101–110 of 193 posts
I will never forget that the Christchurch shooting video was automatically deleted from users' PRIVATE Google Drive and Dropbox - no warnings were given and no explanation was presented.
I will never forget that the Christchurch shooting video was automatically deleted from users' PRIVATE Google Drive and Dropbox - no warnings were given and no explanation was presented.
Not encrypted (at rest and in transit) => not private.
There are no exceptions.
I will never forget that the Christchurch shooting video was automatically deleted from users' PRIVATE Google Drive and Dropbox - no warnings were given and no explanation was presented.
Perhaps I'm sensitive as a NZer, but would you feel the same if the deleted document was a plan for a nuclear weapon etc? Though while giving a warning is clearly inappropriate, they should certainly have explained what they did.
Those two situations aren't even remotely comparable - nuclear weapon plans are straight-up illegal for individuals to own in the US, so by removing one of those, Google would be complying with federal law.
The Christchurch shooting video was not illegal under any law that I'm aware of, so Google was not legally required to delete it, and it was a primary source for a historical event, so Google shouldn't have deleted it, especially not from users' private drives that they weren't sharing (as then you can't even claim that they were spreading extremist material).
I will never forget that the Christchurch shooting video was automatically deleted from users' PRIVATE Google Drive and Dropbox - no warnings were given and no explanation was presented.
Not on your drives => not your data. Not encrypted (at rest and in transit) => not private. There are no exceptions.
I have, uh, mp3 backups of all the music I have owned from my, um, ludicrously massive CD collection. Is it worth the risk that google might one day decide I am a pirate and block my account?
Actually, it might be a good idea to encrypt everything on Google Drive - I wouldn't be surprised if they analyze your files and use the results to augment their internal profile about you (or, even if they don't now, they could very easily do so in the future - remember when they scanned your emails to target ads at you?).
Aside from legitimate DMCAs what I'm worried about is losing backupped files of any sort because some rogue individual files a complaint on stuff they don't own or because of an ML error and an inexistent customer service by Google. Also I don't really like the service to sneak onto any files I upload. What alternatives do we have for cloud file backup? I already do full backups, need something to sync files between…
An owncloud droplet or owncloud on a VPS. Or an owncloud paid instance. All depends on your budget and your needs and your time. I totally switched off Dropbox when they limited the number of devices. Self host owncloud on a VPS, am very happy. From time to time I have to occ:upgrade something et voilà. Used for syncing, not backing up. It helps that I can install and maintain it though, wouldn't recommend it to anyo…
I'm not sure how much should I trust a vps host. I can mess around with encryption all day long but they can compromise my mail server without me ever knowing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps I'm sensitive as a NZer, but would you feel the same if the deleted document was a plan for a nuclear weapon etc? Though while giving a warning is clearly inappropriate, they should certainly have explained what they did.
Nuclear weapons aren't all that complicated, it's the enrichment that is hard. It's a large scale industrial process that requires a well equiped specialized facility. We can detect these activities from space, that's how big we are talking. You can get a rough idea of what is needed from Wikipedia. They are simpler machines than a automobile engine, at least in the sense that there are fewer parts involved.
I'm sorry, Google will scan my personal files for hate speech now? When exactly the the first amendment become toilet paper? Certainly feels like it happened in the last 2 years.
tldr: s/first amendment/free speech principles obligatory mention that the first amendment doesn't apply to private companies, only governments. Then reply and say, "I mean the spirit of the first amendment" and then I'll agree with you. better to just say "free speech principles" rather than "first amendment"
It just feels like every big tech company simultaneously and suddenly decided to crank up censorship. There are even examples of hosting providers and payment processors refusing service to other companies that don't follow certain "guidelines".
It's a censorship cartel. When all these companies suddenly decide to turn the screws on certain viewpoints, it is effectively limiting free speech on society. And I shouldn't have to say this, but free speech is a good thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> scraping content that doesn’t belong to you Oh the irony, Google. It doesn't belong to you either.
Given that a search engine needs to scrape the whole web to exist, I can't understand how they can stand against a user scraping unrelated third-parties, like it's some sort of grand evil they need to stand up against. Talk about a pot calling the kettle black. I can't believe they put that in their terms. For future reference: https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en#suspending-access
Think of it more as Google defending its turf. They want to be the only ones with access to data in bulk, so that if you want to find something, you have to go through them.