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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

#261

Post by blackboxlogic »

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?

Would be nice for companies to maintain a standard account management API which password managers could call. Imagine buttons on your password manager: "Set All Emails..." and "Randomize All Passwords..." I didn't find any such standard after a quick search.

Edit: Looks like LastPass does it with a screen scraper https://support.logmeininc.com/lastpass/help/how-do-i-update...

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#262

Post by traceroute66 »

llampx wrote: post #254
traceroute66 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well its a million times better than better than "I'm Dropbox/Google etc. , a US jurisdiction company, with servers in the US, trust me (wink wink) , I will never give Uncle Sam your data"

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#263

Post by erklik »

GeekyBear wrote: post #255
erklik wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> nothing except photos you uploaded to iCloud was to be scanned.

My point is that the difference between the approach from Google and Apple is that in one case (Google), we have a tech level blockage, it's not currently possible for Google to even do that.

On the other hand (Apple), the "blockage" is policy or "promise". That's far less reliable than the tech just not existing.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#264

Post by donkeybeer »

everdrive wrote: post #257
donkeybeer wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Automatic monitoring should also be obvious at this scale. Also I am sure non-technical users also understand what it means to put up something on someone else's website.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#265

Post by GeekyBear »

erklik wrote: post #263
GeekyBear wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> nothing except photos you uploaded to iCloud was to be scanned. My point is that the difference between the approach from Google and Apple is that in one case (Google), we have a tech level blockage, it's not currently possible for Google to even do that. On the other hand (Apple), the "blockage" is policy or "promise". That's far less reliable than the tech just not existing.

> the difference between the approach from Google and Apple is that in one case (Google), we have a tech level blockage

There is nothing stopping Google from inserting code to scan everything on your device. They can stick it into the binary blob of closed source Play Store code, and you would have no way of knowing it is there.

Google still does scan everything in your online account and has been doing so for the last decade.

Apple has backed down from even doing that for iCloud Photos.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#266

Post by dirtyoldmick »

javajosh wrote: post #217
ehsankia wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

If that's true then I'd expect there to be personalized and well-funded counter-measures, for tracking and prosecution coordination with local law-enforcement and court system. Considering that one service could be worth many millions, and that can be destroyed by one person, it would make sense to spend the money.

Yeah that's not going to happen unless you can convince everyone to implement a 1 world government.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#267

Post by 5dd83f0e »

rei_ayanami wrote: post #247
rsync wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need a distributed volunteer backed free replacement. Is IPFS or gnunet ready for that yet?" Or you could just choose a provider who respected your privacy and had a very long history of standing for freedom of speech and the rights of users. If only such a provider existed. If only ...

Nextcloud

Very long history of breaking.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#268

Post by 5dd83f0e »

rsync wrote: post #83
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #60

Honestly surprised they weren't forced to do this earlier, Google likely already hashes files for deduplication or integrity checks, making it rather trivial to keep a database of known pirated movie hashes. Obviously it can be easily defeated with encryption / changing the metadata, but it's so easy to implement I'm shocked they didn't do it earlier. Google drive is commonly used for a backup of media or even a host…

This is, suddenly, a FAQ for us.[1] Many, many pre-sales conversations are now focused on whether or not we hash files or keep databases of file hashes, etc. Do we collude with other cloud providers to report file incidence. Or, for people who really have no idea who they are talking to "which cloud do (you) run on top of". This was not the case before. I think the advent of 'rclone'[2] has created a lot of use-cases…

Wait for ToS banning 'double encrypted files' aka 'we encrypt your files on google' and user adding rclone or other crypt on top.

Re: Google Drive may restrict files identified as violating ToS

#269

Post by llampx »

traceroute66 wrote: post #262
llampx wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well its a million times better than better than "I'm Dropbox/Google etc. , a US jurisdiction company, with servers in the US, trust me (wink wink) , I will never give Uncle Sam your data"

That's the thing, I'm not so sure that it is that much better.
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