All This ChittahChattah | Stories, lost forever

Thursday January 10th 2008, 2:58 am by Steve Portigal

The way things used to be

As I’ve already blogged, I was the victim of a phishing scam and my flickr account was deleted.

According to some flickr forum discussions (where others are reporting similar occurrences) Yahoo/flickr has known about this particular culprit for a year or so. And they’ve failed to implement sufficient countermeasures, technical or otherwise.

Phishing typically targets banking and PayPal information, obviously for financial gain. In my case, someone left a comment on a photo, with a link. And clicking on that link led me to this sad situation. Why did Yahoo let someone post a link that was harmful?

Sure, the forums are also filled with smug posts (not from the flickr staff; they have been instructed to use a soothing tone, while not providing any resolution) from people who insist that the victims of these scams are to blame for not knowing better. I would have thought I did know better, actually.

This miscreant deleted my account, just for fun. And Yahoo can’t restore it. We all know there are backup copies all over the place, but they can only recreate my account, blank.

That means that my 5000 photos are gone. Those I can upload. But all the people I’ve linked to are gone (I’ve spent a few hours trying to reconnect with those I can remember). Anyone who watched my photos via their contacts has lost me (and I’ve lost much of my audience). All the photos that were marked by others are gone. All the groups which I participated in by contributing illustrative images are gone. All the titles, tags, geotags, view counts and comments are gone. All the descriptions and stories and dialog with others is gone.

My document, my story, my part of the community, is gone.

But the whole social media movement that we can’t ever stop hearing about is asking us to contribute content to their websites; we’re building the value for them. YouTube wouldn’t sell for $1.65 billion without our videos. Flickr has our photos. LiveJournal has our stories and pictures.

But is it ours? Do we know who owns it? If the data is on our hard drive, we know where it is, we may even take the trouble to back it up (I’ve got an external backup at work, at home, and online). But if the data is on someone else’s site, how can I keep a copy of it? It may be against the site rules for you to do that, in fact, as the high profile Scoble story demonstrated.

flickrbackup is a tool that lets you save the photos, but how does one download all the metadata? Flickr should have an export feature that creates a .flk file on your PC with all the good stuff. LinkedIn lets you export all your contacts in a variety of standard formats (and if you are nervous, maybe you should go do that right now: LinkedIn->My Contacts tab->Export Connections button near bottom), Google Reader (and any of the other RSS readers I know of) exports an OPML file (Google Reader->Manage Subscriptions ->Import/Export).

DataPortability is a movement to create these tools where they don’t exist. I hope someone creates something for flickr soon.

As for me, I don’t know how to proceed. I was just beginning my Tokyo story, which reached about 1500 pictures (not all worth posting, of course). I’ve got several hundred from Taipei (November/December) and I had a lot of Bali pictures and stories – the cool cultural stuff, the signs, all that great stuff – still unposted. But I’ve also use flickr as a storage for images that I’ve referenced in bios, conference presentations, this blog, other blogs, etc. It’s overwhelming and I don’t know what to do first. Or if I should even do anything. I can’t imagine going to the trouble of writing stuff only to have it disappear again. Maybe one should see it as ephemeral, but I am not there yet.

Share this post

Tags: bereavement, bereft, community, data, flickr, loss, metacontent, photography, photos, social media, stories, tagging

43 Comments | Email This Post

43 Responses to “Stories, lost forever”

Pingback by Marcoullier.com 02.06.08 @ 10:14 pm

For instance, I don’t know how to save my data from ClipMarks. If an account is canceled, do all my links and Clips to blogs die. These are important issues to discuss. clipped fromwww.portigal.com

Pingback by n2teaching 02.02.08 @ 1:48 am

For instance, I don’t know how to save my data from ClipMarks. If an account is canceled, do all my links and Clips to blogs die. These are important issues to discuss. clipped fromwww.portigal.com

Pingback by In the Know NOW 02.02.08 @ 1:02 am

that an acquaintance was the victim of a Gmail phishing scam, leading to the deletion of her account and four years of mail. I lost all my 2006 MyBlogLog and Minerva mail, and understand this sense of loss at a visceral level. Not long after, I reada moving blog post from someone who had their massive Flickr presence deletedunder similar circumstances. Dave Winer has questioned “who will maintain my online presence after I die?” It seems even worse to have to live through it yourself. (Length: 90 words) Comments:

