Live data from Hacker News

Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

googleblog.blogspot.com

311–320 of 522 posts

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#311
post #110

Well, this pretty much exhausts the pool of people who don't care for the data privacy. On the plus side, those who do want privacy are still waiting for a proper solution, and it is an opportunity. (edit) It is really shocking how absolutely mind-bogglingly ignorant people are when it comes to their data privacy matters. How could any business person in a sane state of mind choose to share its data with some 3rd par…

It is really shocking how absolutely mind-bogglingly ignorant people are when it comes to online privacy matters. A side note, but it's shocking how people are unable to believe that others are capable of making informed choices. Case in point: I use Facebook. I often get people hounding me- "don't you care about privacy?!?", "Facebook is using your data!" Yeah, I know. I don't mind. The way I see it, privacy is the…

The problem is not when Facebook sends you targeted ads. It is when third parties access your information to target you in other ways.

Think of the Girls Around Me app. Or employers who want to look at people's FB. Or governments who want to spy on their own people. (Anyone who thinks that the USA doesn't should look at the history of the FBI. And you'd be amazed what can get twisted out of shape during lawsuits.) The 21st century has not had any serious demonstrations of how this can be abused. But it is just a question of time.

And that's just generic. Consider for a moment a spear phishing attack. I am trying to attack target company X. I find all of the FB accounts that I can for employees of X. I then find all of their friends. I now target their presumably less careful friends, and when I find one I then send a targeted phishing attack at the person I really want from their friend. (I do something like promise vacation photos, and then show what appears to be an internal server error, but actually is a malicious page. The target gets compromised, thinks it is a bad URL, moves on...)

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the same reason 20% time is dead and requires management approval. do I really have to spell it out? (google maps started as an engineer fooling around with ajax).

Do you work at Google? I'm curious, because according to others, while 20% time does technically require management approval, it's usually not a problem. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3703018 Also, inferring company culture from the lack of a visible public beta is a bit of an assumption, don't you think?

no, I'm using loads of data-points, including reading about organization near the top as reported by business sources, as well as comments at various places that I can link to (including here), and finally by observing Google's actions as done and as reported. I can detail all of this for you if you like, but, really, it's not so hard to put together. Come to your own conclusion.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#313
post #311
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really shocking how absolutely mind-bogglingly ignorant people are when it comes to online privacy matters. A side note, but it's shocking how people are unable to believe that others are capable of making informed choices. Case in point: I use Facebook. I often get people hounding me- "don't you care about privacy?!?", "Facebook is using your data!" Yeah, I know. I don't mind. The way I see it, privacy is the…

The problem is not when Facebook sends you targeted ads. It is when third parties access your information to target you in other ways. Think of the Girls Around Me app. Or employers who want to look at people's FB. Or governments who want to spy on their own people. (Anyone who thinks that the USA doesn't should look at the history of the FBI. And you'd be amazed what can get twisted out of shape during lawsuits.) Th…

Girls Around Me was a Foursquare app. And in any case, it only used public information. Facebook offers finely grained privacy controls that allow you to control what third parties can and cannot access- they do a far better job of it than Apple and Google do, IMO.

Obviously, illegitimate access is an entirely different topic.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#315
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the same pricing as you did but it _just_ changed as I refreshed the page a second time. 1 TB now costs $49.99 per month, or $600/year. This is a substantial jump from $256/year and means it's no longer an attractive proposition...

Looks like the old price plan only buys you storage for gmail, picasa and docs (and not Drive) http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

Contrary to what that page says, my Google Drive client lists 205GB of space which is the free amount plus the exact amount I got with the old storage plan I have since the days when that was only 75GB (it got upgraded over time for the same price)

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this goes well beyond "evil." Oh look, it's this tired old canard again. I'd really hate to be in Google's position. Really hate . They make a ton of services that are near universal, not due to lockin, not due to any other anticompetitive shenanigans, but because they're good and people want to use them. And meanwhile with every product launch, 90% of the internet using public is rightly excited, 9 % are meh, and t…

If you quote, quote in full. The problem is not with Google sitting on a lot of data, it's with them exploiting people's ignorance to get it.

  >it's with them exploiting people's ignorance to get it.
How are they exploiting any kind of ignorance? What is the average GDrive user unaware of that Google is somehow evil for not disclosing in large, red, 52pt Impact?

And I quoted you saying "evil" because it's the relevant portion that I was responding to. You could have gone with "Hmm, cloud storage has a few drawbacks..." but no, you went full derp.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#317

Here's the most important paragraph in the blog post that most people will gloss over (because Google glossed over it): "Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can d…

Drive competes with lots of SAAS companies!!

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you quote, quote in full. The problem is not with Google sitting on a lot of data, it's with them exploiting people's ignorance to get it.

You just described every business. People don't have perfect knowledge. Thank you for trying to raise awareness over an admittedly important issue. But calling this "evil" is absurd. Go yell at people convincing college kids to sign up for credit cards or buy magazines by handing out T-shirts and movie passes. For comparison: The phone companies know about every phone call you make. That's a wealth of information. Th…

Sure, now imagine that ADP, Telco, Visa, HP and Dell are the same company.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#319
post #4

no linux platform "coming soon" - too bad

Don't they use Linux a lot internally, too? It's really awful that companies such as Box, Google etc are not supporting the Linux desktop, especially seeing as desktop linux is actually a really attractive option right now - better memory management than OSX and installable on pretty much any device, and Windows is pretty much a joke for non-.NET development or unless you game. Fuck, their Android platform is based o…

I completely agree, huge company, huge resources, lotsa money. With all that, making a Linux client would be super easy, any highschool kid can go ahead and just build it, but with their resources, they can make a just-as-good Linux client very easily.

Damn, this pisses me off, seems like a great product I just can't use. Ubuntu One and Dropbox seem like the best alternatives now.

Also, Google Earth on Linux is indeed a joke, I think it's Wine.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#320
Cost is not an issue compared to convenience. From 1992 to about 4 years ago, I used mostly Linux (desktop and servers). Now I have gone down the dark path of living in APple's little walled garden (except for servers). I don't care if Google Drive is a lot cheaper than iCloud: with OS X Mountain Lion and an iPad, using Apple's iCloud storage is just more convenient. BTW, with OS X Mountain Lion it is strange that for some apps the default storage is iCloud and not your local disk (although obviously you work from a local copy).

That said, it will be interesting to see apps built on top of Google Drive APIs.

Post reply on HN