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Google Explains Tuesday's Drive, Docs Bug That Marked Some Files As Violating Terms of Service (9to5google.com)
On Tuesday, Google's cloud-based word processing software was randomly flagging files for supposedly "violating" Google's Terms of Service, resulting in some users not being able to access or share their files. Google today explained the issue and addressed concerns that arose. 9to5Google reports: Several users on Tuesday morning reported no longer being able to open certain files they were working on in Docs, while others were locked out mid-edit. "On Tuesday, October 31, we mistakenly blocked access to some of our users' files, including Google Docs," Google said in a blog post. "This was due to a short-lived bug that incorrectly flagged some files as violating our terms of service (TOS)." Afterwards, Google provided a comment to Gizmodo noting that a code push made earlier that morning was at fault and that full access had been restored to users hours after the bug first arose. Today's clarification goes on to explain how that error on Tuesday caused Drive to "misinterpret" responses from the antivirus system designed to protect against malware, phishing, and spam. As a result, Docs "erroneously mark[ed] some files as TOS violations, thus causing access denials for users of those files."
Looks like it's to drop using Google Drive as my go-to backup for my work projects, or much of anything else, for that matter.
On the other hand: no real consolation to those locked out by the bug
This is The Cloud. They're not YOUR files, they're OUR files.
How would I flag my data on my own network or computer as violating my Terms of Service? The mind boggles. It definitely is "the cloud". The cloud means you don't control your data.
"OK; as a word we commonly use has now been associated with terrorism and banned by the search algorithms, we suggest instead of 'the' you use 't__he' or 'Teh'".
We hope to have this solved soon.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
I'm playing it safe and storing all my documents on Microsoft OneDrive.
"the cloud" is really just "someone else's computer" and if you store data on it, that other entity can deny you access to it.
See subject: "From win & lose but STILL somehow - it's CLOUD'S ILLUSION I recall..." themesong for Google today!
* What a BULLSHIT LIE on their end... lol!
(You've got to be TOTALLY STUPID to believe in 'cloud = safe' or 'cloud = secure' bs...)
APK
P.S.=> "It was a 'bug'" lol - the ONLY bug is in their brains... apk
If what Google says is true - that the files were accidentally marked as malware, phishing, or spam - then they were giving users a pretty terrible error message saying user documents violated the TOS. Why not spell it out - hey, we flagged this file for malware, phishing, or spam. At least then the user doesn't think that *they* did something bad by violating the TOS.
TFS is nothing more than Google saying the bug was a bug due to buggy code that buggily flagged things based on a buggy interpretation of another component's output.
How many files were affected? Why some and not others? Why is the antimalware component involved? What's there to misinterpret from its output?
I get so many companies pitching me cloud this and cloud that. My response has consistently been, I don't trust the cloud for any business critical processes/data. The sales reps will laugh their snipe little laugh and make some pithy comment about 'oh, you must be old school'. Yet we see time after time stories like this, almost always portrayed by the company in question as a 'glitch' or a 'bug' and that it has been addressed and fixed. We are reassured that it will never happen again.... until the next story when it happens again. Here is a good one, not quite a cloud story but close enough to make my point of putting your trust in yourself and not relying on someone else for your stuff to work... so on day a couple weeks ago I try to log into VMware console flash version on Chrome, lo and behold it doesn't work because of something Chrome was doing to block flash. Prior to upgrading to 6.5, I NEVER HAD A PROBLEM logging into VMware using the locally installed app. Now I am held hostage to whatever tiff/security issue between Chrome and Adobe.
I will continue to listen to them call me old school, but when you can't get to your data on the cloud, rest assured I will be laughing. And if you are competitor, I will be laughing on the way to the bank.
Until your hard drive blows up, your LAN goes down or your computer goes on the fritz. It's not like local file servers are magically immune to failures.
In those cases, would the cloud somehow still work? That's a hellava cloud that gets th edat through a busted LAN and a non-functioning computer. Majick!
This access denial is a non-polishable turd. If I'm working on a project and suddenly "The cloud" locks me out of it, I'm well and truly screwed with tight deadlines. Wait - I know the answer - I'm supposed to both use the cloud andlocal storage along with my multiple backups. Which means the one item that is redundant is - the cloud.
I'll use dropbox or equivalent for transfer if I have to but never anything stored there or any other cloud storage or backup that isn't directly under my control, and that I can't put my grubby mitts on.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Nope not a google employee. Or a seller of goggle products.
And no one actually involved in cloud transformations advertises it as the ultimate in availability or security.
That doesn't mean that we don't hear that often and loudly. Employee, zealot, or useful idiot, the glowing reports of unassailable security, 100 percent uptime, and almost miraculous reductions in cost of infrastructure and eliminating employees have been shouted from the rooftops for years.
The ultimate option remains having multiple instances of each server stored in diverse on-prem datacenters where you control all access. But the cost of doing that is insane.
Well okay. But who needs ultimate? The cloud certainly doesn't approach ultimate, and stupid stuff like expired security certificates (microsoft) and arbitrary lockouts from your own information by google are as much failures as hardware failures. And this still doesn't address the fact that they are scraping the files.
Also why am I only having it in the cloud? Consumer equipment is perfect for consuming. So there is no reason a document isn't replicated there. Given this was google docs it would be trivial for all files to be synced using drive stream and hence being able to access the most recent interation on any PC.
Tell me - would you store classified data in your cloud?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
A couple people were walking in a woods, when they spotted a hungry grizzly bear, and it started charging toward them. One of them started lacing up his shoes, preparing to run. "What's the point?" said the other, "You can't outrun a grizzly bear." The reply: "I just have to outrun you."
We're in a world gone mad, where incompetence and malice-or-corruption (depending on how charitable you wanna be about it) dominate. The benchmark for your home fileserver's reliably isn't perfection; it just has to be better than alternatives (e.g. "you're the product, not the customer" type services).
And that's pretty damn easy to achieve. My file server doesn't even have a "check if this file complies with my TOS, and then delete it just to spite myself" to ever possibly malfunction. Why would I deliberately build additional risk into it?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump