6 ms·

It's not just MS. I think they might have fixed it now, but my personal favorite was when Google photos would send me a notification with a preview of an AI ge

It's not just MS. I think they might have fixed it now, but my personal favorite was when Google photos would send me a notification with a preview of an AI generated album of my photos they made for me even though the app did not now, nor ever have permissions (on Android) to look at said photos. And it too would then "catch up" and ask permission to see my files and I'd say "no" and then the preview would go away.

chii 1y ago
The team that wrote the preview portion of the app is a different team to the one that wrote the permission requesting part. They communicate asynchronously (as a team/org, but this probably is reflected in the app's architecture!), which means the outcome is eventually consistent! But you managed to observe one of those inconsistent cases!
- mbrumlow 1y ago
  Yah. But I would think the permissions would be a OS level thing that can’t be bypassed simply because Google also wrote the app.
  - marssaxman 1y ago
    What OS? The one Google wrote, underlying these services?
  - chii 1y ago
    it's very easy to imagine the scenario where this happens. Those photos may have already been uploaded to google's web servers (from my understanding, this happens with google photos by default?), from which a preview has been generated. The permission is at the android app level, and is requested at some point to ensure that the permission model is respected from the POV of the user. I can imagine the permission request being out of sync!
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    Google Photos is not a mobile app. Google Photos is a SaaS webapp that happens to have a companion app for Android. Whatever OS-level settings affect the Android app itself, they have no bearing on what Google Photos the SaaS can or cannot do.
- garbagewoman 1y ago
  The team that wrote the preview portion just accessed the photos with elevated permissions if permission wasn’t granted yet? That doesn’t make any sense
  - marssaxman 1y ago
    Oh, god, no, it makes complete sense. Somebody has to code the permissions in, after all...
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    I imagine the preview was generated server-side, where permissions granted to apps don't matter.
- necovek 1y ago
  Yes! So many times observed that there is a name for it (Conway's law), teams having limited touchpoints obviously leads to such impedance mismatches.
- xigoi 1y ago
  “Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” —Melvin Conway
  - bandrami 1y ago
    I've heard this was the secret to AWS's taking off twenty years ago: Bezos told the various teams they can only interact with each other as if they were vendors and customers to each other.
    - mzi 1y ago
      It was formulated a little different. But this was the 2002 mandate: 1. All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces. 2. Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces. 3. There will be no other form of interprocess communication allowed: no direct linking, no direct reads of another team’s data store, no shared-memory model, no back-doors whatsoever. The only communication allowed is via service interface calls over the network. 4. It doesn’t matter what technology they use. HTTP, Corba, Pubsub, custom protocols — doesn’t matter. 5. All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground up to be externalizable. That is to say, the team must plan and design to be able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world. No exceptions. 6. Anyone who doesn’t do this will be fired. 7. Thank you; have a nice day!
      - jodrellblank 1y ago
        Source: Steve Yegge’s “Amazon understand platforms and Google doesn’t” rant - copy found at https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 among others, since it was originally posted on Google+ and link-rotted. Number 7 is a joke, etc.
- rob74 1y ago
  Then maybe the default value for "permission to access photos" should be no, so they can only start accessing them after you give them permission. But yeah, with stuff like this it's always "opt-out", never "opt-in", unless someone forces them to...
kn0where 1y ago
Similar with google docs, if you share a link to a doc, even if the doc is restricted access, anyone can see the thumbnail icon with the contents of page 1.
- harrall 1y ago
  I swear 70% of my value at work is pointing out details like this during meetings when no one else will… before we build it.
- necovek 1y ago
  In this particular issue, MS has an opposite problem: you grab a document link, grant a permission to someone, and they still can't access the document through the original link (you need to fetch a new link just for them).
  - antgiant 1y ago
    Kind of. The default behavior is to create a new link. So when you grant someone access you are actually creating a new link. However, you can find the buried manage access settings and change the permissions on the original link. If you do that then they can use the original link. (Teams makes this Byzantine in the extreme to accomplish as you have to go find the folder it drops all shared files in to gain access to manage access settings. But it does allow you to retro change access even for things shared in Teams)
    - necovek 1y ago
      Yeah, many things are definitely possible but to me it seems like the user experience is driven by the technical implementation and architecture, instead of vice versa. From the outside looking in, it's the age old organizational problem when there are no good synergies between customer experience and development teams.
- jkaptur 1y ago
  Really? That’s very surprising. You can see what this says? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uYM0vyZiDJbo-5mXmU_6XtrzqQi8mODNGKsM-NLZNI4/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uYM0vyZiDJbo-5mXmU_6Xtrz...
dns_snek 1y ago
That's odd, were you synchronizing your photos to Google Photos[1] in any way, from any device? Presumably they would've had to be synchronized to Google at some point for them to generate an album of said photos. [1] https://photos.google.com/ https://photos.google.com/
oblio 1y ago
Google Keep is a note taking app. However when you're inside a note (which BTW, can also be converted into checkboxes, aka very simple TODOs), Google Keep, the note taking app from search giant Google, doesn't have search functionality for that specific note. Besides the many small bugs, sometimes the missing functionality in Google apps is mind boggling.
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  On a asimialr vein, Microsoft's OneNote, which is of course part of the famed and expensive Office suite, still doesn't support Find and Replace. But, they do have a meticulously written official support article that suggests you can copy the text you want to replace with, and then do Find, double click the text it finds, ctrl+V, and repeat... https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/find-and-replace-text-in-notes-34b1f7f8-d327-40c5-8b0c-8419425ed68b https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/find-and-replace-...
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Wow that is ridiculous. But really, OneNote is the most crusty part of the whole office suite. It's completely unfit for purpose. They don't even bother to make a web version that properly works (you get signed out every day and you can only search in one folder, not even a whole notebook) I moved to obsidian with self hosted livesync and it's such a breath of fresh air. It actually does what it says. There's tons of plugins. The sync never drops a beat. It's a typical example of Microsoft's solutions to be B-quality at best. An AAA level solution is always better.. Microsoft's goal is only to be not bad enough for people to drop the "included with your subscription" product and go for something actually fit for purpose. Unfortunately I'm stuck with OneNote at work. I guess they want me to be ineffective and inefficient. It's just annoying because I don't have any use for "office" applications but a personal knowledgebase is something that's super important to me.
- chuckadams 1y ago
  When I last reinstalled the apps on my phone, the one Google app that ironically I didn’t keep was Keep.

