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

trufflesecurity.com

181–190 of 326 posts

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

#181
post #138
post #83

In Google AI Studio, Google documentation encourages to deploy vibecoded apps with an open proxy that allow equivalent AI billing abuse - giving the impression that the API key were secure because it is behind a proxy. Even an app with 0 AI features exposes dollars-per-query video models unless the key is manually scoped. Vulnerable apps (all apps deployed from AI Studio) are easily found by searching Google, Twitter…

[flagged]

I think the term you are looking for is "negligence".

But not in the causal sense of the word but in the legal "the company didn't folly the legal required base line of acting with due diligence".

In general companies are required to act with diligence, this is also e.g. where punitive damages come in to produce a insensitive to companies to act with diligence or they might need to pay far above the actual damages done.

This is also why in some countries for negligence the executives related to the negligent decisions up to the CEO can be hold _personally_ liable. (Through mostly wrt. cases of negligence where people got physically harmed/died; And mostly as an alternative approach to keeping companies diligent, i.e. instead of punitive damages.).

The main problem is that in many cases companies do wriggle their way out of it with a mixture of "make pretend" diligence, lawyer nonsense dragging thing out and early settlements.

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

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and problematic Gemini pro availability are why I pay for two other ai services and won’t pay google.

About 10 years ago I got $100 for free to use on AdSense. I used it for fun not realizing it keeps going and then billed me. Since then I basically don't use any Google paid products. Hope that $250 was worth it.

That's... pretty much how every free trial works? Try signing up for a free month of Amazon Prime or Netflix and see what happens. The entire point of the promotion is retention.

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

#184
Many people wanted to be able to set a spending limit on google cloud account for many years but they were unable to implement anything, always suggesting a workaround by hosting a Cloud Run function which would remove billing from a project via API https://docs.cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/disable-bi...

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

#185
post #173
post #114

Someone on the Google subreddit did report getting a 80k bill yesterday from a Gemini key. I’m very careful with Google and co since they’re so intent on infinite scaling access to your wallet

I think GCP has a setting for max monthly spend and is enabled by default

Other comments in this discussion disagree.

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

#186
post #138
post #83

In Google AI Studio, Google documentation encourages to deploy vibecoded apps with an open proxy that allow equivalent AI billing abuse - giving the impression that the API key were secure because it is behind a proxy. Even an app with 0 AI features exposes dollars-per-query video models unless the key is manually scoped. Vulnerable apps (all apps deployed from AI Studio) are easily found by searching Google, Twitter…

[flagged]

Upvoted.

Not illegal, but it should make enforcing payment illegal.

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

#187
post #15
post #6

> Leaked key blocking. They are defaulting to blocking API keys that are discovered as leaked and used with the Gemini API. There are no "leaked" keys if google hasn't been calling them a secret. They should ideally prevent all keys created before Gemini from accessing Gemini. It would be funny(though not surprising) if their leaked key "discovery" has false positives and starts blocking keys from Gemini.

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…

Sheesh. We're in a world where a global Big Tech security team lacks comptetance to run even one high-street locksmith.

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It didn't work like that for any other service, why should it work that way for Gemini.

Artifical Intelligence service design and lack of human intelligence are highly correlated. Who'd have guessed??

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

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 10 years ago I got $100 for free to use on AdSense. I used it for fun not realizing it keeps going and then billed me. Since then I basically don't use any Google paid products. Hope that $250 was worth it.

That's... pretty much how every free trial works? Try signing up for a free month of Amazon Prime or Netflix and see what happens. The entire point of the promotion is retention.

AdSense doesn't present itself as a permanent service you stay subscribed to.

(Or at least didn't at the time I've tried to use it. That may have changed, but we don't know when the GP tried it either.)

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