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Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

workspaceupdates.googleblog.com

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Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#191

Post by kroltan »

bencollier49 wrote: post #59
fs111 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty email providers out there. Free and paid. It should not be a problem for anyone to switch. Moving off of Gmail doesn't mean to self host. It is a bit of work to tell anyone about your new address, but that's it.

Changing upwards of 200 logins to use a new email address may be troublesome. Do you keep a list?

Unlike sibling commenters, I used to not use a password manager. (But do now!)

I just keep the old GMail for now, and whenever I receive a valid email there, I visit the sender website to update it.

This depends on you remembering your "low-volume important accounts" like government websites you visit once a year, but otherwise, I would not cry if my imgur account got lost or something eventually.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#192

Post by kroltan »

beached_whale wrote: post #90
bencollier49 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing upwards of 200 logins to use a new email address may be troublesome. Do you keep a list?

There's another catch, many services use the email address as an immutable identifier that cannot be changed. For some that doesn't matter, but at the very least it is a lot of time/effort.

A lot of those can be solved by contacting the support of that service. Services that don't allow you to change emails are usually on the smaller side and so you might actually get a response.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#193

Post by [deleted] »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #189
ncann wrote: post #10

I believe this may be due to the popular spamming method lately which is tagging people into a Google Docs and share it so everyone receives a notification (the spam message). It works better than regular email spam since apparently Gmail doesn't treat Google Docs notification email as spam (at least not as often).

The files are not removed or blocked, they just can't be shared publicly: > When it’s restricted, you may see a flag next to the filename, you won’t be able to share it, and your file will no longer be publicly accessible So it's probably a combination of things, including piracy. They're not forbidding people from storing or retrieving the files, just not allowing anyone to publicly host whatever they want on Google…

[deleted]

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#194

Post by fleddr »

dharmaturtle wrote: post #53
fleddr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much a slippery slope. Their cloud doesn't mean its their content. If said content is public, I mostly agree, but not if its private. When I hire a storage box and put stuff in it, I don't own the storage box. Yet still it cannot be searched by anyone, not the company nor the authorities, unless there is a credible criminal suspicion.

The storage owner can have a terms of service - i.e. you can't store flammable material/liquids. They also probably reserve the right to enter your unit to perform repairs.

Right, and to keep this analogy consistent, do storage owners routinely open all storage units, then open up all your boxes and search through them to check for flammables?

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#195

Post by bri3d »

ipaddr wrote: post #186
md_ wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As does Dropbox, Aol, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, etc, etc. Whether this is good or bad is a topic for fair debate, I think, but it continues to astound me both how little people are aware of this and that, in comparison, Apple's relatively privacy-preserving approach generated so much flak.

Apple iCloud is in that list. And you still need to scan local photos on the phone?

It's better for a customer to scan images locally, on the phone, prior to upload. By doing this, the device can then encrypt images and store them in the cloud service. In this way the cloud service can be "CSAM sharing free" but never needs the symmetric keys to decrypt private images, period, for any reason.

The only thing this adds to the threat model is mistrust for false positives in scanning engine - but in even the worst case scenario here (forged false positives), you're still ahead of the Google model, where the same forged false positives would be extremely likely to result in a full account review rather than review of specific images. Everything about "the device looking at your photos" is tinfoil hat, because the device is already looking at your photos, they're decrypted in RAM! All of the threat scenarios about "Apple adds a secret government backdoor that downloads your photos and sends them to the FBI" are already equally possible today!

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#196

Post by fleddr »

jrockway wrote: post #52
fleddr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much a slippery slope. Their cloud doesn't mean its their content. If said content is public, I mostly agree, but not if its private. When I hire a storage box and put stuff in it, I don't own the storage box. Yet still it cannot be searched by anyone, not the company nor the authorities, unless there is a credible criminal suspicion.

I guess the question is, if someone emails you an archive of jpg files to share on your public website, will you? Without looking at them? I think that would be crazy. When they end up being CSAM or whatever, you're the one that will go to prison for possessing them, not the person that sent them to you.

That's why I made the distinction between public hosting and a private album.

For public files, I fully agree with you. For private ones, not at all.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#197

Post by yyyk »

r00fus wrote: post #63
fs111 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty email providers out there. Free and paid. It should not be a problem for anyone to switch. Moving off of Gmail doesn't mean to self host. It is a bit of work to tell anyone about your new address, but that's it.

What about the hundreds of other accounts that use your gmail as either the 2FA target or password reset? For a non-technical user (like my mom), this is a herculean task.

There's no need to delete the old gmail account, just use the new account for anything new, and change the mail address to the new one for the few frequent and useful accounts.

Over time, the old gmail account will lose its importance, and there'll be no real risk if Google decides to ban it.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#198

Post by dharmaturtle »

fleddr wrote: post #194
dharmaturtle wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The storage owner can have a terms of service - i.e. you can't store flammable material/liquids. They also probably reserve the right to enter your unit to perform repairs.

Right, and to keep this analogy consistent, do storage owners routinely open all storage units, then open up all your boxes and search through them to check for flammables?

No, but that's primarily due to a lack of interest/manpower. They (probably) reserve the right to ensure that you aren't doing things that are against their TOS. There's (probably) no right to privacy.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#199

Post by ehsankia »

duskwuff wrote: post #173
ncann wrote: post #10

I believe this may be due to the popular spamming method lately which is tagging people into a Google Docs and share it so everyone receives a notification (the spam message). It works better than regular email spam since apparently Gmail doesn't treat Google Docs notification email as spam (at least not as often).

Similarly: Google Forms being used for phishing, Google Calendar invite spam... I've even heard of Google Photos being used for spam (by "sharing" photos, or by posting photos with text as the target of a spam campaign). Spammers ruin everything.

They truly do. And it doesn't even have to be many spammers, it only really takes one person to ruin a free service. I've had plenty of personal projects I had to shut down due to some random person who just decided to hammer my servers for no reasons. I block the IP or IP block and they get more. I put Captcha (HN always complains about it but this is why it's often needed...), and users (who pay nothing) complain that it's annoying. Running free services on the internet is truly a PITA.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#200

Post by ehsankia »

chippiewill wrote: post #34
anshumankmr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But seriously how long is it before Google implements a hashing algorithm (not too dissimilar from Apple's) to check if a user has not uploaded content with a copyright on it and taking some form of action on the user. This feels like a slippery slope to be on.

Google already scans for CSAM on stuff uploaded to drive. The idea that they'd start using it for copyrighted material is a spurious claim considering they've made no indication of doing so in the past.

Yeah, all cloud provides do, this isn't new. The only reason Apple's version was controversial is that they did it on your own device instead of their own server, but scanning files on cloud services is common practice.
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