chii 1y ago

The team that wrote the preview portion of the app is a different team to the one that wrote the permission requesting part. They communicate asynchronously (as a team/org, but this probably is reflected in the app's architecture!), which means the outcome is eventually consistent! But you managed to observe one of those inconsistent cases!

mbrumlow 1y ago
Yah. But I would think the permissions would be a OS level thing that can’t be bypassed simply because Google also wrote the app.
- marssaxman 1y ago
  What OS? The one Google wrote, underlying these services?
- chii 1y ago
  it's very easy to imagine the scenario where this happens. Those photos may have already been uploaded to google's web servers (from my understanding, this happens with google photos by default?), from which a preview has been generated. The permission is at the android app level, and is requested at some point to ensure that the permission model is respected from the POV of the user. I can imagine the permission request being out of sync!
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  Google Photos is not a mobile app. Google Photos is a SaaS webapp that happens to have a companion app for Android. Whatever OS-level settings affect the Android app itself, they have no bearing on what Google Photos the SaaS can or cannot do.
garbagewoman 1y ago
The team that wrote the preview portion just accessed the photos with elevated permissions if permission wasn’t granted yet? That doesn’t make any sense
- marssaxman 1y ago
  Oh, god, no, it makes complete sense. Somebody has to code the permissions in, after all...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  I imagine the preview was generated server-side, where permissions granted to apps don't matter.
necovek 1y ago
Yes! So many times observed that there is a name for it (Conway's law), teams having limited touchpoints obviously leads to such impedance mismatches.
xigoi 1y ago
“Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” —Melvin Conway
- bandrami 1y ago
  I've heard this was the secret to AWS's taking off twenty years ago: Bezos told the various teams they can only interact with each other as if they were vendors and customers to each other.
  - mzi 1y ago
    It was formulated a little different. But this was the 2002 mandate: 1. All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces. 2. Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces. 3. There will be no other form of interprocess communication allowed: no direct linking, no direct reads of another team’s data store, no shared-memory model, no back-doors whatsoever. The only communication allowed is via service interface calls over the network. 4. It doesn’t matter what technology they use. HTTP, Corba, Pubsub, custom protocols — doesn’t matter. 5. All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground up to be externalizable. That is to say, the team must plan and design to be able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world. No exceptions. 6. Anyone who doesn’t do this will be fired. 7. Thank you; have a nice day!
    - jodrellblank 1y ago
      Source: Steve Yegge’s “Amazon understand platforms and Google doesn’t” rant - copy found at https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 among others, since it was originally posted on Google+ and link-rotted. Number 7 is a joke, etc.
rob74 1y ago
Then maybe the default value for "permission to access photos" should be no, so they can only start accessing them after you give them permission. But yeah, with stuff like this it's always "opt-out", never "opt-in", unless someone forces them to...