Pingback by marcoullier.com 02.14.08 @ 5:26 am

All This ChittahChattah » Stories, lost forever

Pingback by johnpiercy.com — looking at life through a camera 01.24.08 @ 1:18 pm

All This ChittahChattah » Stories, lost forever

Pingback by Hamilton Flickr Group 01.24.08 @ 1:17 pm

and they all got erased when his account was hacked

Pingback by Closer To The Ideal 01.23.08 @ 10:36 pm

already fading in 2004. So many alternatives nowadays. What to choose? Amazon S3 and SimpleDB and Thrudb all look interesting. January 2003 Foreign Groceries Museum: “Nice. Lingua de Gato isn’t what you think.” This one is bittersweet. Steverecently lostthe 5000+ photos he had on Flickr to a phishing scam. The above link clicks thru to a Flickr Not Found error page. I don’t like to throw the word tragic around but I think this qualifies. Such a loss.

Pingback by Play with the Machine 01.25.08 @ 5:47 am

Pingback by marcoullier.com 02.06.08 @ 10:14 pm

is v. concerned about ‘deleted flickr pro accounts’ issue: http://tinyurl.com/2clrky & http://tinyurl.com/a8we4c … what’s the alternative?

Comment by helenharrop (Helen Harrop) 02.09.10 @ 11:59 pm

I really empathize with the feelings of frustration and helplessness this kind of event creates. It’s thought-provoking that all of the technology that something like a flickr account represents–digital cameras, servers, personal computers, programming languages, etc.–has been used to create a storage medium that’s apparently even less robust than the oral tradition with which our distant relatives started storing human information some 2 million years ago. I hope Yahoo recognizes the importance of this aspect of personal security and implements a solution soon.

Comment by Dan Soltzberg 01.10.08 @ 10:11 am

I’m sorry this happened to you. It makes me angry on your behalf and makes me realize how I have taken for granted that my blog is safe. I blog mostly so I have a record of my life, for me and for my kids, but I guess I’d better put it on paper.

Comment by Carol Crews 01.10.08 @ 10:39 am

On the homepage of flickr they boast of: 4,150 photos uploaded in the last minute · 6,292 photos tagged with fresco · 2.3 million photos geotagged this month. How many photos were deleted this month? How many keywords lost today? It’s criminal that they aren’t aware of the responsibility we deserve by supplying them content to crow about.

Comment by Michael Grossman 01.10.08 @ 12:57 pm

[...] I read a sad blog today by someone who had lost all his photographs on Flickr as a result of a malicious hack: http://www.portigal.com/blog/stories-lost-forever/ [...]

Pingback by fotoLibrarian » Blog Archive » fotoLibra and Flickr — the difference 01.11.08 @ 4:51 am

Data loss happens to most computer users at least once, and that’s not supposed to sound mean: hard drive failures and viral attacks are an every day thing. The upside to this event is that you can blame someone else for it rather than yourself or some anonymous virus programmer. All the best with recovering/remembering your data.

Comment by Robert Cambridge 01.11.08 @ 11:55 am

oh no – that’s horrible – I’m so sorry to hear it. and yahoo absolutely could restore your account – you know they have backups to the backups. again, so sorry – they need to do a better job of preventing malicious hacks. I just backed up my entire blog.

Comment by jloring 01.11.08 @ 11:31 pm

[...] Steve Portigal posts the sad story of how he lost 5,000 Flickr photos to a phishing scam. An excerpt: Phishing typically targets banking and PayPal information, obviously for financial gain. In my case, someone left a comment on a photo, with a link. And clicking on that link led me to this sad situation. Why did Yahoo let someone post a link that was harmful? [...]

Pingback by Dynamist Blog: Phishing at Flickr 01.16.08 @ 2:45 pm

Pingback by Dynamist Blog 01.17.08 @ 10:13 am

Really sorry about this. I’ve got an account at Flickr too, so I know what you may feel…

But you should rather focus on what the hacker has *not* deleted : your photos. These are the real value of your account ; not the links, not the traffic, not the comments, not all that egocentric blah-blah that earns Flickr a lot of money.

