[HN Gopher] Google Drive users stung by macOS '.DS_Store' copyri...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Google Drive users stung by macOS '.DS_Store' copyright
       infringement issue
        
       Author : laktak
       Score  : 228 points
       Date   : 2022-02-20 10:02 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (appleinsider.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (appleinsider.com)
        
       | tpl wrote:
       | People on the drive team should feel great shame for this.
       | Catching a Google ban can be very very damaging to someone's
       | life. Scans of files like this don't need to happen.
        
         | josteink wrote:
         | This is the #1 reason I would never, ever use a Google SSO for
         | any non-Google property, service or account.
        
       | lousken wrote:
       | Why does google want to get ahead of this? Pretty much all
       | services use submit a notice and that's about it - why is google
       | being so proactive at the cost of their users?
        
         | derekp7 wrote:
         | From what I understand (I don't have sources for this, other
         | than memory):
         | 
         | Processing the DMCA notices has a cost. Nothing requires the
         | DMCA notice to be in a machine readable format (although AI is
         | getting better at this type of task), so it often requires a
         | human in the loop. And they were getting sued by the copyright
         | holders regardless of protections under DMCA. So they struck a
         | deal with the copyright holders, that instead of them sending
         | Google a DMCA, Google would provide an interface and automation
         | to handle this, in return for the rights holders dropping their
         | lawsuits.
        
           | lousken wrote:
           | https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-holders-asked-google-
           | to-r... https://torrentfreak.com/reckless-dmca-takedown-
           | purges-legit... https://torrentfreak.com/fraudulent-dmca-
           | circumvention-taked...
           | 
           | Unless this changed very recently, notices are still being
           | sent to google and just like google AI they fail horribly in
           | that regard. So if that's the case i feel like the cost
           | didn't disappear and probably not even lower and this is just
           | an additional tool to make lives of google users hell. Plus
           | the fact that google does have non existent support this
           | makes their services really hard to recommend to anyone.
        
       | xiphias2 wrote:
       | I had ,,backup and sync'' for Google working OKish for me for
       | accessing my Google Drive files in the past. I've got an upgrade
       | called ,,Google Drive'' which took down backup and sync, and then
       | installed the software. After that it told me that it wants to
       | sync everything on my disk, and there's not enough space on my
       | Google Drive to do it, and I can't use backup and sync anymore.
       | 
       | I could pay for more storage for Google, but I don't want it to
       | have all my data with all the problems that I see here, and I
       | honestly don't know what to do now to sync with my mobile, as
       | Google Drive was great for me in the past.
       | 
       | I see some people suggesting E2E solutions, but I'm not sure how
       | great is the mobile experience for those, and how well they
       | integrate with Google docs, which I love to use.
        
       | kl4m wrote:
       | So what's the actual impact? You can't set sharing on your
       | .DS_Store file as "Anyone on the Internet with the link"?
        
       | FpUser wrote:
       | Video file produced by us has been marked as copyright violation
       | by the company I use to host large files (no we were not filming
       | copyrighted subjects / objects). Repeated requests to restore
       | access to file so our customers could download it ended up with
       | customer support repeating the same thing ad nauseum. I have
       | better things to do than waste my energy on this and since it was
       | just a single file I just hosted it in a different place.
        
       | Saris wrote:
       | The scanning files is one thing, but the lack of this bug being
       | resolved in a matter of hours is the real problem. This should
       | not be an ongoing issue days later.
        
       | prepend wrote:
       | I really don't want my cloud storage provider to check my files
       | for copyright violations. It's not required legally and it's
       | something that I think is anti-user.
       | 
       | Banks don't have to check safe deposit boxes for stolen art.
       | 
       | Self storage don't have to check containers for stolen goods.
       | 
       | Of course, I'm against illegal stuff, but I don't want to waste a
       | single second defending myself from false positives in these
       | situations. Google has no way of knowing whether I own the IP so
       | I could have paid for a license for the material on my drive or
       | many other legitimate cases.
        
