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Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

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Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#191

Post by KronisLV »

dgudkov wrote: post #69

One corporation must not have so much power over billions of citizens of many countries. A power like that must only come from a transparent non-profit organization with a publicly elected management board. We will get to that point sooner or later. But the road there will be long and painful.

> We will get to that point sooner or later.

Is there anything in particular that makes you believe that it'll eventually happen?

Because personally my outlook on things is a bit more pessimistic - oftentimes the main concerns of individuals and organizations alike are financially-oriented and few share the enthusiasm for transparency and openness like Richard Stallman does.

The trend of SaaSS ( https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... ) because of companies not wanting to invest time in engineering their own solutions or even using FOSS, alongside with how many of them are handling GDPR and even cookie compliance, with the use of UX "dark paths" (e.g. it being easier to accept advertising cookies rather than deny them) doesn't let me keep a positive outlook on things.

It feels like we'll all be reliant on the "tech giants" for a variety of things for the decades to come, even "de-Googling" oneself not always being feasible.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#192

Post by pault »

kyledrake wrote: post #116

I run https://neocities.org , and safe browsing has been my nightmare overlord for a long time. No way to manage reports via an API, no way to contact support. I haven't even been able to find a suggestions box, even that would be an upgrade here. Digging to find "the wizard" gets you into some official google "community support" forum where you learn the forum is actually run by a non-employee lawful neutral that wa…

> The other person I knew that works at google stopped responding to my tinder messages.

This has to be the best anecdote for Google's broken tech support that I've ever heard. :)

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#193

Post by specialist »

hedora wrote: post #180
specialist wrote: post #174

1- Ban self dealing. Even the appearance of a conflict of interest should be treated as an actual conflict of interest. Among all the other countermeasures being considering, breaking apart these monopoly's end-to-end integrations should be top priority. For comparison: I'm a huge Apple fan boy. I'm in a happy monogamist relationship with Apple (h/t NYU Prof Scott Galloway). There's no question their awesome products…

Must be held accountable -> must be operated autonomously from the rest of the business

Yes. I'd like this better explained. Those "Chinese firewalls" meant to keep biz units apart always seem to be completely fictional. Ditto "self policing".

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#194

Post by [deleted] »

vaduz wrote: post #187

It's a relatively long article - but it does not answer one simple question, which is quite important when discussing this: were there any malicious files hosted on that semi-random Cloudfront URL ? I realise that Google did not provide help identifying it - but that does not mean one should simply recomission the server under a new domain and continue as if nothing has happened! From TFA: > We quickly realized an Am…

[deleted]

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#195

Post by Blackthorn »

lol768 wrote: post #158
kyledrake wrote: post #116

I run https://neocities.org , and safe browsing has been my nightmare overlord for a long time. No way to manage reports via an API, no way to contact support. I haven't even been able to find a suggestions box, even that would be an upgrade here. Digging to find "the wizard" gets you into some official google "community support" forum where you learn the forum is actually run by a non-employee lawful neutral that wa…

> because we block uploads of executable files, it is _literally impossible for users to host malware on our servers_ How does this stop bad actors from exploiting bugs in e.g. V8 with malicious JavaScript?

> How does this stop bad actors from exploiting bugs in e.g. V8 with malicious JavaScript?

You're correct: it doesn't. Blocking executable files aren't enough. Javascript files, zips containing executables, malicious Word files...all of these are vectors.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#196

Post by rossjudson »

freedomben wrote: post #20

After years of seeing developments like this, getting worse and worse, it fills me with rage to think about how clearly nobody in power at Google cares. I naively used to think, "they probably don't realize what's happening and will fix it." I always try to give benefit of the doubt, especially having been on the other side so many times and seeing how 9 times out of 10 it's not malice, just incompetence, apathy, or…

Following "Consider Google as a malicious actor/threat" with "I am not saying Google is acting with malice" is probably a strong indicator that you should have thought it through before posting it.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#197

Post by dragonwriter »

rottingfruit wrote: post #186
vaduz wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your users did decide to use it, though - and this particular feature is one of the reasons why that particular browser if popular. It was one of the major differentiators of the "better" browsers in the sad old IE days. For all you "use Firefox [etc], don't use Chrome" pundits: it also uses Google Safe Browsing [0], and for that matter so does Safari, which may compound it by using Tencent version instead if you hap…

This is a weak take. Are we saying that any feature built into a web browser is desirable by virtue of the products popularity? 99% of chrome users use it because they recognize the interface from school laptops. Do you really want to live in this world where massive corporations can put whatever they want in their products and the justification is “yeah well people still downloaded it?”

> 99% of chrome users use it because they recognize the interface from school laptops.

The implication that less than 1% of Chrome users are old enough that Chrome didn't exist when they were in school is laughable.

Also, if that kind of familiarity rendered feature comparison irrelevant, Mosaic would still have a healthy share of the browser market.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#198

Post by xg15 »

laurent92 wrote: post #160
Pulcinella wrote: post #53

I wonder if it would be faster to deal with this through legal. I’m not a lawyer, but I wonder if you could send a C&D to Google legal or something because this seems like an actual case of slander and reputation damage.

Once you enter litigation with Google, good luck accessing your Android. You may believe this is extreme, but many people have had their Gmail account suspended without known reason. So if they also have a reason...

So de-google first, then sue.

Otherwise you might as well give up and conclude that google not just controls the internet but is also above the law.

Re: Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup

#199

Post by shadowgovt »

freedomben wrote: post #20

After years of seeing developments like this, getting worse and worse, it fills me with rage to think about how clearly nobody in power at Google cares. I naively used to think, "they probably don't realize what's happening and will fix it." I always try to give benefit of the doubt, especially having been on the other side so many times and seeing how 9 times out of 10 it's not malice, just incompetence, apathy, or…

They care, but the dominant policy in Google's calculus about what features should be released is "Don't let the exceptional case drown the average case." A legitimate SaaS providing business to customers might get caught by this. But the average case is it's catching intentional bad actors (or even unintentional bad actors that could harm the Chrome user), and Google isn't going to refrain from releasing the entire product because some businesses could get hit by false positives. They'd much rather release the service and then tune to minimize the false positives.

To my mind, one of the big questions about mega corporations in the internet service space is whether this criterion for determining what can be launched is sufficient. It's certainly not the only criterion possible---contrast the standard for us criminal trial, which attempts to evaluate "beyond a reasonable doubt" (i.e. tuned to be tolerant of false negatives in the hope of minimizing false positives). But Google's criterion is unlikely to change without outside influence, because on average, companies that use this criterion will get product to market faster than companies that play more conservatively.

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