A Bunch of Google Drive Links Are About To Be Broken (xda-developers.com) 31
In a blog post today, Google announced a series of new security enhancements that will make many publicly accessible Google Drive links no longer accessible. The enhancements are being brought to Google Drive on September 23rd, 2021. XDA Developers reports: Once this change goes live, Google says that users will need a "resource key" to access a publicly shared link. However, users won't need an updated link with said resource key appended if they've already accessed that file before in the past. As a result of this change, we can imagine that lots of Google Drive links shared online on forums and other sites will no longer work as their owners neglect to update them, leaving them only accessible to the people that have already clicked the links before.
According to the post made on the Google Workspace blog, this won't affect all files. Users who have shared a file that is affected by this change will get an email from Google informing them of this change and how to opt out of needing those files from being updated. These emails will be sent out to users starting on July 26th. Google shared a copy of a sample email to show end-users what the message they'll get will look like. The company doesn't recommend opting out all files and says that only the files that you want publicly accessible should be opted out. Users have until September 13th to decide if they want the update applied, so if you have no files that are publicly accessible, then you won't need to do anything. YouTube is also making similar changes. "Starting on July 23, Unlisted videos uploaded before the January 1, 2017, system change will be automatically made private," reports 9to5Google. "That said, YouTube creators can decide to opt out of this change. Filling out this form will let you 'keep your Unlisted videos uploaded before 2017 in their current Unlisted state.' Other options include making Unlisted pre-2017 videos public or re-uploading as a new Unlisted video at the expense of stats."
According to the post made on the Google Workspace blog, this won't affect all files. Users who have shared a file that is affected by this change will get an email from Google informing them of this change and how to opt out of needing those files from being updated. These emails will be sent out to users starting on July 26th. Google shared a copy of a sample email to show end-users what the message they'll get will look like. The company doesn't recommend opting out all files and says that only the files that you want publicly accessible should be opted out. Users have until September 13th to decide if they want the update applied, so if you have no files that are publicly accessible, then you won't need to do anything. YouTube is also making similar changes. "Starting on July 23, Unlisted videos uploaded before the January 1, 2017, system change will be automatically made private," reports 9to5Google. "That said, YouTube creators can decide to opt out of this change. Filling out this form will let you 'keep your Unlisted videos uploaded before 2017 in their current Unlisted state.' Other options include making Unlisted pre-2017 videos public or re-uploading as a new Unlisted video at the expense of stats."
Damn it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Damn it. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny how these two "security" changes seem to reduce Google's nearline storage costs but don't seem to have any security surfaces other than the pastiche of a Drive token. The most they could claim is that some people made stuff public by accident but that will be true in every possible system.
Did they mean to say this is a move for compliance with some privacy regulation? Don't conflate privacy and security - they are complimentary concepts.
Re:Damn it. (Score:5, Informative)
The privacy issue is that previously once a link was made public it was public forever. The only way to remove access to the file was to delete it and recreate it. If you emailed someone the link and they posted it on a forum, well too bad you can only delete and recreate. If you want to revoke access from one person and give it to someone else, delete and recreate.
They solved that issue so that now links can be revoked and when re-sharing a new one is generated, rather than re-using the old one.
They could have left all the links alone, but a lot of people didn't realize that was how it worked and probably didn't want their files to be accessible forever. Either way a bunch of people were going to get screwed and I think this is a good choice, people can re-share if they want to or if they don't just assume they don't consent to continued public access. Always better to be opt-in for privacy.
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I wonder if there is a link failure mechanism tied to a time limit, link available for x days before expiry
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Hmm, "-1 overrated" for explaining the issue that is not explained in the summary or TFA.
Which mod-troll wants readers to have less information and for what reason?
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The privacy issue is that previously once a link was made public it was public forever. The only way to remove access to the file was to delete it and recreate it. If you emailed someone the link and they posted it on a forum, well too bad you can only delete and recreate. If you want to revoke access from one person and give it to someone else, delete and recreate.
They solved that issue so that now links can be revoked and when re-sharing a new one is generated, rather than re-using the old one.
They could have left all the links alone, but a lot of people didn't realize that was how it worked and probably didn't want their files to be accessible forever. Either way a bunch of people were going to get screwed and I think this is a good choice, people can re-share if they want to or if they don't just assume they don't consent to continued public access. Always better to be opt-in for privacy.
If they're alive, they can...
Google aren't bored of Drive yet ? (Score:3, Funny)
I guess Drive has another year or so before Google tire of it and shutter it.
