Backblaze has removed Facebook tracking code (also known as an advertising pixel) accidentally added to web UI pages only accessible to logged-in customers.
The US-based cloud storage and online backup provider has customers from 175 countries and stores over 1 Exabyte of customer data on its servers.
The tracking code was inadvertently added with a new Facebook advertising campaign that started on On March 8, said Yev Pusin, Backblaze's Senior Director Of Marketing.
Backblaze discovered the issue after receiving user reports on March 21 that pages on the B2 web UI were sending file names and sizes to Facebook.
Tracking code active for two weeks
Have a USB Flash Drive (256GB for $99) or a USB Hard Drive (up to a 8TB for $189) sent to you via FedEx. You can even send the drive back to Backblaze within 30 days for a refund.
While the Facebook advertising pixel used in such campaigns is ordinarily used only on marketing pages, this campaign was accidentally configured to run on all platform pages, including web UI pages only accessible to logged-in users.
Install Backblaze on your new computer or OS If you haven't already go ahead and install Backblaze on your new computer. You can download the Backblaze trial from the Backblaze.com home page. Once the transfer has completed, Backblaze will also grab the license belonging to your old computer. From Backblaze 2 years ago There are three philosophies, you can pick any one of them: Keep Both Backups - You decide to keep BOTH computers (the old and new). Then you have to pay $5/month/computer or $10/month total.
'We promptly investigated the matter and, once we were able to identify, verify, and replicate the issue, we removed the offending code from the signed-in pages on March 21,' Pusin said.
'Our Engineering, Security, and Compliance/Privacy teams—as well as other staff—are continuing to investigate the cause and working on steps to help ensure this doesn't happen again.'
The third-party tracking code was only deployed on the b2_browse_files2.htm web UI page, which allows users to browse their B2 Cloud Storage files as Backblaze found after investigating the incident.
No account info or files share with Facebook
Is Backblaze Worth It
Backblaze discovered that 9,245 users visited that page while the Facebook campaign was active (between March 8 and March 21).
While the campaign ran, the third-party tracking code collected file and folder metadata such as file names, sizes, and dates and uploaded it to Facebook's servers.
Luckily, this happened only for customers who clicked to preview file information while browsing through their B2 Cloud Storage files.
Pusin added that no user files or user account info was sent to Facebook while the tracking code was active on signed-in pages.
'No actual files or file contents were shared at any time. The data that was pulled did not include any user account information,' he said.
'Backblaze did not intentionally share this data with Facebook, nor did Backblaze receive any form of compensation for it.'
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Founded | April 20, 2007; 13 years ago |
| Founder |
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| Headquarters | , United States |
| |
| Products | |
| Website | www.backblaze.com |
Backblaze Set Up New Computer
Backblaze, Inc. is a cloud storage and data backup company, founded in 2007 by Gleb Budman, Billy Ng, Nilay Patel, Brian Wilson, Tim Nufire, Damon Uyeda, and Casey Jones.[1] Its two main products are their B2 Cloud Storage and Computer Backup services, targeted at both business and personal markets.
Products[edit]
Cloud Backup[edit]
Backblaze's first product was its computer backup, offering users to back up their computer data continuously and automatically with a monthly subscription service. The service makes use of AES encryption for security, and uses data compression and bandwidth optimization to reduce upload and download times. Files that need to be restored can be delivered in the form of a digital download,[2] on an external hard drive or flash drive.[3] File versioning and history is available, however there is a cap to 30 days or an additional cost per month.
Backblaze B2 Storage[edit]
Backblaze Transfer To New Computer
In September 2015, Backblaze launched a new product, B2 Cloud Storage. Being an Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), it is targeted at software integration for different kinds of businesses. It directly competes with similar services, such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.[4] In April 2018, Backblaze announced cloud computing partnerships[5] that directly connect Backblaze's data centers with its partners, Packet and ServerCentral.
Technology[edit]
Data centers[edit]
Backblaze has four data centers; three are in the United States and one is in Europe. Two U.S. data centers are in Northern California near Sacramento, and one is in Phoenix, Arizona. Backblaze's data center in the European Union is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.[6]
Redundancy[edit]
In order to increase redundancy, data uploaded onto Backblaze's data center is sharded into 17 data pieces and three parity shards for each file. Parity shard bits are computed by the Reed–Solomon error correction algorithm. The shards are stored in 20 different drives, each in a separate cabinet to increase resilience to a power loss to an entire cabinet, or other physically-based issue. Backblaze states that its 'Vault' architecture is designed with 99.999999999% annual durability.[7]
Encryption[edit]
For Computer Backup, Backblaze uses a combination of AES and SSL encryption to protect user data. Data is stored in Backblaze storage using Reed-Solomon erasure coding[citation needed] and encrypted with the user's private key, which is secured with the user's password and username. The default encryption of private keys is done server side, which is unlikely to protect against government subpoena or serious data breach. Users desiring additional security and privacy can use the optional private encryption key (PEK),[8] but the PEK passphrase is sent to the server when it is initially set, and must be sent again to restore any data.[9]
Encryption for their B2 storage is handled entirely by the user and client software to manage the stored data, making it immune to government subpoena or data breach and protecting the data during transfer and ultimate storage in Backblaze's data centers.
Storage Pod open design[edit]
In 2009 and 2011, the company released CAD drawings of the computer case used by the storage servers in its datacenters. With commercial off-the-shelf components such as x64 processors, disks, and motherboards, high-density storage servers can be built at a lower cost than commercial ones.[10] The company has since made six iterations of the design over the years.
References[edit]
- ^'Backblaze Team'. Backblaze.com. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
- ^'Backblaze: Online Backup With Time Machine's Finesse'. TechCrunch. 2008-06-02. Retrieved 2016-03-28.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'Larger Longer Faster Better'. BackBlaze. Retrieved 24 February 2019.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'B2 Cloud Storage Pricing'. 2 January 2018.
- ^'Backblaze Announces B2 Compute Partnerships'. Backblaze.com. Retrieved 2018-04-03.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'Backblaze opens data center in Amsterdam, retains same pricing as US'. TechRepublic.com. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
- ^'Backblaze Durability is 99.999999999% — And Why It Doesn't Matter'. Backblaze.com. Retrieved 2018-07-17.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'Online Backup Security & Encryption'. Backblaze. Retrieved 2016-03-23.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'Security Question Round-up!'. Backblaze. 2017-09-12. Retrieved 2019-11-08.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'Petabytes on a Budget v2.0:Revealing More Secrets'. Blog.backblaze.com. Retrieved 2016-03-28.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
External links[edit]
How To Move Backblaze To New Computer