4 ms·

Google photos allowed the wrong users to download videos

66 points by msh 7y ago

rhabarba 7y ago
See, the cloud NEVER loses your data - they even have decentral backups now! /s
fwn 7y ago
Apart from the bug and the problems it led to: This is probably the most degrading email I've ever read. Why didn't they try to write something empathic? They've sent private (potentially critical) documents to someone else and the only feeling they admit it might provoke is "inconvenience". And they apparently aren't even entirely sure whether it may provoke such feelings, given that they chose to write "we apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused". That plus the classic not to apologize for failing to keep user data private but to apologize for a feeling of inconvenience this may have caused. As if the problem was caused by the user. It's like a formal version of "Hey, looks like in the end, you made a huge mistake by trusting us, Google, with your data. anyway. inconvenience? Sorry that you feel this way." I think I'd struggle to write a worse notification letter. Who usually writes those things?
- msh 7y ago
  yeah, these videos might contain extremely private information and have people in them that are publicly identifiable based on the video.
mindracer 7y ago
Expect a large GDPR fine coming their way
jasonvorhe 7y ago
This is tough, since this could kill careers, end families and destroy friendships, if the wrong photos where to end up in some public dump. It just requires one bad actor to know of this and abuse the service, trying to exfiltrate as many photos as possible and then run some ML face detection on the data set. This mail is really shameful and lacks lots of information. If they have the log data, they should disclosure how many people got access to how many photos in which timeframe. Google is really on a decline here.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jasonvorhe 7y ago
  I should have read the quoted mail with more focus, the timeframe is actually in there and it's rather short.

66 points by msh 7y ago

See, the cloud NEVER loses your data - they even have decentral backups now! /s

fwn 7y ago

Apart from the bug and the problems it led to: This is probably the most degrading email I've ever read. Why didn't they try to write something empathic? They've sent private (potentially critical) documents to someone else and the only feeling they admit it might provoke is "inconvenience". And they apparently aren't even entirely sure whether it may provoke such feelings, given that they chose to write "we apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused". That plus the classic not to apologize for failing to keep user data private but to apologize for a feeling of inconvenience this may have caused. As if the problem was caused by the user. It's like a formal version of "Hey, looks like in the end, you made a huge mistake by trusting us, Google, with your data. anyway. inconvenience? Sorry that you feel this way." I think I'd struggle to write a worse notification letter. Who usually writes those things?

msh 7y ago
yeah, these videos might contain extremely private information and have people in them that are publicly identifiable based on the video.

mindracer 7y ago

Expect a large GDPR fine coming their way

jasonvorhe 7y ago

This is tough, since this could kill careers, end families and destroy friendships, if the wrong photos where to end up in some public dump. It just requires one bad actor to know of this and abuse the service, trying to exfiltrate as many photos as possible and then run some ML face detection on the data set. This mail is really shameful and lacks lots of information. If they have the log data, they should disclosure how many people got access to how many photos in which timeframe. Google is really on a decline here.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jasonvorhe 7y ago
I should have read the quoted mail with more focus, the timeframe is actually in there and it's rather short.