kn0where 1y ago

Similar with google docs, if you share a link to a doc, even if the doc is restricted access, anyone can see the thumbnail icon with the contents of page 1.

harrall 1y ago
I swear 70% of my value at work is pointing out details like this during meetings when no one else will… before we build it.
necovek 1y ago
In this particular issue, MS has an opposite problem: you grab a document link, grant a permission to someone, and they still can't access the document through the original link (you need to fetch a new link just for them).
- antgiant 1y ago
  Kind of. The default behavior is to create a new link. So when you grant someone access you are actually creating a new link. However, you can find the buried manage access settings and change the permissions on the original link. If you do that then they can use the original link. (Teams makes this Byzantine in the extreme to accomplish as you have to go find the folder it drops all shared files in to gain access to manage access settings. But it does allow you to retro change access even for things shared in Teams)
  - necovek 1y ago
    Yeah, many things are definitely possible but to me it seems like the user experience is driven by the technical implementation and architecture, instead of vice versa. From the outside looking in, it's the age old organizational problem when there are no good synergies between customer experience and development teams.
jkaptur 1y ago
Really? That’s very surprising. You can see what this says? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uYM0vyZiDJbo-5mXmU_6XtrzqQi8mODNGKsM-NLZNI4/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uYM0vyZiDJbo-5mXmU_6Xtrz...

dns_snek 1y ago

That's odd, were you synchronizing your photos to Google Photos[1] in any way, from any device? Presumably they would've had to be synchronized to Google at some point for them to generate an album of said photos. [1] https://photos.google.com/ https://photos.google.com/

oblio 1y ago

Google Keep is a note taking app. However when you're inside a note (which BTW, can also be converted into checkboxes, aka very simple TODOs), Google Keep, the note taking app from search giant Google, doesn't have search functionality for that specific note. Besides the many small bugs, sometimes the missing functionality in Google apps is mind boggling.

tsimionescu 1y ago
On a asimialr vein, Microsoft's OneNote, which is of course part of the famed and expensive Office suite, still doesn't support Find and Replace. But, they do have a meticulously written official support article that suggests you can copy the text you want to replace with, and then do Find, double click the text it finds, ctrl+V, and repeat... https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/find-and-replace-text-in-notes-34b1f7f8-d327-40c5-8b0c-8419425ed68b https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/find-and-replace-...
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Wow that is ridiculous. But really, OneNote is the most crusty part of the whole office suite. It's completely unfit for purpose. They don't even bother to make a web version that properly works (you get signed out every day and you can only search in one folder, not even a whole notebook) I moved to obsidian with self hosted livesync and it's such a breath of fresh air. It actually does what it says. There's tons of plugins. The sync never drops a beat. It's a typical example of Microsoft's solutions to be B-quality at best. An AAA level solution is always better.. Microsoft's goal is only to be not bad enough for people to drop the "included with your subscription" product and go for something actually fit for purpose. Unfortunately I'm stuck with OneNote at work. I guess they want me to be ineffective and inefficient. It's just annoying because I don't have any use for "office" applications but a personal knowledgebase is something that's super important to me.
chuckadams 1y ago
When I last reinstalled the apps on my phone, the one Google app that ironically I didn’t keep was Keep.