Credit to Zen for pointing me to this story.
The Hiptop, more popularly known as the T-mobile SideKick, was suffering a
server outage over the last couple of weeks. The SideKick is a "thin client", where all the user's data like contacts, messages, and calendars, is kept on external servers. That data
appears to be permanently lost.
Here's the twist of the knife: Microsoft (the new owners of Danger) did an equipment upgrade of their servers, and
FAILED TO HAVE BACKUPS.
I should consider myself fortunate to not have T-mobile as a mobile provider in my area, although they're as much a victim of this as any of their users. They aren't the one's responsible for keeping the data safe.
Also, There was this reply to the situation on Slashdot:
Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
Need for backup seemed so far away.
Seemed my data were all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.