         | Mindwipe wrote:
         | Banks literally do have to perform money laundering checks on
         | deposit boxes.
        
           | jes wrote:
           | Can you say more about this? I have never heard about this.
           | 
           | To my knowledge, my bank cannot access my safe deposit box
           | without my key or without drilling and replacing the lock my
           | key opens.
           | 
           | Am I mistaken about this?
        
             | monocasa wrote:
             | They have their own copies of the keys.
        
             | jamjamjamjamjam wrote:
             | Yes
        
           | volkl48 wrote:
           | I don't believe this is correct. You can't launder money with
           | a safe deposit box, so it makes no sense to have to conduct
           | money laundering checks on one.
           | 
           | Standard rental agreements explicitly state that the bank
           | does not retain a key and is unable to open the box (without
           | destroying the lock) in the event that you lose yours.
           | 
           | For example: https://www.bankofamerica.com/content/documents/
           | deposits/saf...
           | 
           | "The bank does not retain duplicate keys for any rented box".
        
         | hoschicz wrote:
         | Google Drive checks for copyrighted files only if they are
         | shared.
        
         | Someone wrote:
         | > It's not required legally
         | 
         | That may or may not be correct in the USA, but the world has
         | many jurisdictions with varying laws on copyright infringement,
         | and cloud storage providers may be liable for copyright
         | infringement claims.
         | 
         | Even limiting this to the USA, we had
         | 
         | - Metallica vs Napster
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica_v._Napster,_Inc.)
         | 
         | - A&M Records vs Napster (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26M_R
         | ecords,_Inc._v._Napster....)
         | 
         | Napster lost both cases.
         | 
         | So, if you run a cloud provider who permits file sharing, it
         | seems there's a decent change you're liable for copyright
         | infringement by your customers.
         | 
         | Also, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/cloud-computing-a-
         | brief-ov... says:
         | 
         |  _Therefore, Canadian copyright law is currently unclear on
         | whether cloud storage providers may be shielded from liability
         | for copyright infringement_
         | 
         | = If I were to run a cloud provider who permits file sharing, I
         | think my legal team would strongly advise to scan files
         | _shared_with_others_ for copyright infringement.
         | 
         | (In the '.DS_Store' case, Google's system seems to have some
         | embarrassing false positives, but that's a different issue)
        
           | GeekyBear wrote:
           | Napster was designed explicitly to enable copyright
           | infringement.
           | 
           | Cloud storage is not.
           | 
           | The more valid comparison would be with VCRs which could
           | possibly be used for copyright infringement, but had
           | substantial uses that were perfectly legal.
        
         | kingcharles wrote:
         | As poster above says, Google has no idea if I own the rights /
         | have a license to the articles in question.
         | 
         | I used to work in the music industry and had license to rip
         | music and distribute it online from all the major labels. I
         | don't want my cloud storage disappearing along with my Google
         | account just because Google mistakenly thinks I'm a pirate.
        
         | nrvn wrote:
         | Would an e2ee storage be the answer to this?
         | 
         | As an end user I would be sure that my data is encrypted in-
         | transit and at rest.
         | 
         | As a cloud provider I would take care of encryption and privacy
         | promises and transparency and care about my bandwidth and
         | storage costs.
         | 
         | Risks:
         | 
         | - bad cryptography/leaked keys. Mitigation: sound cryptography,
         | open source model of development.
         | 
         | - all possible attacks from the public about potential usage of
         | the service for CP, terrorism and other deadly crimes.
         | 
         | - the rest of the risks that apply to e2ee messaging as well.
         | 
         | // just off the top thoughts
        
         | rectang wrote:
         | Why does Google Drive perform such scans?
         | 
         | Is it because you might share the files with someone that they
         | have to consider anything put on Google drive as being
         | redistributed under copyright law, and thus subject to
         | copyright restrictions?
         | 
         | Or is the very act of putting something in cloud storage
         | considered redistribution under copyright law, even if the file
         | is never shared and you are the only user?
         | 
         | A while ago, I backed up a bunch of my Mom's files from a
         | failing computer of hers onto Google Drive. I didn't think
         | anything of it at the time. If there are some copyrighted
         | materials on there, is Google going to suddenly terminate my
         | account after a retroactive scan?
         | 
         | I think very hard about copyright and ensure that I uphold
         | copyright in all my public works -- for example, there are
         | licensing details at the end of all my slide presentations for
         | all images. Having to apply such a level of care to every
         | action I perform on Google services is _bonkers_.
        
