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Google has become the judge, the jury and the executioner of the internet. Recently a malicious user embedded an image from a site that is on Google's Safe Brow

by cft 9y ago

Google has become the judge, the jury and the executioner of the internet. Recently a malicious user embedded an image from a site that is on Google's Safe Browsing list in a forum that is itself embedded on a third party site. This nuked a popular third party site where the forum is embedded: it is now flashing red (malicious software detected) in Chrome.

adtac 9y ago
I was wondering how HN would spin this into Evil-Google. It's just tiring at this point. This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users.
- DanielBMarkham 9y ago
  It is, and with Google in a position of owning much of what happens online, it's also Google acting unilaterally in ways that multiple actors might not. Both statements are true: It's a good thing. It's not right to have one company with so much power No evil Google required.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    There are plenty of cases where you might reasonably question how much control they have. But this is a mechanism to protect access controls to your Google account, almost the definition of something first-party that they should gate very carefully.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - pdkl95 9y ago
      > you might reasonably question how much control they have "Доверяй, но проверяй" (trust, but verify) It's very important to always question decisions made from a position of power; vigilance is the price of freedom. Questioning does not necessarily mean disapproval. Everyone concerned about the future of the internet should be questioning Google's motives and intentions every time they unilaterally exercise their power to judge which apps are "acceptable". In this case, it shouldn't take long to find the answers to that question: Google should have implemented this kind of dismissible warning a long time ago. Hiding the "continue" option behind the possibly-misleading "Advanced" link is a minor problem, but some sort of warning is obviously necessary. (I'm actually impressed they used a type-this-word check instead of yet another ignorable "go away" button.)
- blojayble 9y ago
  Where does this attitude stem from anyway?
  - csydas 9y ago
    Well it's legitimately founded in that Google has a lot of power over how things are interpreted online due to its omnipresence. Once you reach the size of Google, every action is an experiment in the Butterfly Effect, with each change having many unintended consequences. Product Launches and Discontinuations on a monthly basis, flagging sites as malicious due to a false-positive, bubble search results causing discoverability issues, AMP, the list goes on. Yes, some people will rag on Google for anything, but there are valid concerns when such changes are made without warning that breaks current functionality. Per the article, this time Google just enabled it for new apps with plans to roll it out to existing apps, but in the past Google as not been as courteous. It's the classic xkcd situation that every change breaks someone's workflow; the difference being that when you're Google's size and have Google's reach of influence, you end up breaking a lot of someones workflows.
  - michaelt 9y ago
    Where does this attitude stem from anyway? I have a theory that popular opinions within social groups can reach a sort of tipping point. On one side of the tipping point, the company is seen as basically a bunch of good guys who may make occasional mistakes - but who doesn't? And they're always quick to correct them, or they're out of understandable commercial necessity. On the other side of the tipping point, the company is seen as basically a detrimental force, hungry to gather and abuse monopoly power, responsive and accountable to no-one, and motivated only by things that will let them take more money and power from the likes of us. Of course, for any company the size of Google / Microsoft / Apple / Facebook the answer is a little of column A, a little of column B. But how people will see a given action depends on what side of the tipping point a company is on. When a company does something like buying another company's patent portfolio (for "defensive purposes"), or buying a startup and making their paid offering free, it'll confirm your existing beliefs - whichever side you were on. If you went to Slashdot in the 90s, Microsoft could do no right - they could give free PCs to orphanages, and there'd be people saying they only did it to cement the dominance of Office. I'd say Google is just kinda hovering around that tipping point right now, in HN's median opinion. Some people think it's on one side, some on the other. Of course, us online-forum-readers and designers have to take some of the blame for this sort of reductionism - it's easy to comment without reading the article, or to design a system where parroting the collective opinion is rewarded with upvotes.
- bjpbakker 9y ago
  > This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users No it's not. It's Google telling it's users which apps to use and not to use. For regular users Google presents itself (just like Apple does) as an authority of what's a good app. Any other apps automatically are not good in the mind of regular users.
  - tokenizerrr 9y ago
    When that app gets access to your Google account to do things on your behalf then this is a perfectly valid strategy. Feel free to not integrate with Google's OAuth system if you don't want to deal with them.
    - bjpbakker 9y ago
      > Feel free to not integrate with Google's OAuth system if you don't want to deal with them Sorry but that's a bit of an ignorant non-argument. Given the size of Google, I believe that it is important that users can use the apps they want, not the apps that Google wants them to use. Protectionism does not make using Google's services more secure. It serves Google, not its users.
      - tokenizerrr 9y ago
        Do you understand what type of apps we are talking about here? It's not Chrome apps. It's not android apps either. It's apps that make use of Google's OAuth connection to do stuff on behalf of the user. So, don't use that if you don't want to deal with the very legitimate security checks. Again, this is NOT about Android or Chrome apps. So yeah, go use whatever apps you want, as long as it doesn't want the users to grant the developer permission to do stuff with the user's Google account, this does not affect you in the slightest.
        bjpbakker 9y ago
        This is any web app that /you/ granted access to your Google account details (or a wider scope). If you don't want a web app to access your account, then don't grant access. It really is that simple. Now there's an extra step: Google's stamp of trust. I agree that for most web app this will be an extra formality. For me personally the key point is that there will be web apps that Google does not agree with from a business POV. That is my real problem with this. If this list was curated by a community rather that Google, I would not have a problem with it.
andruby 9y ago
Which site?