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Google has too many people and too much money. But workers need to keep working and managers need to keep managing. So they have to constantly tinker with everything just so everyone has something to do.
The YouTube change is especially ridiculous. My dozens of videos that are unlisted now become public, unless I "opt out" or re-upload everything.
If people can opt out then what's the point of whatever change it is that you're making? It must not be very important or necessary if people can just opt-out.
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My dozens of videos that are unlisted now become public, unless I "opt out" or re-upload everything.
Private, not public.
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Google doesn't shut services which make them money. Drive underpins their cloud services just like OneDrive underpins Office365. Don't confuse a company trying new things and failing and shutting them down with a company killing its active and profitable services which align with their business.
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Fix: "which align with their business" this financial year.
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Don't be stupid. This is called "cloud". It will align with Google every financial until people stop using cloud services.
In Google's DNA (Score:5, Interesting)
It's in Google's DNA to regularly do stuff like this as well as designing its UIs to be as tiresomely 'clicky' as possible. It's probably not even conscious on their part by now. They're essentially an advertising agency & they make their money out of keeping people on their web pages as long as possible so that they see more advertising or at least spend less time seeing non-Google advertising. Breaking millions of links is just another way of achieving this.
Could just be my perspective (Score:1)
but this seems like it's aimed at hurting things like /r/OpenDirectories on reddit, and not using the bandwidth to support openly accessible files.
Progress vs Consistancy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The modern companies Google, Apple (They are an older company but still run like a new one) , Tesla. Compared to the older Tech Companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Ford. Has a difference between rapid change and willing to revamp everything at a whim, vs doing small improvements over time, and each improvement is carefully planned and any change that could effect a customer is well planned out and pushed carefully.
Both sets of organizations really need to learn from each other as they are some important lessons from both methods. Google doesn't realize often how critical their software is especially for the small business market, and doing random changes or canceling a less profitable venture does more than piss off some home users who have to update their bookmarks. Also most large businesses will not partner with Google services because they need a long term plan, and Google doesn't go Long term. Then we have Companies like IBM who will often get the Business contracts but also seems to offer the most dated sets of software, and hardware designs that was popular over 20 years ago. Granted they have been updated and improved over the years, but they are often very backward compatible, and consistent. So If I were to use DB2 back in 1999 and use the Newest version of DB2 today, I probably wouldn't see that much of a difference, and my software that I wrote over 20 years ago will still work fine (I may have lost the source code and has been running the same executable binary for the past generation). And this consistency leaves me behind the times on the new technology that may be giving my competitors some sort of edge.
The likes of IBM are so comfortable in what they do, they don't realize how far behind they are, because they get the contracts with other businesses, not because they are the bleeding edge, but because they are a safer bet that what they do offer will work for a long time. But when a disruptive technology gets in IBM will need to scramble to catch up or die.
The likes of Google are so involved on trying to get the next best things out there, they don't realize the value on a lot of the products they had already created and how well used it is, and changing things can cause a lot of work for people who cannot adapt as fast as Google.
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You can't have it both way. IBM is "behind" because both long terms support and incrementalism with backward compatibility have large costs. I don't think Google lacks an understanding of how critical to some smaller especially business some of their tooling is in terms of process. I think they just don't care - its free or nearly so for the most part and it generates revenue or it does not from Google's perspective. Google isn't a charity and even continuing some of these products in a limited access direc
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I understand Google is a business, however as a business they need to stand up and take the risk and support something for an at-least agreed amount of time.
Say 5 or 10 years, if they want to keep it, renew it for an other 5 or 10 years (and let us know well beforehand that it will be renewed) And if you are trying to change or fix something that is breaking something else, you should have communicated a clear path around it.
Yes it may be more expensive than just dropping something willy nilly, but as a bu
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IBMs hardware consists of mainframes (Z), POWER, and storage. Which of those those use 'designs popular 20 years ago'? You clearly have no idea what you are talking about if you think IBM is 'behind' in hardware.
How NFTs die (Score:5, Interesting)
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If any of these public links are hosting an image licensed in an NFT, the buyer is about to get a lesson in why the concept is a sham.
They still have their unique link, though. Wasn't that supposed to be the valuable part?
The image may be copied at will and each copy is valueless, but having a single cryptographically signed link is what they paid for.
I mean, NFTs work like that, right? Am I missing something?
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I mean, NFTs work like that, right? Am I missing something?
Seems to me like you more than passed the... Turing Test.
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Security (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:4)
darn. (Score:1)
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Can someone point me to a valid, workable, method to download video from youtube?
https://github.com/mpb10/Power... [github.com]
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