           | GeekyBear wrote:
           | >Is it because you might share the files with someone that
           | they have to consider anything put on Google drive as being
           | redistributed under copyright law, and thus subject to
           | copyright restrictions?
           | 
           | That is a civil matter that falls upon the copyright holder,
           | not Google.
           | 
           | Google is no more guilty than the makers of VCRs were when
           | you recorded something without permission.
        
           | ahelwer wrote:
           | Okay, easy fix. Check the files for copyright if you create a
           | sharing link for them.
        
             | Xylakant wrote:
             | I license a photo for my website, upload to google cloud
             | and create a sharing link to share with my web designer and
             | the contractor responsible for the website. Did I just
             | infringe copyright?
        
             | rectang wrote:
             | > _Okay, easy fix._
             | 
             | Assessing copyright implications is not "easy". It's a lot
             | of difficult work that involves specialized expertise,
             | judgment calls, and risk assessment. There are complex
             | areas and shades of grey: derivative works, fair use,
             | copyrighted but licensed materials, etc.
             | 
             | The main thing you are trying to avoid is causing harm at a
             | level where an infringement claim is justified. There are a
             | lot of uses which might look like infringement to an
             | algorithm but which are completely legitimate.
             | 
             | > _Check the files for copyright if you create a sharing
             | link for them._
             | 
             | I just ran through everything on my Google Drive. Thank
             | goodness I don't use it for much, though I do pay for extra
             | storage. I don't have anything shared with the world, and
             | only have a few files shared with a handful of family
             | members.
             | 
             | But will this protect me? What is Google's policy with
             | regards to scanning -- do they scan only shared files, or
             | do they scan the full drive because content might _become_
             | shared?
        
             | beowulfey wrote:
             | I honestly wonder if that is what is happening. This
             | article wasn't able to replicate, but perhaps making a
             | public link to the file containing .DS_store would do it
        
               | GeekyBear wrote:
               | We already know that Google is scanning all of the files
               | in your account looking for kiddie porn, and has been for
               | the past decade.
               | 
               | >a man [was] arrested on child pornography charges, after
               | Google tipped off authorities about illegal images found
               | in the Houston suspect's Gmail account
               | 
               | https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/06/why-the-gmail-scan-
               | that-le...
        
           | jmrm wrote:
           | > Why does Google Drive perform such scans? A lot of warez
           | and piracy websites used Drive to share that content, but
           | this kind of filter can be easily avoided by saving the files
           | as an encrypted zip, rar, or 7z file with a password.
           | 
           | In my opinion, using this kind of filters to all the files
           | you upload is pretty useless. The download traffic of a file
           | or an account gives more information about some files used
           | publicly than any other metric.
        
           | dathinab wrote:
           | Bonkers and potentially useless,
           | 
           | Google does automated scans, they don't care if something is
           | properly attributed, falls under free use or you having
           | bought an license.
           | 
           | They also are not really known to care about fixing false
           | bans to individuals, sometimes they do, other times you are
           | screwed.
           | 
           | They also might lock you out of all your google services,
           | email, storage, domains, apps you bought, videos you bought
           | on YT etc. Which tbh. is the most bonkers thing and should
           | not be legal.
        
           | yellow_lead wrote:
           | Pretty sure the problem is some users have Google Drive's
           | with GBs/TBs of pirated movies, etc, that are shared
           | massively.
           | 
           | >Is it because you might share the files with someone that
           | they have to consider anything put on Google drive as being
           | redistributed under copyright law, and thus subject to
           | copyright restrictions?
           | 
           | Yes
        
             | rectang wrote:
             | This seems like a fundamental design flaw for any cloud
             | storage service which enables sharing. It would be a
             | problem not only for Google, but for Dropbox, etc.
             | 
             | There needs to be a sharp distinction between files for
             | your own use and files that are shared with the world -- as
             | in a global setting for whole volumes to disable global
             | sharing and thus avert the need for copyright scanning.
             | 
             | If by making files easy to share at any moment, the service
             | creates a need to perform continuous copyright scanning of
             | _all_ drive content and then to take punitive action when
             | it is detected, then the service is really nothing like a
             | private hard drive. The potential for catastrophic loss,
             | not only of the drive contents but of everything you access
             | through Google services, is much more terrifying than the
             | possibility of corrupting a local drive and much harder to
             | plan for.
        
               | gerikson wrote:
               | >Dropbox has adopted a policy of terminating the accounts
               | of users who repeatedly infringe copyright or whose
               | accounts are subject to multiple infringement
               | allegations. If you repeatedly share files that infringe
               | others' copyrights, your account will be terminate
               | 
               | https://help.dropbox.com/accounts-
               | billing/security/copyright...
               | 
               | > There needs to be a sharp distinction between files for
               | your own use and files that are shared with the world
               | 
               | Even simpler: do not upload copyrighted materials to
               | Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
               | 
               | Use a local backup if needed, use sneakernet to transfer
               | files.
        
               | cesarb wrote:
               | > Even simpler: do not upload copyrighted materials to
               | Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
               | 
               |  _Everything_ is copyrighted. The comment you just wrote
               | is automatically copyrighted.  "Do not upload copyrighted
               | materials" means you can only upload things made over a
               | century ago (which either were made before copyright
               | existed, or were copyrighted but their copyright
               | expired). Want to upload your vacation photos? Too bad,
               | they were made this year, so they are copyrighted, and
               | will be copyrighted for several decades after you're
               | already dead.
        
               | waffle_maniac wrote:
               | If our comments are copyrighted by us can HN legally
               | refuse to remove them (like they often do)?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | krallja wrote:
               | No, you have licensed your content to Y Combinator. It's
               | in the TOS:
               | 
               | > By uploading any User Content you hereby grant and will
               | grant Y Combinator and its affiliated companies a
               | nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty free, fully paid up,
               | transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable
               | license to copy, display, upload, perform, distribute,
               | store, modify and otherwise use your User Content for any
               | Y Combinator-related purpose in any form, medium or
               | technology now known or later developed.
        
               | Spooky23 wrote:
               | All files are copyrighted. In fact, my .DS_Store files
               | are generated by my computer against my content and
               | belong to me.
               | 
               | Some 10x engineer at google write code that flags it, how
               | is that my problem?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | cperciva wrote:
               | Not all files are copyrighted. For example, files which
               | are not creative works -- including those which are
               | mechanically created -- are not subject to copyright.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | Sort of. Works mechanically derived from copyrightable
               | works are still copyrightable.
        
               | marcan_42 wrote:
               | Yup, it's a common misconception that everything is
               | copyrighted. Copyright requires creativity. An empty text
               | file/image is not copyrightable, the pile of #include
               | directives at the top of a C file is not copyrightable,
               | etc. You need to create something that isn't just
               | mechanical, regardless of whether the computer does it or
               | you do it manually. At the point where creative decisions
               | start to influence the process, that's where copyright
               | comes into play.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | > the pile of #include directives at the top of a C file
               | is not copyrightable
               | 
               | That used to be the thought, but Google v. Oracle ended
               | with de mininimis defenses struck down, and imports still
               | copyrightable, just Google was afforded a fair use
               | defense to copying.
        
               | maratc wrote:
               | As far as I remember the SCotUS verdict was "we don't
               | want to say if it's copyrightable or not, but if it
               | _were_ copyritable it would fall under fair use ".
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | And the appeals court said that it was copyrightable, so
               | by not saying anything the supreme court let the appeals
               | court ruling stand on that point.
        
               | maratc wrote:
               | That's an interesting detail, thanks.
        
               | marcan_42 wrote:
               | I thought Google v. Oracle was about API structure, not
               | imports. While I obviously don't think API structure
               | should be copyrightable, we clearly can't extrapolate
               | from that to a list of imports. The former is something
               | chosen by an environment designer and needed for
               | compatibility; the latter is just boilerplate every user
               | of a given environment needs to write.
               | 
               | There is certainly creativity in API design, it's just
               | that the right to interoperability and the utilitarian
               | aspect should trump any copyright claim on the API
               | itself. But there is no creativity in writing imports;
               | you aren't making any material decisions, you're just
               | doing something the compiler requires you to do.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | To be copyrightable, you still need to have verbatim
               | components that are copied (or 'mechanically' meaning
               | algorithmically transformed from verbatim components).
               | Abstract concepts like API design still can't be have
               | copyright protections directly per se; it's a concept as
               | a proxy of the copyright over the "declaring code" of
               | import and export definitions. That's why I brought up
               | how de minimis defenses were also struck down; the next
               | direction people go is saying 'well, it's just one line
               | to import the library, surely that's not enough'. The
               | fair use defense afforded to Google for a very abstract
               | interpretation of interoperability is sort of the last
               | bastion we're left at the moment.
               | 
               | But as someone who's a big fan of your work, I'd implore
               | you to not trust myself or your knowledge on this and hit
               | up a lawyer. You're close enough to the edge of legality
               | with a lot of your work that I'd hate to see you stifled
               | by a minor misunderstanding here that could have been
               | avoided. Google v. Oracle ended better than it could
               | have, but AFAICT still heavily complicated RE work and
               | independent implementations. It made a lot of this
               | murkier, and being at least internally consistent with
               | _a_ legal theory here could make a bad situation at least
               | a little better by leaving you with more options.
        
               | gaius_baltar wrote:
               | > Even simpler: do not upload copyrighted materials to
               | Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
               | 
               | Do not store a single "1" in a file, too:
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30060405
        
               | chordalkeyboard wrote:
               | > Even simpler: do not upload copyrighted materials to
               | Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
               | 
               | it is absurd for copyright to prevent a legitimate user
               | from storing media on a cloud filesystem.
        
               | djsweet wrote:
               | > Even simpler: do not upload copyrighted materials to
               | Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
               | 
               | As the article illustrates, it's not actually that
               | simple. Cloud services that terminate accounts (and
               | probably instantly delete everything, to comply with
               | GDPR, CCPA, etc.) for perceived copyright infringements
               | will always and necessarily suffer from a false positive
               | rate.
               | 
               | We'll likely never truly learn what this false positive
               | rate is, but that it will always exist is reason enough
               | to give pause to the thought that services should "just
               | terminate their account" if they think it's infringing on
               | intellectual property laws.
               | 
               | The only good answer here is an unqualified "Use a local
               | backup". The terms of use for non-business cloud storage
               | absolve the providers of all responsibility for data
               | loss, even when they have incorrectly taken punitive
               | action against you.
        
               | polski-g wrote:
               | What if you are authorized to have said copyrighted
               | works?
        
               | rectang wrote:
               | > _Even simpler: do not upload copyrighted materials to
               | Dropbox, Google Drive, etc._
               | 
               | This is more difficult than you are making it sound.
               | Considering the way most people use their computers, the
               | only way to avoid copyright infringement _entirely_ in
               | your use of cloud storage is not to use cloud storage the
               | way you use your local drive but instead to assess every
               | last file that you upload as if you were publishing it on
               | a public website.
               | 
               | Sure, you can avoid uploading pirated movies (perhaps by
               | never downloading any of them in the first place). But in
               | fact, original works are typically copyrighted by default
               | as soon as they are created, even if the copyright is not
               | formally registered -- and we depend on a patchwork quilt
               | of implicit and explicit licenses for viewing and use of
               | files on the internet. Have you ever saved a quote from
               | somewhere? That was probably copyrighted; your use is
               | probably legitimate, but a naive algorithm might not
               | think so.
        
               | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
               | > to assess every last file that you upload as if you
               | were publishing it on a public website.
               | 
               | IMO, that's _precisely_ what you should be doing.
        
               | fps-hero wrote:
               | Honestly, the situation is far worse and nuanced than
               | that. You can not determine whether content is infringing
               | on copy write because of content alone. Copyright depends
               | on context.
               | 
               | Situation 1. You buy a PDF ebook. You have legal rights
               | the person use of this file, but you upload it to your
               | cloud storage and it gets flagged. You cannot determine
               | if the intent of uploading the PDF was to facilitate
               | pirating, or because you have a pirates copy, or because
               | you have the rights to it.
               | 
               | Situation 2. You hire a wedding photographer, and they
               | supply you with photos that you do not own the right to
               | distribute because they retain copyright. This is the
               | same as the above situation, but personalised. Would you
               | like your cloud provider to delete any file, including
               | your wedding photo backups, because it with matches a
               | hash in a database?
               | 
               | Situation 3. Copyright fair use. Much has been written on
               | the subject, but this is where copyright falls over in a
               | digital age. Fair use is complete indistinguishable from
               | piracy from a flagging files by content perspective.
        
               | birdyrooster wrote:
               | If you modified the tags a little, wouldn't that keep the
               | song from matching checksum of another file?
        
               | rectang wrote:
               | Fooling the algorithm is not a robust solution.
               | Infringement-detection algos get better hit rates all the
               | time (fewer false negatives, although often at the price
               | of more false positives) -- consider all the work that
               | has gone into detecting musical duplicates even when
               | resampled, pitch/time-shifted, rerecorded, etc.
               | 
               | The robust solution is to treat files which are
               | redistributed and therefore trigger copyright provisions
               | completely differently from files which are not
               | redistributed.
               | 
               | Furthermore, for the purposes of punitive action, sharing
               | a copyrighted file with a limited whitelist of other
               | users might reasonably be treated as a less of a screwup
               | than making a file accessible to the entire internet. And
               | therefore it should not be frictionless to share a file
               | with the internet.
        
             | hericium wrote:
             | > Pretty sure the problem is some users have Google Drive's
             | with GBs/TBs of pirated movies, etc, that are shared
             | massively.
             | 
             | That's Google's doing and problem. It doesn't justify
             | creeping around all users' files.
        
             | blendergeek wrote:
             | Google is not liable for this use of Google Drive in any
             | way.
             | 
             | Under 17 U.S.C. SSSS 512 (also known as the _Safe Harbor_
             | provision) Google is not liable for what users of the
             | service upload and share as long as Google complies with
             | take-down requests from rights holders. This behavior from
             | Google goes way beyond what is legally required.
             | 
             | Under the laws, Google could also scan the content for
             | "potentially libelous" material but this also would not be
             | legally required. Google has no legal responsibility to
             | scan your content for possibly infringing material.
        
               | xeromal wrote:
               | It could be in their agreements to sell movies on google
               | play, youtube, etc. e.g. A financial reason to make the
               | MPAA happy.
        
