Backup script ingested an accidental asterisk and deleted everything

Welcome to Monday morning, the time of week when The Register always asks “Who, Me?” because that’s the title of our reader-contributed column in which you confess to having made a mess, and found a way to egress without career distress. This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Miller” who told us that as a whippersnapper of just 21 summers he found himself tending a mainframe that created a virtual machine, and accompanying virtual disk, for each user.