4 ms·

> So you need a google quality malware detection filter to allow user content upload on your site? That's a pretty big barrier to entry. No, but IF you allow

> So you need a google quality malware detection filter to allow user content upload on your site? That's a pretty big barrier to entry. No, but IF you allow people to anonymously upload malware to your site, Google-quality malware detection filters will absolutely do what they were designed to do and detect the malware on your site. I just don't understand the people insisting on arguing that somehow this was a false positive. Google was right! This site was hosting malware! It's true it wasn't "intentionally" hosting malware, and that it was designed for benign purposes. Which is to say, you are demanding that Google forgive this site automatically based on intent and not evidence. And sadly, while Google may have Google-quality malware detection filters, they haven't yet cracked the nut of thought crime detection.

thayne 6y ago
my problem isn't that it flagged some user-uploaded malware, my problem is that the entire site is blocked without warning. I am genuinely curious how you would prevent your site from being blocked like this? Sure in this case it was a demo, but what if it was an actual image hosting service that required login? What's to stop a bad actor from creating an account and uploading malicious content. Maybe you even have some filter that does image recognition on the images and tries to detect if it is phishing. But unless your filter is able to catch the exact same content that google's malware detector uses, there's still a chance that you'll miss something that google finds, and starts blocking your site.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Strictly that's not correct. The whole experience here was a "warning", though it was given to users of the site and not the owners directly. Chrome will allow access through that warning page via an override, and of course they have the option of using other browsers. But even interpreting you narrowly: How much warning do you think Google should be expected to give before flagging sites with known malicious content? Would you apply that same logic to the sites you visit as a user? I just don't see how the principle you want is going to work in concert with a world with rampant malware. Most of us very much want the trigger happy filers, because it keeps the problem manageable at the cost of some inconvenience and increased vigilance on the part of the content providers, which is IMHO exactly where it should be.

thayne 6y ago

my problem isn't that it flagged some user-uploaded malware, my problem is that the entire site is blocked without warning. I am genuinely curious how you would prevent your site from being blocked like this? Sure in this case it was a demo, but what if it was an actual image hosting service that required login? What's to stop a bad actor from creating an account and uploading malicious content. Maybe you even have some filter that does image recognition on the images and tries to detect if it is phishing. But unless your filter is able to catch the exact same content that google's malware detector uses, there's still a chance that you'll miss something that google finds, and starts blocking your site.

newacct583 6y ago
Strictly that's not correct. The whole experience here was a "warning", though it was given to users of the site and not the owners directly. Chrome will allow access through that warning page via an override, and of course they have the option of using other browsers. But even interpreting you narrowly: How much warning do you think Google should be expected to give before flagging sites with known malicious content? Would you apply that same logic to the sites you visit as a user? I just don't see how the principle you want is going to work in concert with a world with rampant malware. Most of us very much want the trigger happy filers, because it keeps the problem manageable at the cost of some inconvenience and increased vigilance on the part of the content providers, which is IMHO exactly where it should be.