               | rndgermandude wrote:
               | I would think that all these "copyright" scans Google
               | performs are not performed against a list of known-
               | infringing files that Google researchers compiled
               | themselves by monitoring pirate websites. Instead the
               | known-infringing list would be compiled from previous
               | takedown requests. And one of these takedown requests
               | either explicitly or implicitly (e.g. by listing a
               | "folder") contained a .DS_Store file that looked like
               | many other .DS_Store files because the user had not
               | modified the folder (display) attributes on their mac,
               | which was then added to the known-infringing list, and
               | which then created this mess.
               | 
               | But it's valid to question whether Google has to scan all
               | files for known-infringing files in the first place.
               | That's really where it gets tricky, legally. On the
               | surface, they absolutely do NOT have to perform such
               | scans under the DMCA.
               | 
               | But then there are provisions in 17 US SS 512 (aka the
               | DMCA law) that state for example:
               | 
               | "A service provider shall not be liable [...], if the
               | service provider
               | 
               | (i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or
               | an activity using the material on the system or network
               | is infringing;
               | 
               | (ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not
               | aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing
               | activity is apparent; or
               | 
               | (iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts
               | expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the
               | material;"
               | 
               | This is very vague. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that
               | some lawyers could show up claiming that because Google
               | received a valid takedown notification for a specific
               | file known to be a "pirate" release of some movie, that
               | Google should have known or at least "been aware of facts
               | or circumstances" that _all_ copies of the same file in
               | whatever user accounts are infringing (which might not be
               | the case thanks to fair use, but lawyers and most juries
               | would not care). If they could furthermore demonstrate
               | that Google does already have knowledge required to
               | locate each and every copy of a file in Google Drive
               | accounts easily (e.g. find out through discovery that
               | Google Drive  "deduplicates" storage), then it would be
               | game over with most juries and Google's safe harbor in
               | the case gets denied and they are found liable.
               | 
               | And that's only the US (DMCA) aspect of it. The German
               | Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, highest
               | court of ordinary justice) for example has found in the
               | past[0] that service providers can be liable if they have
               | been previously informed about copyright infringement and
               | did not take "reasonable" steps to prevent further
               | infringement, and that these "reasonable" steps may
               | specifically include checking new uploads and existing
               | files against a list of known-infringing files (or hashes
               | thereof).
               | 
               | Yeah, it sucks that Google and other service providers
               | scan files that way, even if these files are never
               | shared, and it sucks even more when somebody makes a
               | mistake and puts a benign files on the known-infringing
               | list (which is something Google should then correct,
               | apologize for and reset any account flag/reinstate any
               | banned accounts that got in the crossfire due to Google's
               | mistake), but I can also appreciate that law makers and
               | courts around the world have put Google into a situation
               | where Google defacto (if not dejure) has to perform such
               | scans to avoid liability.
               | 
               | [0] In a case involving where Atari sued then-filehoster
               | rapidshare over "Alone in the Dark", in 2012.
        
             | prepend wrote:
             | How is this a problem though? So what if I pirated movies
             | in my cloud storage?
             | 
             | Should my HDD manufactures also scan for pirated movies?
             | 
             | Should samsonite suitcases check for pirated physical dvds?
             | 
             | Should my smarttv check for pirated movies?
             | 
             | Google isn't even responsible legally, they are choosing to
             | do this.
        
               | monkeybutton wrote:
               | If copyright holders had their way, smart TVs would
               | definitely block playing pirated media. To add to your
               | list, why should HDMI care about encryption and stopping
               | piracy?
        
               | mijoharas wrote:
               | From the comment that you are replying to:
               | 
               | > That are shared massively
               | 
               | If the drive is shared, then google is shipping the bits
               | to whoever it is shared with, same as YouTube.
        
         | shp0ngle wrote:
         | If you don't want cloud storage to do this, you need to use
         | cloud storage that doesn't allow sharing between users.
         | 
         | If it allows that, people will misuse it for piracy, which will
         | lead to this.
        
           | flatiron wrote:
           | Or do what I do which is store my copyrighted materials
           | encrypted in the cloud.
        
         | belharius wrote:
         | Could it be an excuse to go through our data thoroughly?
        
       | sigzero wrote:
       | The title makes it sound like it is the macOS users fault and
       | this is totally Googles fault.
        
