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Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

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Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the account lock-out was probably an honest mistake. The lack of support, however, is not - and is part of Google’s business model.

Hmm, Isn't this moving the overton window? Should we accept that they were viewing his data in the first place?

We should but, g00gl e employees are 10% of HN it seems.

No one who works for a powerful entity likes admitting they are more or less powerless to daily statments they see on here.

It's like how anyone with tech awareness watches the goal posts keep moving.. Yes, I know alternatives and mitigation and ECT.

Power is a fickle mistress.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#272
post #5

> The added grievance to this is that my drive also included my own personal family photos and my current book on the subject I mean, how many times does this need to come up for people to learn the lesson? If you are storing your data with a third party, and you do not have an iron legal contract with this third party, then that third party can and will do whatever it wants with your data, including locking you out…

How’s Synology NAS? Safe local storage or can they back door in and fuck with your data?

Keep it patched. Use strong passwords. If not, a botnet will ransom it. Nothing is a substitute for Offline backups.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/synology-warn...

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#273
post #97

One of the simplest functions of a justice system - before impartial judgement, before detailed laws, before qualified advocates - is simply the right to summon a powerful person to justify their actions. Increasingly it seems that we will need this to be applied here, ideally in some simpler and less costly way than a full trial. It is just wrong for companies to make money by inviting people to rely on them , and t…

I agree. But I'm not sure what the solution is. A lot of people will say "Hey, it's a private company", and as a libertarian minded person I tend to agree. But increasingly these private companies have more power of my life than my own government does, and it's accelerating further it seems.

Candidly, these companies have far, far less power than the government does.

The government has the ability to make literally _every_ company do this to you, simultaneously, and if they use an NSL, to do it secretly.

The reason the government feels less impactful is because Google is much more likely to ban you than the government. Google has essentially no incentive to behave well.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#274
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RAID is overkill and bad designs can cause more issues than it saves. Two or more external-DDs, copied regularly per how much they are willing to spend time and lose data. One stored in some other place if possible.

A Synology NAS with RAID1 and a few terabytes is $400 to $500 including taxes. Seems pretty cheap for not having to back it up regularly. Although, the second location risk would remain.

Until you get ransomed:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/synology-warn...

You really want offline backups. Never recommend “not having to back it up regularly”.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#275
post #97

One of the simplest functions of a justice system - before impartial judgement, before detailed laws, before qualified advocates - is simply the right to summon a powerful person to justify their actions. Increasingly it seems that we will need this to be applied here, ideally in some simpler and less costly way than a full trial. It is just wrong for companies to make money by inviting people to rely on them , and t…

I agree. But I'm not sure what the solution is. A lot of people will say "Hey, it's a private company", and as a libertarian minded person I tend to agree. But increasingly these private companies have more power of my life than my own government does, and it's accelerating further it seems.

They only gain as much power as you allow them to have. You can still use your own domain. You can still back up to external drives in your house. You can still leave encrypted copies of those drives at a friend's house.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#276
post #5

> The added grievance to this is that my drive also included my own personal family photos and my current book on the subject I mean, how many times does this need to come up for people to learn the lesson? If you are storing your data with a third party, and you do not have an iron legal contract with this third party, then that third party can and will do whatever it wants with your data, including locking you out…

Have you seen the TV ads for cloud storage services? They’re advertising themselves as being dependable. We cannot blame average consumers when events like these happen. We need to stop pretending that software, including free-as-in-beer SaaS, doesn’t have an implied warranty. It does. The implied warranty in Google Drive is that “we’ll host your files for you”. Google screwed-up (an “honest” mistake, it pains me to…

And what, a refund for 99% of the time what is a free at point of service to the consumer?

For paying private customers yes I'd day fine but in most of these cases in ruling to bet the "free" 1GB was more than enough

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#277
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RAID is overkill and bad designs can cause more issues than it saves. Two or more external-DDs, copied regularly per how much they are willing to spend time and lose data. One stored in some other place if possible.

A Synology NAS with RAID1 and a few terabytes is $400 to $500 including taxes. Seems pretty cheap for not having to back it up regularly. Although, the second location risk would remain.

the thing is, if you back up bad data to a RAID1, the mirroring isn't going to save you - you just wrote the bad data to both copies.

RAID is not a substitute for rotating backups.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#278

I know this is avoidable, and I know it’s a semi-regular occurrence, and I can recognize Google’s moderation problem is non-trivial, but I really can’t shake the feeling that Orwell was off by a letter and the future will truly just be a bot stamping on a human face forever.

You'd think Google breaks into your house, uploads your data, and deletes the originals. Think of cloud accounts like any other form of backup. Two is one, one is none. Hard drives die, cloud services come and go. No backup is forever.

This is exactly how Google markets Drive. Go visit https://www.google.com/drive/ in a private browsing window and take a look for yourself.

> Your content is safe, private, and never used for ad personalization

> And Drive is cloud-native, which eliminates the need for local files and minimizes risk to your devices.

> Your important work, files, and precious memories are protected by our industry-leading security. You can rest easy knowing that the things you care about are stored safely in the cloud.

If Google markets a product in a specific way I don't think it's unreasonable to criticize Google when they fail to live up to that marketing.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#279
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's certainly noble, but it doesn't send the message that you're unhappy with DRM. You're ultimately engaging in piracy and at the same time not voting with your wallet. I don't see any alternative, but just wanted to make that point.

Steal the content and Venmo the creator?

The publishers won't be too happy with creators who are seen to be accepting money bypassing their cut.

Re: Google Drive of historical footage locked and flagged as terrorist activity

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even need bots - simple sorting algorithms do more damage. It shows human vulnerability more than anything else. All it took was a single fake message to get 600 people killed in Burma.

Do you have a good reference for this? I'd like to use it in future discussions :-)

This took me a minute to figure out, mostly because I didn't immediately intuit that "sorting algorithm" == Facebook and "Burma" == Myanmar.

I believe they're referencing Facebook's role in the Myanmar coup: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55929654

(reference for "600" as the death toll: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56703416)

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