Gmail or Thunderbird problem?

[Mike McGinn]

On Friday 05 December 2008 11:11:18 Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:
> > Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> >> Karl F. Larsen wrote:
> >>>     Yes that may be correct. I am still learning how IMAP works. There
> >>> is not very much information on IMAP that I can find.
> >>
> >> What about IMAP is confusing?
> >>
> >> Primarily IMAP is a way of keeping email on the mail server instead of
> >> your computer so you can access it from a number of systems without
> >> losing your mail, and as long as the provider does decent backups of
> >> their data you won't lose data.
> >
> > It's not "their" data. It's their client's data.
>
> I'll remember that if the ISP is served with a warrant for data so
> officials get the data but the client is never told of this being
> served...courtesy of some of the wonderful laws our soon to be ex
> president had passed for domestic spying.
>
> > In our hosting
> > operation, we don't back up client data unless they expressly want us to
> > do it and then we bill for it accordingly. Even if your hosting provider
> > says they back up your data, what would you do if their machine died and
> > their backup turned out to be not restorable, or if they went bankrupt
> > as the first hosting provider we used did about 13 years ago(*)? You can
> > scream, you can vent fury at them and you can even threaten to sue (but
> > not prevail if you did) but you'll still be without your data. The
> > prudent thing is to make sure that you always have a local copy of any
> > remote data that is valuable to you.
>
> *shrug* the ISP's I've worked with here make backups of their email
> server because they can be driven out of business if they have a crash
> and lose services their clients use. *shrug* up to them how they want to
> serve their customers.
>
> Hosting is a little different since it means the client is taking
> responsibility for management. I was just talking about ISP email,
> though, as I didn't think most users would be administrating their own
> hosted email service.

We backup email, but we only retain the backups for a week or so before they 
get overwritten. When you number you email accounts in the hundreds of 
thousand retaining all that data becomes onerous and expensive. Some 
customers retain email on the server and some do not. If you take your email 
off our servers when you check it, it is a safe assumption that all trace of 
it is gone within a week. It the government wants us to save all this crap 
they are going to have to come up with some dough. All our servers are in 
colocation facilities for redundancy of banwidth and power. it is not as if 
we can have someone there all the time to play with tapes.


-- 
Mike McGinn
Registered Linux User 377849
"more kidneys than eyes!"
Code wrangling for over twenty years.
"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit."