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Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

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201–210 of 558 posts

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#201
Its not just startups. I work at a major company and we’ve had internal domains flagged in the past due to internal security testing. We resolved it by making some calls to people at Google because the Safe Browsing dashboard is so slow to fix things.

This is especially troublesome if you allow customers to upload code to run on your systems (e.g. Javascript for webpages or interactive data analytics) You have to isolate every customer on separate domains.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#202
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google is falsely claiming your malicious and its harming your business it seems like a pretty clear case of slander/tortuous interference.

I'm sure he could get a lawyer better than Google's.

I don’t think it would be as lopsided as you envision.

You might even be able claim strict liability standard since it’s an allegation of professional fraud.

Meaning the standard for proving defamation might be substantially lower than normal.

I’d guess google would settle in the blink of eye unless they had some basis for the claim. And “computer says no” would not cut it in court.

Could still be expensive but not bankruptingly so.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#203
post #100
post #75

Of particular note: " Don't host any customer generated data in your main domains. A lot of the cases of blacklisting that I found while researching this issue were caused by SaaS customers unknowingly uploading malicious files onto servers. Those files are harmless to the systems themselves, but their very existence can cause the whole domain to be blacklisted. Anything that your users upload onto your apps should b…

Pardon my ignorance as I have few years of web dev experience. What exactly does it mean to store data on a domain? Does he mean serve data via a domain URL? And if so, how does Google have discovery of that data?

How would you even “store” data on a domain?

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#204
post #165
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing at all. Many people survive exposure to the internet without being protected by corporate firewalls, think-of-the-children filters and antivirus. Or do we expect UK citizens to curl up in fetal position and start screaming as soon as they leave their country because they're no longer protected by their ISP filters?

As someone who tracks phishing pages I would disagree. The amount of really high-quality fast flux phishing put out every day on completely legitimate-looking domains is astonishing. I know plenty of people who would immediately fall for it, and I wouldn't blame them one bit.

I don't doubt that phishing exists, but it's still a tail risk, it's not like the majority of the internet population got scammed 24/7 before google stepped in. So if google were to abuse that power then we could choose living with an increased risk instead of trusting them. At least until another solution is found.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#205
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure he could get a lawyer better than Google's.

At least for Facebook and Twitter, self-writing and faxing a C&D notice to the legal departments usually helps with getting accounts unbanned.

Curious why this is downvoted? Seems like the first step any counsel would take in this scenario.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#206
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, we can only vote with our clicks. Sadly gmail and google docs are top notch products :(

No, we can't vote with our clicks. That's what it means when a handful of companies dominate most of the web and the web playing a dominant role in global economy. We have very little real choice. Occasionally people will pretend this is not so. In particular those who can't escape the iron grasp these companies have on the industry. Whose success depends on being in good standing with these companies. Or those whose…

Do you think the 1982 breakup of AT&T would have been possible in today's political reality?

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#207
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because we block uploads of executable files, it is _literally impossible for users to host malware on our servers_ How does this stop bad actors from exploiting bugs in e.g. V8 with malicious JavaScript?

> How does this stop bad actors from exploiting bugs in e.g. V8 with malicious JavaScript? You're correct: it doesn't. Blocking executable files aren't enough. Javascript files, zips containing executables, malicious Word files...all of these are vectors.

Look at the file types gmail blocks from being directly attached to emails for a comprehensive list.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#208
There's an effective monopoly on web browsing, and then any private decision here becomes de facto censorship. How can this be constitutional, ants need to rise and get some rulings down on this topic, the web needs to be brought back to how it was.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#209
root.cern was affected by this in the fall, apparently due to a false positive in the windows installer. It was resolved relatively quickly (a day or so?) but hugely inconvenient for e.g. documentation, and of course the particle physics community has connections. root.cern.ch worked but the internal links were all over the place.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#210
post #100
post #75

Of particular note: " Don't host any customer generated data in your main domains. A lot of the cases of blacklisting that I found while researching this issue were caused by SaaS customers unknowingly uploading malicious files onto servers. Those files are harmless to the systems themselves, but their very existence can cause the whole domain to be blacklisted. Anything that your users upload onto your apps should b…

Pardon my ignorance as I have few years of web dev experience. What exactly does it mean to store data on a domain? Does he mean serve data via a domain URL? And if so, how does Google have discovery of that data?

We’re pretty sure they get reports from Chrome. A security researcher at my workplace was running an exploit against a dev instance as part of their secops role and got the domain flagged, despite the site being an isolated and firewalled instance not accessible to the internet.
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