We'll have to disagree there. I'd be very surprised if
they did any more than looking at their log files
How does looking at individual files help to confirm that things are working?
But I didn't write that post because I wanted to plug Tarsnap;
I wrote it because I saw the trust-is-fragile post on HN
Daily and felt that revising their privacy policy wasn't
the right response.
I'm inclined to agree with you. That's what I was getting at with my "even if 37signals doesn't want to offer cryptographically secure storage, they could at least remove the temptation to look at file names in log files by not writing sensitive information to log files in the first place" line.
http://cl.ly/0Y1M1D0z1g123I0S0u1R - cat.jpg ;)
"Hello, thanks for calling tech support. How can I help you?"
"I uploaded a file but it's not showing up in my account."
"What was the name of the file?"
"Cat.jpg"
"Ok, give me a moment to look at the logs..."
These are the kinds of questions that come up all the time in supporting a SaaS product with non-technical and semi-technical users. Debugging is not something only programmers do. Oftentimes bugs are found only after a client interacts with support.
Oh, another thing: deletes. At my last company I can't tell you how many times customers wanted us to restore deleted data. After many frustrating support experiences we implemented soft deletes for most objects. Hard deletes required written confirmation from the user and 48 hours to purge it from all backups.
Aren't there some instances where they'd be justified looking at data...
Attitude like yours gives us stupid privacy-violating terrorism and "protect-the-children" laws.
While it is reasonable to expect that they would contact the FBI in such instances, I would also hope that noticing such details illicits a "I shouldnt have been able to see that, so we're not doing enough to protect the privacy of our clients" response and corrective actions.
Surely there's some line somewhere...
edit: apparently HN thinks there is no line anywhere.
Investigating the contents of each safety deposit box, or even having the ability to do so is outside the scope of what a bank vault services are sold to do.
A bank vault, like encryption, sells protection. It is for all intents and purposes neutral. It can be used for good and can be used for bad. 95% of the time a bank vault or encryption is either being used for an ethically neutral or at worst ethically ambiguous use.
When any technology or product is used for bad it is a social failure. Crime will always exist. The quantity of crime committed can be mitigated by sound long-term policies that treat those causes that are statistically most likely to contribute to crime occurring in the first place.
Ever. I don't have the original source in front of me, but with enough bits, assuming there isn't some fundamental flaw in the encryption algorithm, you couldn't brute force a key before the heat death of the universe even if you recruited every particle in the visible universe for your computation.
Big "if".
I suspect he also means that they shouldn't be looking through files in the first place on the grounds that "there might be something illegal in them"
We'll have to disagree there. I'd be very surprised if they did any more than looking at their log files -- most likely using tail -f -- as the 100 million mark approached.
Admins will, and are completely expected to, look at the data - if only to make sure everything is working.
How does looking at individual files help to confirm that things are working? Once you're operating at scale, looking at individual files doesn't tell you anything useful; if there's a big problem users will notice it before you do, and if there's a small problem the files you look at probably won't be in the affected set.
Forgive me cperciva, but to me your post looks just like a giant plug for your own service.
Was I plugging Tarsnap? Sure; I mention it every chance I get on my blog. But I didn't write that post because I wanted to plug Tarsnap; I wrote it because I saw the trust-is-fragile post on HN Daily and felt that revising their privacy policy wasn't the right response. (If I had noticed that post when it was first discussed here, that blog post would probably have been just a comment -- but since I was about 24 hours late to the party I figured that nobody would read a comment I made here.)