https://dev.to/petarov/store-encrypted-files-in-google-drive...
Thank you for your purchase. Sincerely, your caring daddy, government.
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fcryptomator.org%2F
Perhaps the problem is that the privacy conscious have already deplatformed & do their own syncing to private cloud, whereas the others are still using the platform & don't care as much.
I'm in the first group, but have become increasingly weary of keeping servers online (I self host everything) & I'm see a lot of promising results in Crytomator... but there's one inevitable gotcha: those very platforms can cut you off at some point in the future. So, you'll need to multi sync across multiple platforms for redundancy.
That said, cryptomator looks good!
But the benefit to society is great of doing better on security and privacy.
This is why governments should regulate security and privacy. The whole point of governments is to solve collective problems together.
Plus side is plugging in hard drives whisked me back to building computers as a kid.
There is a whole ecosystem of plugins and stuff, but out of the box it works fantastic.
I'd wager the "reviewer" it's merely a more computationally expensive process
It says:
Review process
If you think this is an error, or if you've modified the file to comply with Google Drive's Terms of Service, you can request a review.
1. Your file will be reviewed
This file will remain restricted during the review.
2. A decision will be made
If the file is found to be safe, all restrictions will be removed and you’ll be able to use and share it with others. If it's found to be unsafe, the restrictions will remain in place.
> Your file will be reviewed
> A decision will be made
> If the file is found to be...
> ... restrictions will be removed ...
It is the archetypical "mistakes were made".
Note the constant use of passive voice, intended to hide the actor, and to keep you from even thinking about who is doing these things and thus who is responsible.
By the way, no better is the most likely alternative "Google will review...". I'll leave deducing the reasons why as an exercise for the reader.
Just because there are more edge cases where the human has no idea what their algorithm does, doesn't absolve them of responsibility. You don't get to go free after running a bunch of pedestrians over by claiming you were too drunk to know where the road was or which direction your car would turn when you moved the wheel. If I put a running metal lathe in a kindergarten, I don't get to throw my hands up and say 'you clearly don't understand machining' when some children get dismembered.
Because if it's measured in watt hours, this computational process is almost certainly drastically cheaper than using humans to do the same work, especially if you account for 20+ years of unprofitable training time per compute unit and 76% weekly downtime even at peak productivity.
Additionally, I suppose in a company as big as Google, all this decision making is backed by written communications.
All this written stuff is subject to legal scrutiny. All must abide by 'approved' rules, guidelines, etc..
Squinting a little bit (maybe some may need to squint harder) it's clear that in the end everything is being done according to a computational (written) process.
this is essentially what 'skynet' (from the terminator) or the matrix actually means. if every human involved is following data and written guidelines, the decisions are being made by a computer program running across many hundreds of humans pushing "paper" around.
> "These restrictions were put in place because this content violates Google Drive's Phishing policy."
> There is no indication of why the file was flagged.
Isn't your answer in the warning (albeit lacking some specificity)? If you have a bunch of URLs in there and admit not knowing about their legitimacy, it seems reasonable that at least one of them matches a database of known phishing URLs. Isn't it also reasonable to expect (and in many cases want) a company hosting publicly-shared files to notify users when content matches some heuristics for unsafe content, especially given the prevalence of phishing attempts?
That said, there may still be a case to argue that the review process, heuristic, lack of transparency, and other implementation details are flawed. But I don't have a problem with them posting a warning message on content that looks suspicious.
Complete removal, on the other hand (as in the case of OP) is another story, especially given Google's laughable process (or lack thereof) for appealing such cases.
What is wrong with a list of phishing urls ?
Sounds simultaneously useful and innocuous to me …
As someone who operates a service that allows people to create and share lists of links on a public site, I can tell you from experience that it's not as innocuous as you might think. Scammers routinely use a trusted domain to host a link to their malicious final destination since the initial, trusted domain in often the one given the most scrutiny (e.g., from an email). It sounds silly to more technical users who understand how the web works, but unfortunately it's effective and super popular in phishing campaigns.
To your point, yes - a list of phishing URLs would be useful in a lot of cases, but it's difficult for automated tools to tell the difference between those legitimate use cases and the much more common cases used for phishing, so they err on the side of caution. As mentioned, the human review / appeal process surely has room for improvement.
There is a yellow banner "This file looks suspicious. It might be used to steal your personal information" and an option to "Request a review".
It also says "This file can still be viewed, edited, and shared, but users will see a warning that alerts them that the content may be harmful. These restrictions were put in place because this content violates Google Drive's Phishing policy."
There is no indication of why the file was flagged.
Despite my concerns about a human looking at my personal file, I bit the bullet and clicked review several times but the banner remains after several months. Google support hasn't been helpful even though I'm a paid user.
I have now received 5 emails from "Google Drive Safety" notifying me of this alleged violation.