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Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

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Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#11

Post by blojayble »

adtac wrote: post #6
cft wrote: post #4

Google has become the judge, the jury and the executioner of the internet. Recently a malicious user embedded an image from a site that is on Google's Safe Browsing list in a forum that is itself embedded on a third party site. This nuked a popular third party site where the forum is embedded: it is now flashing red (malicious software detected) in Chrome.

I was wondering how HN would spin this into Evil-Google. It's just tiring at this point. This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users.

Where does this attitude stem from anyway?

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#12

Post by [deleted] »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #9
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, and with Google in a position of owning much of what happens online, it's also Google acting unilaterally in ways that multiple actors might not. Both statements are true: It's a good thing. It's not right to have one company with so much power No evil Google required.

There are plenty of cases where you might reasonably question how much control they have. But this is a mechanism to protect access controls to your Google account , almost the definition of something first-party that they should gate very carefully.

[deleted]

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#13

Post by andruby »

cft wrote: post #4

Google has become the judge, the jury and the executioner of the internet. Recently a malicious user embedded an image from a site that is on Google's Safe Browsing list in a forum that is itself embedded on a third party site. This nuked a popular third party site where the forum is embedded: it is now flashing red (malicious software detected) in Chrome.

Which site?

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#14

Post by amelius »

otp124 wrote: post #8

I like the forced UX of typing something, though "continue" might be glossed over. It would be an interesting study to determine if typing "I know the risk" is a better safety mechanism for users (can be A/B tested for less pass-through events) than "continue".

I'm guessing yes, because users are more likely to abort the installation process.

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#15

Post by askvictor »

otp124 wrote: post #8

I like the forced UX of typing something, though "continue" might be glossed over. It would be an interesting study to determine if typing "I know the risk" is a better safety mechanism for users (can be A/B tested for less pass-through events) than "continue".

Typing something unique (eg the name of the app) might also be useful as it forces some cognitive processing.

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#17

Post by martin-adams »

philo23 wrote: post #16

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the way Google is re-using the Chrome error page styling for this, but I can't put my finger on why exactly...

Because you associate it with an error that you have no control over? I find that I'm tuned to recognise patterns of behaviour, so when the patterns look similar to other things, but aren't the same, it's quite confusing.

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#18

Post by csydas »

blojayble wrote: post #11
adtac wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering how HN would spin this into Evil-Google. It's just tiring at this point. This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users.

Where does this attitude stem from anyway?

Well it's legitimately founded in that Google has a lot of power over how things are interpreted online due to its omnipresence. Once you reach the size of Google, every action is an experiment in the Butterfly Effect, with each change having many unintended consequences. Product Launches and Discontinuations on a monthly basis, flagging sites as malicious due to a false-positive, bubble search results causing discoverability issues, AMP, the list goes on.

Yes, some people will rag on Google for anything, but there are valid concerns when such changes are made without warning that breaks current functionality. Per the article, this time Google just enabled it for new apps with plans to roll it out to existing apps, but in the past Google as not been as courteous.

It's the classic xkcd situation that every change breaks someone's workflow; the difference being that when you're Google's size and have Google's reach of influence, you end up breaking a lot of someones workflows.

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#19

Post by michaelt »

blojayble wrote: post #11
adtac wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering how HN would spin this into Evil-Google. It's just tiring at this point. This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users.

Where does this attitude stem from anyway?

  Where does this attitude stem from anyway?
I have a theory that popular opinions within social groups can reach a sort of tipping point.

On one side of the tipping point, the company is seen as basically a bunch of good guys who may make occasional mistakes - but who doesn't? And they're always quick to correct them, or they're out of understandable commercial necessity.

On the other side of the tipping point, the company is seen as basically a detrimental force, hungry to gather and abuse monopoly power, responsive and accountable to no-one, and motivated only by things that will let them take more money and power from the likes of us.

Of course, for any company the size of Google / Microsoft / Apple / Facebook the answer is a little of column A, a little of column B.

But how people will see a given action depends on what side of the tipping point a company is on. When a company does something like buying another company's patent portfolio (for "defensive purposes"), or buying a startup and making their paid offering free, it'll confirm your existing beliefs - whichever side you were on.

If you went to Slashdot in the 90s, Microsoft could do no right - they could give free PCs to orphanages, and there'd be people saying they only did it to cement the dominance of Office.

I'd say Google is just kinda hovering around that tipping point right now, in HN's median opinion. Some people think it's on one side, some on the other.

Of course, us online-forum-readers and designers have to take some of the blame for this sort of reductionism - it's easy to comment without reading the article, or to design a system where parroting the collective opinion is rewarded with upvotes.

Re: Google launches new security features to protect users from unverified apps

#20

Post by bjpbakker »

adtac wrote: post #6
cft wrote: post #4

Google has become the judge, the jury and the executioner of the internet. Recently a malicious user embedded an image from a site that is on Google's Safe Browsing list in a forum that is itself embedded on a third party site. This nuked a popular third party site where the forum is embedded: it is now flashing red (malicious software detected) in Chrome.

I was wondering how HN would spin this into Evil-Google. It's just tiring at this point. This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users.

> This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users

No it's not. It's Google telling it's users which apps to use and not to use. For regular users Google presents itself (just like Apple does) as an authority of what's a good app. Any other apps automatically are not good in the mind of regular users.

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