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Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

trufflesecurity.com

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Re: Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

#51

Post by ryanjshaw »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #28
louison11 wrote: post #19

This seems so… obvious? How can a company of this size, with its talent and expertise, not have standardized tests or specs preventing such a blatant flaw?

First of all, Google is a shell of the company it used to be. That said, I’d actually argue there’s an evolutionary explanation behind this where at a certain size, and more importantly complexity, an oversight like this becomes even more likely, not less.

Seems like they ought to be dedicated security teams monitoring for exactly this: does a key to X give users access to not-X. Even more bizarre is their VDP team not immediately understanding the severity of the issue.

Re: Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

#53

Post by palmotea »

WalterGR wrote: post #44
Gigachad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also seemingly the only way ChatGPT knows how to write, while being very uncommon for blogposts beforehand. Of course it's not 100% proof, but it's the most likely explanation.

It has a name. The Rule of Threes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing) “The rule of three is a writing principle which suggests that a trio of entities such as events or characters is more satisfying, effective, or humorous than other numbers, hence also more memorable, because it combines both brevity and rhythm with the smallest amount of information needed to create a pattern.” It’s how I was tau…

> It has a name. The Rule of Threes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)

I don't think that's exactly it.

Speaking of LLM-writing in general, it seems to greatly overuse certain types of constructions or use them in uncommon contexts. So that probably isn't so much using the rule of threes, but overusing the rule of threes in certain specific ways in certain specific contexts.

Re: Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

#54

Post by WalterGR »

palmotea wrote: post #53
WalterGR wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a name. The Rule of Threes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing) “The rule of three is a writing principle which suggests that a trio of entities such as events or characters is more satisfying, effective, or humorous than other numbers, hence also more memorable, because it combines both brevity and rhythm with the smallest amount of information needed to create a pattern.” It’s how I was tau…

> It has a name. The Rule of Threes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing) I don't think that's exactly it. Speaking of LLM-writing in general, it seems to greatly overuse certain types of constructions or use them in uncommon contexts. So that probably isn't so much using the rule of threes, but overusing the rule of threes in certain specific ways in certain specific contexts.

I don’t necessarily doubt you or the grand-parent comment, but if it’s ‘obvious to even the most casual of observers’ (as my father would say) then it should be easy to have hard data.

Re: Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

#55

Post by rezonant »

decimalenough wrote: post #43
827a wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah its tremendously unclear how they can even recover from this. I think the most selective would be: they have to at minimum remove the Generative Language API grant from every API key that was created before it was released. But even that isn't a full fix, because there's definitely keys that were created after that API was released which accidentally got it. They might have to just blanket remove the Generative…

The Gemini API is not enabled by default, it has to be explicitly enabled for each project. The problem here is that people create an API key for use X, then enable Gemini on the same project to do something else, not realizing that the old key now allows access to Gemini as well. Takeaway: GCP projects are free and provide strong security boundaries, so use them liberally and never reuse them for anything public-fac…

Imagine enabling Maps, deploying it on your website, and then enabling Google Drive API and that key immediately providing the ability to store or read files. It didn't work like that for any other service, why should it work that way for Gemini.

Also, for APIs with quotas you have to be careful not to use multiple GCP projects for a single logical application, since those quotas are tracked per application, not per account. It is definitely not Google's intent that you should have one GCP project per service within a single logical application.

Re: Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

#57

Post by refulgentis »

decimalenough wrote: post #43
827a wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah its tremendously unclear how they can even recover from this. I think the most selective would be: they have to at minimum remove the Generative Language API grant from every API key that was created before it was released. But even that isn't a full fix, because there's definitely keys that were created after that API was released which accidentally got it. They might have to just blanket remove the Generative…

The Gemini API is not enabled by default, it has to be explicitly enabled for each project. The problem here is that people create an API key for use X, then enable Gemini on the same project to do something else, not realizing that the old key now allows access to Gemini as well. Takeaway: GCP projects are free and provide strong security boundaries, so use them liberally and never reuse them for anything public-fac…

I’m usually client side dev, and am an ex googler and very curious how this happened.

I can somewhat follow this line of thinking, it’s pretty intentional and clear what you’re doing when you flip on APIs in the Google cloud site.

But I can’t wrap my mind around what is an API key. All the Google cloud stuff I’ve done the last couple years involves a lot of security stuff and permissions (namely, using Gemini, of all things. The irony…).

Somewhat infamously, there’s a separate Gemini API specifically to get the easy API key based experience. I don’t understand how the concept of an easy API key leaked into Google Cloud, especially if it is coupled to Gemini access. Why not use that to make the easy dev experience? This must be some sort of overlooked fuckup. You’d either ship this and API keys for Gemini, or neither. Doing it and not using it for an easier dev experience is a head scratcher.

Re: Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

#59

Post by rezonant »

decimalenough wrote: post #46
warmedcookie wrote: post #4

What's frustrating is that a lot of these keys were generated a long time ago with a small amount of GCP services that they could connect to. (Ex. Firebase remote config, firestore, etc.) When Gemini came around, rather than that service being disabled by default for those keys, Gemini was enabled, allowing exploiters to easily utilize these keys (Ex. a "public" key stored in an APK file)

Gemini API is not enabled by default, a project owner has to go explicitly enable it. The problem described here is that developer X creates an API key intended for Maps or something, developer Y turns on Gemini, and now X's key can access Gemini without either X or Y realizing that this is the case. The solution is to not reuse GCP projects for multiple purposes, especially in prod.

Please see my response to your pasted comment in another thread: for many APIs that you can enable on a GCP project, you are intended to use the same GCP project across the whole application for quota tracking. Google even makes you assert that you are only using one GCP project (or at least list out all GCP projects, which APIs are enabled on them and what their purpose is and why you have more than one) when seeking approval for public facing OAuth.

Re: Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules

#60

Post by palmotea »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #16
SecretDreams wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too structured and consistent. Imo. Has that AI smell to it, but I guess humans will eventually also start writing more like the AIs they learn from.

AI was trained on human writing.

> AI was trained on human writing.

AI output is not varied like real human writing. This is a very distinctive narrowing of style.

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