

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 07/05/2017 : 19:57:09

YouTube does something a little bit different but believe me, they know how to monetize. [Open in YouTube?] [Y/N]. So YouTube (who is in fact Google) makes you view the video on their player if the app is installed on your mobile device.
Now, once you're in the YouTube app, they gotcha. You'll probably watch the original video, then click on some clickbait video that shows you a pre-roll ad as and perhaps several mid-roll ads. Oh, did you know that Goog is an advertising company at heart? Uh-huh, they are already exploiting us way more than photobucket ever could!

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 07/06/2017 : 08:13:39

Somehow I find Google's stealth advertising less objectionable than Photobucket's surprise extortion scheme.

(Warning: The New York Times and ESPN have advertising, too.)

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 07/06/2017 08:17:00

dasreboot
Admiral

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803 Posts

Response Posted - 07/06/2017 : 12:33:18

quote:
e of disk drives in their huge data center... Old school, indeed! (With nano-technology, it won't be long before you can have a terabyte in your watch.)

soon!

Todd Lewis
Eowyn 87 TR/WK C25 #5656
ARWEN 84 TR/SK C25 #4031
www.mainsailsailingschool.com

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 07/06/2017 : 17:15:31

Found a cool old school backup technology that's totally new school. Sandisk offers a 32, 64, 128 GB thumb drive called an iXpand that provides a Lightning connector on one side and a USB 3.0 on the other.
It plugs directly into an iPhone or iPad to back up all your photos and videos, contacts and music, plus it will allow you to play videos directly from the iXpand drive. You can watch your favorite shows and videos from the drive while on trips, in the car, on a plane or on the train. The USB 3.0 connector makes file transfers to and from your PC or MacBook a breeze.
I wish I were a SanDisk salesman, these are going to fly off the shelves. The Apple mobile world finally has a solution like a flash drive that you can insert right into your phone. Android users have had the ability to add memory for years, now it's iPad/iPhone's turn.

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 07/06/2017 : 21:23:32

quote:
Originally posted by Voyager

...Android users have had the ability to add memory for years, now it's iPad/iPhone's turn.

Not if Apple can help it! (Watch for an iOS update soon.)

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2269 Posts

Response Posted - 07/07/2017 : 04:51:34

quote:
Originally posted by Stinkpotter

quote:
Originally posted by Voyager

...Android users have had the ability to add memory for years, now it's iPad/iPhone's turn.
Not if Apple can help it! (Watch for an iOS update soon.)

This obsession with preventing users' good faith efforts to improve functionality of their devices summarizes why I came to hate Apple decades ago. It also explains why Android has surpassed iOS in market share, in much the same way that Windows surpassed Mac back in the '90s. Apple recovered from that bigly, but they're coasting once again. They've lost their innovative edge because they prevent third parties from innovating on their platform.

Will they ever learn?

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 07/07/2017 : 06:06:30

Apple believes that to make the user the most comfortable, they must keep them in their womb. Outside "stuff" just complicates things and turns a computer into something that needs an IT department to work. They're right, in the case of someone who can exist entirely in the womb, but a lot of people find they need to "come out" at some point. And Windows has mitigated a lot of the problem with their "plug-and-play" standards for peripheral equipment and software.

When I take pictures with my iPhone (a gift a few years ago), I e-mail them to my PC. How silly is that?? When I want to put photos or files from my PC into my iPhone or iPad (another gift), I....... ummmm..... forget it.

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2269 Posts

Response Posted - 07/07/2017 : 06:24:02

quote:
Originally posted by Stinkpotter

Apple believes that to make the user the most comfortable, they must keep them in their womb...

That might have been accurate in the 1980s before standards were established. But these days, with the improvements that you cited, their motive is purely to siphon as much of the profits into their own coffers. And it has worked pretty well...so far.

I had Google Nexus Android phones for about 6 years, and was forced to switch to iPhone by my employer a couple of years ago. I continue to be appalled at how inferior it is to Android in almost every respect. No file system, no control over frequency of automatic syncing with the internet, settings scattered all over the place, podcasts get stuck "preparing for download" unless you reboot your phone a couple times a day, etc. It is really a crippled platform.

