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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

#251

Post by numpad0 »

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…

Someone was theorizing that this allows Google to not outright suspend accounts for copyright violations. Previous implementations was that you and your businesses will be digitally dead across Googlescape. That was more controversial than this would be.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#252

Post by alkonaut »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #228
alkonaut wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically: piracy, spam or anything you'd get into legal trouble for doing on your own hardware, Google restricts on their hardware. I can't really see how that's surprising or strange.

If they're using content ID then they're also flagging legitimate fair use without providing a counternotice procedure.

That’s unfortunate. But I’d fully understand if that’s the terms of the service, at least for cheaper tiers. Basically “store all you want but at this price point you are subject to errors in automated blocking”. At enterprise level I’d expect service from humans though, and I expect to pay for it.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#253

Post by varnaud »

archhn wrote: post #122
jeffbee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only basis we have for panic here is that reading skills and critical thinking are in dangerously short supply among commenters here, who collectively believe themselves to be smart and independent thinkers despite all available evidence.

Big tech has been rolling out censorship all over the place lately. People suspect that ulterior political motives are causing Google to do this. I don't think mistrusting the motives of Google means that the people here lack "reading skills and critical thinking." One of the terms included in its abuse policies is "hate speech." This is an extraordinarily ambiguous word which can virtually apply to any speech that i…

>For example, saying that a man is a man and a woman is a woman can be considered hate speech against the trans community.

If you can't understand why this is the case, then I'm sorry for your lack of critical thinking.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#254

Post by llampx »

traceroute66 wrote: post #177
acjohnson55 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can store your data encrypted. I use Cryptomator on top of Dropbox for keeping my personal files in the cloud and synced between systems. It works on any online storage that presents itself as a drive to your OS. You lose all of value-added functionality of the cloud storage application, though, like the web interface and the ability to share.

> You lose all of value-added functionality of the cloud storage application, though, like the web interface and the ability to share. Only because you chose the wrong solution. ;-) Look at Tresorit[1] instead. [1] https://tresorit.com/

Using "Swiss privacy" gets my hackles up. And what is with the website hijacking my back button? If I click on "Individual" at the top, I can't go back from that page.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#255

Post by GeekyBear »

erklik wrote: post #222
GeekyBear wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple's CSAM would scan your offline photos. Apple's plan was to to scan photos that you uploaded to iCloud, only. Even that plan was canceled. Google, however, still does scan everything in your account and has been doing so for the past decade. For instance, this article from 2014: >a man [was] arrested on child pornography charges, after Google tipped off authorities about illegal images found in the Houston susp…

> Apple's plan was to to scan photos that you uploaded to iCloud, only. Even that plan was canceled. The massive difference being that they would scan photos on my device. Not on the cloud. On my local device. How is that people consider that better? The important bit is that Google does not currently have any capability to scan stuff on my phone. This is good. It's my stuff. They have no right to look at my stuff. A…

Again, nothing except photos you uploaded to iCloud was to be scanned.

Apple's plan was to have your device conduct the scan and encrypt the scan results so not even they could see them until a threshold of ~30 image matches was reached.

This protects the user from false positives.

Once the 30 image threshold was crossed, the plan was to have a human review before turning someone into the authorities.

I think we all know that Google is not ever going to hire expensive human beings to supervise it's algorithms, so a single false positive would likely see you turned in for kiddie porn.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#256

Post by donkeybeer »

everdrive wrote: post #66

Remember, this means Google has already been scanning and collecting the contents of your Google drive. All they’re talking about is applying a filter to certain files they find objectionable. Even without this announcement, this could happen at any time. If one day something you own is found to be illegal or objectionable, Google may delete it without notice. At worst, they may report you to the authorities.

How on earth is this seen as surprising? Its their servers, they can read anything you upload, I thought this was common sense part of the bargain.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#257

Post by everdrive »

donkeybeer wrote: post #256
everdrive wrote: post #66

Remember, this means Google has already been scanning and collecting the contents of your Google drive. All they’re talking about is applying a filter to certain files they find objectionable. Even without this announcement, this could happen at any time. If one day something you own is found to be illegal or objectionable, Google may delete it without notice. At worst, they may report you to the authorities.

How on earth is this seen as surprising? Its their servers, they can read anything you upload, I thought this was common sense part of the bargain.

Being able to read the fat you upload is different from doing it automatically and en masse, and then applying rules and filters to that data.

As with many topics, this should be self evident to many HN readers, but I doubt it is obvious to most users of Google Drive.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#258

Post by ocdtrekkie »

profmonocle wrote: post #232
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have so far seen a single instance where a legitimate organization sent someone a storage.googleapis.com URL. I have seen literally hundreds of phishing emails do it. Which is to say, the problem is organizations using storage.googleapis.com URLs, not organizations blocking them. And probably Google should be doing a better job policing content on their content domains if they don't want them to be blocked by defau…

> Which is to say, the problem is organizations using storage.googleapis.com URLs, not organizations blocking them. Blocking this domain definitely isn't common, at least not in large organizations. Several of my company's B2B apps use Google Cloud Storage (it's just Google Cloud's version of S3) and have always used storage.googleapis.com/bucketname rather than bucketname.storage.googleapis.com. (AFAIK it was the de…

I would say in my professional experience, I've only once seen someone legitimately directly need to pull content through storage.googleapis.com (whether bucketname.storage.googleapis.com or not). My assumption is public-facing entities tend to serve content via their own domains to end user clients.

I'd be comfortable whitelisting a bucket subdomain, but as I said, it's only come up once, so we worked around it the one time. And I've blocked a lot of phishing sites this way. I'd highly recommend large organizations follow suit. :)

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#259

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ricardobayes wrote: post #250
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have so far seen a single instance where a legitimate organization sent someone a storage.googleapis.com URL. I have seen literally hundreds of phishing emails do it. Which is to say, the problem is organizations using storage.googleapis.com URLs, not organizations blocking them. And probably Google should be doing a better job policing content on their content domains if they don't want them to be blocked by defau…

Why don't you use a vendor that provides the concrete URLs as IOCs to block?

That's fine for blocking malicious content that's already been reported. But if there's no legitimate need to allow the domain, why not block it entirely and prevent even being the ground zero for a new URL?

If my organization is likely enough to be targeted intentionally, the chance of having an attack directly solely at my organization (and hence, likely a URL not found by other parties already) is much higher as well.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#260

Post by rexreed »

EGreg wrote: post #223
tomschlick wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The AI has determined it has done nothing wrong and as punishment has deleted 50% of your files. Do not make that mistake again."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3D8TEJtQRhw

I'm starting to change the way I'm sharing YouTube links to avoid continuing to feed that beast. I replace with the Invidious yewtu.be link. So for example, the above is: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=3D8TEJtQRhw. De-Google Detox.
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