Comment by Badibouzouk 01.18.08 @ 1:20 am

[...] 5,000 Flickr photos lost to a phishing scam – This fellow lost his Flickr identity to a phishing scam that meant all his photos, comments, and online conversations were deleted. "How does one download all the metadata? Flickr should have an export feature that creates a .flk file on your PC." I don’t think it’s as clear as that. [...]

Pingback by Underexposed blog: Links of the day | Underexposed - CNET News.com 01.18.08 @ 7:43 am

I had my account deleted by Flickr admin, Heather, and was banned from there because I asked a few times why they were hosting pedophiles and hiding their child porn for them. I lost several hundred images along with a bunch of original poetry I had written. All I asked was why they can’t label the site as having adult content, so as to warn people about all the hidden predators there. She gave me 48 hrs to remove all my work, citing “my disatisfaction” as the reason I was being banned from Flickr for life. I had several hundred friends there I had associated with for years, many that I migrated over from Fotolog with. I still don’t understand why my few simple questions resulted in a lifetime ban from expressing myself on Flickr. Isn’t that some form of censorship? Now I must live online like The Crow, only existing for some form of vengeance and retribution, to extract what I cannot ever get back. How would any of you feel, if it had happened to you? That was three years of work and true artistic expression from my soul, just gone. Flickr, Yahoo, and all their employees suck smelly elephant butt.

Comment by Ninth Life 01.18.08 @ 7:57 am

I don’t know how this phishing scam worked, but I’m recommending all clients use the Opera browser. Unlike Firefox and IE, it’s impervious to most attacks.

http://www.opera.com/

Comment by Technical Writing Geek 01.18.08 @ 9:46 am

Hi Steve, That is really a tragedy. A very sad story, and I can completely empathize because over the past 2 years I have also contributed to Flickr, photos, discussions, groups, comments, built friendships, and have a bundle of important email stored there.

I remember when similar comments with links were circulating. The link took you outside of Flickr, but the ruse was that it pretended to be an extension of Flickr. If I remember correctly, the person says they’ve made something for you, a special image or something to that effect, but a link leads you to a place where you are requested to key in your Flickr password. This is the catch, the kiss of death. Trusting Flickr people think that is somehow an extension of Flickr and they type in their password.

When I received a similar link … but I saw that I had to key in my password, I was suspicious and didn’t proceed. I then emailed the Flickr admin to let them know about this Phisher. In addition to this, there were Phishers who actually took over some of their victim’s Flickr accounts and began sending out some really disgusting, sexual messages to the Flickr community, using the identity of the person whose account they had Phished. It was quite horrible for those people, I received a few of those horrible emails alluding to perversion towards kids, etc., but you could easily see that there was something not right if you’d go to the sender’s Flickr stream and see a bunch of totally innocent photos of flowers and family, etc. Those poor people were really Phished in a malicious way because not only did they lose access to all their photos, private emails, etc., but their reputations were trashed too.

When I received the link and saw that it required the Flickr member to key in their password, I immediately emailed the Admin. to notify them this was going on. My guess is that they would really like to respond and solve this issue, but that their system is just not sophisticated enough to catch these perpetrators, who often skulk around in internet cafes where their IP addresses can’t afterwards be linked to their home address and name.

What happened to you is really a tragedy, and I hope that many people read your blog and take heed. Just a few days ago, a bunch of Flickr members joined some other supposedly related group which claims to be a Beta Test of extended features. It requires the person to key in their Flickr password and info. I was absolutely amazed that these people trustingly gave their information. I didn’t join the group, although it is likely legitimate. I will wait awhile to see if any problems arise before submitting my Flickr information to an outside group.

Cheers!

I also have a blog at http://www.galefraney.wordpress.com and my Flickr account is http://www.flickr.com/photos/galefraney/

Comment by Gale Franey 01.20.08 @ 12:13 pm

[...] 5,000 Flickr photos lost to a phishing scam–This fellow lost his Flickr identity to a phishing scam that meant all his photos, comments, and online conversations were deleted. “How does one download all the metadata? Flickr should have an export feature that creates a .flk file on your PC.” I don’t think it’s as clear as that. [...]