by cft 9y ago

adtac 9y ago

I was wondering how HN would spin this into Evil-Google. It's just tiring at this point. This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago
It is, and with Google in a position of owning much of what happens online, it's also Google acting unilaterally in ways that multiple actors might not. Both statements are true: It's a good thing. It's not right to have one company with so much power No evil Google required.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  There are plenty of cases where you might reasonably question how much control they have. But this is a mechanism to protect access controls to your Google account, almost the definition of something first-party that they should gate very carefully.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - pdkl95 9y ago
    > you might reasonably question how much control they have "Доверяй, но проверяй" (trust, but verify) It's very important to always question decisions made from a position of power; vigilance is the price of freedom. Questioning does not necessarily mean disapproval. Everyone concerned about the future of the internet should be questioning Google's motives and intentions every time they unilaterally exercise their power to judge which apps are "acceptable". In this case, it shouldn't take long to find the answers to that question: Google should have implemented this kind of dismissible warning a long time ago. Hiding the "continue" option behind the possibly-misleading "Advanced" link is a minor problem, but some sort of warning is obviously necessary. (I'm actually impressed they used a type-this-word check instead of yet another ignorable "go away" button.)
blojayble 9y ago
Where does this attitude stem from anyway?
- csydas 9y ago
  Well it's legitimately founded in that Google has a lot of power over how things are interpreted online due to its omnipresence. Once you reach the size of Google, every action is an experiment in the Butterfly Effect, with each change having many unintended consequences. Product Launches and Discontinuations on a monthly basis, flagging sites as malicious due to a false-positive, bubble search results causing discoverability issues, AMP, the list goes on. Yes, some people will rag on Google for anything, but there are valid concerns when such changes are made without warning that breaks current functionality. Per the article, this time Google just enabled it for new apps with plans to roll it out to existing apps, but in the past Google as not been as courteous. It's the classic xkcd situation that every change breaks someone's workflow; the difference being that when you're Google's size and have Google's reach of influence, you end up breaking a lot of someones workflows.
- michaelt 9y ago
  Where does this attitude stem from anyway? I have a theory that popular opinions within social groups can reach a sort of tipping point. On one side of the tipping point, the company is seen as basically a bunch of good guys who may make occasional mistakes - but who doesn't? And they're always quick to correct them, or they're out of understandable commercial necessity. On the other side of the tipping point, the company is seen as basically a detrimental force, hungry to gather and abuse monopoly power, responsive and accountable to no-one, and motivated only by things that will let them take more money and power from the likes of us. Of course, for any company the size of Google / Microsoft / Apple / Facebook the answer is a little of column A, a little of column B. But how people will see a given action depends on what side of the tipping point a company is on. When a company does something like buying another company's patent portfolio (for "defensive purposes"), or buying a startup and making their paid offering free, it'll confirm your existing beliefs - whichever side you were on. If you went to Slashdot in the 90s, Microsoft could do no right - they could give free PCs to orphanages, and there'd be people saying they only did it to cement the dominance of Office. I'd say Google is just kinda hovering around that tipping point right now, in HN's median opinion. Some people think it's on one side, some on the other. Of course, us online-forum-readers and designers have to take some of the blame for this sort of reductionism - it's easy to comment without reading the article, or to design a system where parroting the collective opinion is rewarded with upvotes.
bjpbakker 9y ago
> This is a perfectly valid security guard that protects their users No it's not. It's Google telling it's users which apps to use and not to use. For regular users Google presents itself (just like Apple does) as an authority of what's a good app. Any other apps automatically are not good in the mind of regular users.
- tokenizerrr 9y ago
  When that app gets access to your Google account to do things on your behalf then this is a perfectly valid strategy. Feel free to not integrate with Google's OAuth system if you don't want to deal with them.
  - bjpbakker 9y ago
    > Feel free to not integrate with Google's OAuth system if you don't want to deal with them Sorry but that's a bit of an ignorant non-argument. Given the size of Google, I believe that it is important that users can use the apps they want, not the apps that Google wants them to use. Protectionism does not make using Google's services more secure. It serves Google, not its users.
    - tokenizerrr 9y ago
      Do you understand what type of apps we are talking about here? It's not Chrome apps. It's not android apps either. It's apps that make use of Google's OAuth connection to do stuff on behalf of the user. So, don't use that if you don't want to deal with the very legitimate security checks. Again, this is NOT about Android or Chrome apps. So yeah, go use whatever apps you want, as long as it doesn't want the users to grant the developer permission to do stuff with the user's Google account, this does not affect you in the slightest.
      - bjpbakker 9y ago
        This is any web app that /you/ granted access to your Google account details (or a wider scope). If you don't want a web app to access your account, then don't grant access. It really is that simple. Now there's an extra step: Google's stamp of trust. I agree that for most web app this will be an extra formality. For me personally the key point is that there will be web apps that Google does not agree with from a business POV. That is my real problem with this. If this list was curated by a community rather that Google, I would not have a problem with it.

andruby 9y ago

Which site?