consonaut
This works the same for Google drive and most of the other services. The problem is that most users don't understand that the link they create still has access controls attached (that they can change).
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/sec88be9900f/...
Do yourself a favor and not Google that.
Maybe it's an easy test to ensure the filters are loaded with a phrase unlikely to be used accidentaly?
Maybe university IT departments are staffed by people. Maybe even at the college board it's just some IT guys trying to keep a shitty platform working. Maybe they did the best they could working within their constraints and they expected the same from students who have a vested interest in getting their results submitted. Maybe this is just much ado about nothing.
Ok, first of, why should I (as an institution) care about the people unable to fulfil the conditions of my test? Maybe I only want people with a basic understanding of file formats because chances are they will have less issues with future applications?
> They did need to provide detailed instructions ahead of time, including possible issues with unsupported formats.
They send out a message a week before the tests. The website only accepted the allowed formats. You could complain about them using Twitter to send out that message but you are not.
> They didn't need to accept heif files. They did need to provide detailed instructions ahead of time, including possible issues with unsupported formats.
They did not accept .heic files (see the source from the upload js file). They did provide a list of supported files. Maybe the handholding should stop at some point?
else if (!isAllowedExtension)
error = { title: 'This file type is not acceptable.', details: 'Please check the requirements, save your file in one of the accepted
formats, and resubmit.' }
You seriously over-estimate the "tech-savviness" of the average student and that really is part of the issue I'm pointing out here.
You can shift responsibility for that knowledge wherever you want but I would say that at the age between 16 and 19 (which google tells me is the average age for AP classes) I would expect that knowledge from someone applying for AP credit. And if someone didn't know what the accepted file types (as stated in the FAQ) meant at that age I'd expect them to figure it out for themselves.
Just how when you take your drivers test you should actually be able to operate your vehicle and know the laws around operating a motor vehicle aside from the explicit knowledge required from you in the test. But I understand how this might be a foreign concept for someone from the US.
Understanding the conditions of your test is part of the test. And your doctor doesn't have to know. His toolchain forces him to use certain programs and settings. If anything is set up wrong, your MRI image is just a worthless CD-R.
>This highlights the level of knowledge the users of this application have in this area. The developers should have made it Painfully Clear that uploading directly from an iPhone isn't supported.
They did. The supported file formats were clearly stated. Your issue here is with apple.
>I agree they should learn this stuff, but don't think it should cost them their grade to do so.
It doesn't. They can retake the test without punishment.
>Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't increase public understanding of these "slightly-technical" topics but I think we're a long way off and we can't expect that understanding just yet.
I disagree. The sooner people learn that renaming a file does not constitute conversion the better. When I was a student 15 years ago it was painfully clear you could not upload the 50MB .tif file your scanner spat out (silly websites at the time would just not take 50MB uploads most of the time...). I think this "slightly-technical" knowledge is something akin to correct spelling and grammar. It's fine if you disagree but, in my opinion (even if that was not the intent of the college board), this is not a bad lesson to teach.
If you stay in the "regular" apple workflow everything is fine: iphone camera -> icloud/photos (airdrop/photos) -> safari. If you deviate at certain points though the workflow breaks down. Whose fault is that?
Knowing a file type is an "esoteric technical requirement" ?
Yes, this comment is for real. I'm the head of IT for a university and we do online applications. We actually accept everything within a given size requirement (which people are unable to respect). I have a bunch of scripts that run over all applications in the end to put them in the right formats, to do OCR for the photos of a printed PDF form that has been filled out by hand in pencil, I even run a script to scrape annotations in PDF portfolios to scrape video links and pass them to youtube-dl, to ensure everything submitted gets picked up and is provided for evaluation.
This is why I think it would be nice if there was at least some responsibility on the part of the student.
Yes, being able to understand the conditions should maybe be part of passing the test. Like I said, could the upload form have handled this better? Sure, although I have not read enough to understand if this was actually the upload form failing. The OP article claims "Spencer ... tried to convert it by renaming the HEIC file to PNG" which is not how you convert files. Maybe students learning that early on is not a bad thing?
But if I got this right the upload page stated the accepted file formats, why should they accept anything else? Sure, there are workarounds to handle uploading .heic files and automatic conversion works in certain cases but why should they care? The onus is on the user to ensure his submission is correct.
EDIT: I just tried .heic files on my Surface and had to install an MS store app to actually be able to open .heic files in full resolution.
https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/p/heif-bilderweiterungen/9pm...
EDIT2: I guess for me it boils down to, why should we coddle the applicants? Being able to understand the conditions of a test is not an unreasonable hardship. From that I gathered the website stated the accepted file formats. The uploader source suggests it did refuse certain file formats. There are technical solutions for this/these problem(s) and of course it would be nice if every system would be perfect. But it would also be nice if people would just work within the given constraints of a system.
Getting the join by browser link apparently can be an issues but at least in the edu account I manage there is an admin setting to always provide the join with browser link.
We still do not have any evidence that the PRC has access to unencrypted Zoom server logs and frankly I assume we would have the same (or worse) issues I had with my tests from Iran that either SIP/WebRTC doesn't work or appears to be intercepted. So, at least for me and my users, Zoom is the most accessible and "least worst" solution.
To me, these look like things that could be used for local escalation or MITM attacks. This is not good but frankly, for most of Zooms use cases, it's not an issue. The only frightening thing is the turbojpeg.dll one. A POC that leads to an RCE or even a crash would be devastating for Zoom, especially considering the amount of edu setups that don't enforce passwords even now.
IDK, for me and the edu organization I'm responsible for Zoom has been a great offering (especially considering the pricing they were able to offer by default for edu and after very little negotiation) but we are actively looking at teams as a successor for the next semester. Zoom has had 3 killer features over teams (virtual background, easy dial-in, no effort guests) and all of them have gone away now with the recent teams changes. If teams finally gets customer skype calling figured out Zoom will most likely be done in the edu field because that's quite a big part of switching to teams for an all out integrated comms solution, especially since you can't use your office 365 account for consumer skype.
But, this is just wrong. In Germany we did speak out when they came for the communists, the socialists, the unions and the jews. Niemöllers argument was relevant in 1937 when he was arrested and I appreciate that you picked up on it but frankly it's different here in Germany. We do still speak out against discrimination against all of them. Maybe E2E encryption in a chat application is just not as pressing as the things Niemöller talked about at the time.