Pingback by Underexposed - CNET News.com 01.20.08 @ 4:08 pm

[...] All This ChittahChattah » Stories, lost forever: Steve Portigal had 5000 photos on his flickr account and due to phishing scam his flickr account was deleted. Phishing typically targets banking and PayPal information, obviously for financial gain. In his case, someone left a comment on a photo, with a link. And clicking on that link led me to this sad situation. Posted at 5:19AM, 24 January 2008 PST ( permalink ) [...]

Pingback by Flickr: Discussing 5000 Flickr Photos Gone - Must read in Hamilton Flickr Group - 01.24.08 @ 6:34 am

Heard about this from one of my Twitter Colleagues, and I am so sorry that this happened to you Steve.

I do agree that data portability should be an even greater issue of concern as we all move away from OSes software to these web based applications.

Admittedly, many of these web based applications are helpful, and these companies tell us upfront that they will not be responsible for problems… so I guess WE, their content CONTRIBUTORS will need to take responsibility for them.

I hope someone in Yahoo/Flickr can help you. My personal, previous experiences trying to get help from Yahoo has been fruitless.

Good Luck!

I will also share your story with my network. You may not be Scoble, but we all need to get your story out because we aren’t Scoble either;D

Comment by samccoy 01.24.08 @ 11:39 am

You definitely have my condolences. Of course, I understand that you had copies of the pictures, and what you were missing was the metadata, much of which is the kind of thing you can only get on Flickr … for “free.”

But this proves the point I made in a blog post about “free” services: sometimes you get what you pay for. If you had paid a reasonable fee, as with a site like SmugMug, you would have had a legal standing to sue them for not restoring your data (assuming that it’s not precluded by the terms of use).

I know it’s not much comfort, but I want your readers to know that there are reasonably-priced services that do offer a guarantee of data security.

Comment by Angus Grieve-Smith 02.01.08 @ 10:02 pm

Angus, as you can see from the screen grab above, I did pay for the service. I am a flickr pro account holder.

I wonder who’s gone through the mouseprint in the various services to see where data security is indeed guaranteed. I’d be a little surprised.

As far as suing them, um, yeah, sure.

Comment by Steve Portigal 02.01.08 @ 11:24 pm

[...] Not long after, I read a moving blog post from someone who had their massive Flickr presence deleted under similar circumstances. [...]

Pingback by marcoullier.com » What happens when a little (online piece of you dies?) 02.06.08 @ 6:37 pm

I just recently also a victim of phishing (at least that what Flickr told me) but someone deleted my account with 20,000 pictures. I was using flickr as my sole storage of my photos.

I am still in shock and dissappointed knowing this is happened to number of people and Flick has not done enough to prefent such big lost or device a retrieval method.

Comment by moriza 02.08.08 @ 2:04 pm

[...] “My document, my story, my part of the community, is gone. But the whole social media movement that we can’t ever stop hearing about is asking us to contribute content to their websites; we’re building the value for them. YouTube wouldn’t sell for $1.65 billion without our videos. Flickr has our photos. LiveJournal has our stories and pictures. But is it ours?” Share this post: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

Pingback by OrthoVox: Joshua Treviño 02.13.08 @ 9:17 pm

[...] Trusting Content to Sites By Jon Kolko on February 23rd, 2008. The idea of designing something for a level of digital permanance is reinforced in a particularly sad example with our very own Steve Portigal. Steve lost some 5000+ photos when Flickr decided to kill his account … [...]

Pingback by interactions magazine 02.23.08 @ 3:07 pm

[...] I’ve uploaded nearly 1300 of my Japan pictures to Flickr. For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand, I haven’t added titles or tags or descriptions proactively, but please add comments or questions on flickr and I’ll gladly offer a story or explanation. [...]