Distrustful of the cloud like many of you here, I dutifully backed up my iPhone to my computer for two years. Then I went to an Apple Store and spoke to one of their "geniuses" about a debilitating problem that I was having. Mr. Genius reset my phone to wipe it clean, and told me to go home and restore it. I had five separate backup files, and every one of them was corrupted. Not a single one would work. Some of the lost data was in the cloud in different places, but my employer had changed their email server and didn't transfer many clients' email addresses. Since they were in the phone exclusively, they were lost for good.

I hate Apple, and will switch back to Android first chance I get.

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 07/07/2017 : 06:45:28

Love it or hate it, Apple is here to stay for some time to come. Thunderbolt connectors on their MacBooks and Lightning connectors on their mobile platforms, as well as Bluetooth, provide some useful compatibility. Taking inventory I have a PC for personal use, a MacBook for work, an old android phone (older than Donald Trump's) for personal calls and texts, and iPod touch for personal emails and an iPhone for work email and calls, so I see the good, the bad and the ugly.
Bluetooth helps with an iPhone and MacBook because you can transfer pictures immediately without emailing your photos. My PC backs up my iPod touch's photos and memory image. Rick, now that you mentioned it, I will try to restore my iPod touch from my PC. I copy my iPhone and iPod photos using Windows Explorer (Win8.1).
So when I found the SanDisk thingie (which bore the iOS logo via a license deal with Apple), I was delighted! Finally a way to backup my media, contacts and add more RAM (albeit using a dongle) to my iOS device.
Not ideal, it is what it is, but we play the cards we're dealt.

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2269 Posts

Response Posted - 07/07/2017 : 07:31:04

My corrupted backup was done with iTunes on the PC. I had no idea that all the backups were worthless until I needed it.

I had also dragged many photos from the phone to the computer like you. That works OK.

Also, your iPod probably puts the photos on iCloud when it's on Wifi, so you can go to iCloud.com on a web browser and transfer between the two that way. It's a nice way to browse your photos. It would be nicer for Apple to have a true nested file system to organize your thousands of photos, but Apple doesn't provide that. They do have "albums", but there's no way to look at "all photos" and tell if an individual picture has already been put into an album. So I end up putting the same pictures into albums over and over and over.... Just such crappy system design! Android just uses nested folders, which is cleaner and follows industry standards and UI guidelines. But not Apple.

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 07/08/2017 : 08:09:23

My lady's daughter is an Apple fanatic--thus the two gifts I've received over the past few years... When I can't figure out how to do something that seems like it should be intuitive on my iPhone, I ask the daughter--she shows me how to just do "this, then this, then this" totally obscure sequence of steps, as if Apple wants it to be a classified for power-users only. (Occasionally the answer is "You can't do that.") Much of my career was designing and teaching software user interfaces--in the industry parlance, Apple's has become a pile of spaghetti. [/rant]

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 07/08/2017 : 10:50:35

I don't use iCloud, I use my PC. I back up my PC on a portable drive. Old skool.

The nice thing about iOS' newest release is that they updated their file system. The SanDisk iX device exploits this and system metadata, and so sorts your photos by year and month on the memory stick.

For copying photos from your iOS device to your PC, try this.

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the iPhone. Double click. You'll go down a level and you'll see several folders. Double click each folder one at a time.

From Windows Explorer, display <details>, then sort by date. Select all new photos and movies. Copy from here, then open a second Windows Explorer session for your photos on the PC. Create a current folder, then paste. Repeat for each iPhone folder.
After I copy an entire new batch, I construct a series of folders corresponding to year and month, then do some clean up. There are better ways to do this, but it prevents duplicates.

A simple photo catalog management app that allows you to add tags and reads EXIF data from the pix might be useful. Mac has "Photos" for this. I think Adobe or Microsoft may offer a similar application for PC.

Alas, life is too short to manage your content manually. That's why there's Flickr, Picasa, etc on the cloud.

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

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