Pingback by All This ChittahChattah » Japan pictures - part 1 of 3 04.11.08 @ 11:28 am

Pingback by All This ChittahChattah » Japan pictures - part 2 of 3 04.11.08 @ 11:28 am

Frei von Google, Yahoo und MSN! …

Nach dem Yahoo Nonoo Desaster (flickr fuckr hat meinen Account deleted, mit allem drum und dran) habe ich ja beschlossen, mich von Internet-Großkonzernen unabhängig zu machen. Was bislang übrig blieb war noch Google-Reader. Google-Mail habe ich bere…

Trackback by Besitzstandswahrer.de 04.22.08 @ 8:11 am

[...] The process of taking time and reviewing the pictures with increasing distance from the event is pretty interesting, giving me a chance to reflect and revisit, to see things that I certainly didn’t see at the time I opened the shutter, and through the interactions on flickr, to gain insight and clarifications about things I observed but did not understand, especially with the pictures from India, where a pretty good dialogue has emerged (seen in the comments posted on the various pictures in that set Oops, not any more). The document of the experience is scattered, the interactions are scattered, but as the publisher of this content, I’m personally at the hub of all of it, so I’m taking full advantage. But clearly technology (even the ability to take several hundered pictures on a two week trip) is enabling some powerful behaviors; we know this, of course, but stepping back and noticing it is always pretty cool. [...]

Pingback by All This ChittahChattah » India pics posted to flickr 04.24.08 @ 3:24 pm

[...] Back in January I posted my sad story about the loss of my Flickr account. [...]

Pingback by All This ChittahChattah » Object Obituary: My Flickr Meta-Content 05.11.08 @ 9:01 am

[...] All This ChittahChattah » Stories, lost forever Says: April 5th, 2008 at 10:51 pm [...]

Pingback by Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Facebook disabled my account « 06.04.08 @ 5:28 am

Sorry, while I see your story as unfortunate, I do not see it as a really big deal. I’m sure, at least I’m hoping, that you don’t take photos just because of flickr. It’s a social networking site like Facebook, Myspace, etc. and shouldn’t be take seriously at all. Your life exists outside of cyberspace I woukd presume, and perhaps, you can concentrate on doing something with yuor photos in “real life” so to speak.

Comment by Mike 01.09.09 @ 7:52 pm

Mike, I’m not sure why you have an opinion about what activities I invest in emotionally or creatively. In fact, I think if you read more about what I wrote, you’d understand exactly how Flickr – and photography in general – provides an interesting bridge between meatspace and cyberspace. But then I’m sure you’re too busy living a richly rewarding life away from the computer to even see my response.

Comment by Steve Portigal 01.09.09 @ 8:01 pm

I agree with you Steve. It seems that Mike’s aim is not to add feedback but to try to put down people who aren’t living and thinking exactly as he does. Flickr is not merely a social networking site like Facebook as Mike suggests. It is also used by serious photographers and photo journalists to communicate to a wide international community of people. To lose a body of work that has been organized within topics and groups, that has a thread of comments and dialogue is not a small thing.

If Mike’s main use of sites like Flickr is to post a few family pics and to say hello to friends and relatives, that’s a perfectly valid use of the website. But don’t then try to put down anyone who uses Flickr’s platform to communicate in deeper, more profound ways.

Real life does not only exist on street level. It also equally exists online where people from all around the globe share views, perspectives and ideas. To deny this parallel reality is to live a one-dimensional existence. If everyone were like you Mikey, it would be a pale world … might as well beam yourself back to the 1930s.

Comment by Gale Franey 01.10.09 @ 1:23 pm

Gale, you put that better than I could, thank you. Discourse on the Internet often seems to culminate or collapse in people telling one another what they should think, feel, or do. I’m not sure why it’s for one of us to tell the other they are overreacting or that their feelings aren’t justified, but that does seem all too common in these more faceless interactions.

Comment by Steve Portigal 01.10.09 @ 1:31 pm

[...] 24, 2008 · Leave a Comment All This ChittahChattah » Stories, lost forever: Steve Portigal had 5000 photos on his flickr account and due to phishing scam his flickr account [...]

Pingback by All This ChittahChattah » Stories, lost forever 5000 Flickr Photos Deleted « Hamilton Flickr Group 11.14.09 @ 9:30 pm

43 Responses to “Stories, lost forever”

Leave a Reply