       | Ansil849 wrote:
       | Has Google publicly explained why they previously flagged files
       | that has just the number '1' in them for copyright infringement
       | [1]? I know they certainly didn't apologize for doing this, but
       | did they at least explain it? At least internally? Did other
       | Googlers ever hear an explanation?
       | 
       | This complete lack of accountability, of acting with total
       | impunity is what really rankles me about big tech.
       | 
       | [1] https://twitter.com/emilyldolson/status/1485434187968614411
        
       | hyperman1 wrote:
       | Yesterday, while discussing backups, someone said end users
       | should basically trust the cloud. This is why it is a bad idea.
       | 
       | The risk is data loss, irrespective if it is because of hardware
       | failure or because of cloud failure connected to overzealous
       | legal enforcement, algorithm decision making failure,or service
       | deprecation.
       | 
       | Part of the risk equation is how big the chance is, and I would
       | really love to see the numbers of hardware faulure vs cloud
       | failure.
       | 
       | Another part is impact. Hardware loss might be recoverable via
       | specific services. Cloud failure, basically you're on your own,
       | and they might revoke access to your email a.k.a. digital
       | identity certificate, or even sick the copyright cartel on you,
       | worst case ending in a police visit taking out the other backups.
        
         | KingOfCoders wrote:
         | I tell all coachees if they are on AWS, also put backups on
         | GCP/Rsync.net/Herzner/... and vice versa. If your data and
         | backups are with one provider it's a non zero risk of losing
         | everything because of account removal.
        
           | rectang wrote:
           | This is sound advice but it's such a pain in neck to
           | implement. Cloud providers have every incentive to make it
           | difficult for you to duplicate your actions to a competitor,
           | and to make it difficult for any third party who wants to
           | provide such duplication as a convenience.
        
             | beagle3 wrote:
             | As long as it is plain files, rclone takes a few minutes to
             | set up, and removes those difficulties.
        
           | Aachen wrote:
           | Especially if it's encrypted, e.g.
           | restic/bupstash/duplicity+pgp/tarsnap/perkeep/borg/kopia/...
           | Good luck finding the hash of a nipple, copyright-claimed
           | material, or other TOS violations in that data.
        
         | viktorcode wrote:
         | Actually, this shows why using Google Drive as a backup storage
         | may be a bad idea.
        
         | ajsnigrutin wrote:
         | Hardware loss is easily avoidable with more hardware... create
         | backups, store them on multiple external drives (for most
         | users, a single modern external drive is enough for all the
         | backups, so the additional ones are for copies), and you can
         | then keep one at home, one at work, one at your parents place,
         | and replace them every now and then to 'refresh' the backups...
         | Most home users don't need hourly or daily backups, they just
         | nee their photo and home video collections saved, their
         | documents scanned etc.
         | 
         | With cloud providers, storing stuff in different datacenters
         | doesn't help you, if you get banned from google, because
         | someone didn't like your youtube comment. Multiple cloud
         | providers might be using the same amazon/azure/... datacenter
         | in the backend. Then there are different L0-L8 problems, from
         | political, where your country gets embargoed due to some
         | ongoing political struggle, or you can move to another
         | location, where the internet is slow. And now, it seems that
         | you can lose data due to stupidity as in the original post.
        
           | Tempest1981 wrote:
           | > easily avoidable
           | 
           | > and you can then keep one at home, one at work, one at your
           | parents place, and replace them every now and then to
           | 'refresh' the backups
           | 
           | Yes, many of us do this. But I wouldn't consider it "easy",
           | esp for the average user.
           | 
           | What % of home computer users own 2+ external drives? Or even
           | 1? I bet it's under 20%.
        
         | datavirtue wrote:
         | I haven't had a hardware failure in so long, it's scary. I keep
         | wondering when my next failure is going to be but my countless
         | laptops, hard drives, NAS, and desktop systems keep chugging
         | along without issue.
         | 
         | I know of a Netgear consumer NAS I installed in 2011 is still
         | running a business, untouched. It uses two enterprise drives in
         | a mirror config.
        
         | philjohn wrote:
         | And this is why I put together a NAS for my home, which then
         | backs up to a cloud provider, encrypted - and if that provider
         | decides to play silly shenanigans I can just as easily colo
         | another box and back up to that as well as any other cloud
         | provider.
         | 
         | ZFS on Linux is stupidly easy to setup, something like URBackup
         | for all your clients to backup onto the NAS and you've got a
         | nice 1-2-3 (with 3 being offsite) backup scheme.
        
           | sofixa wrote:
           | > ZFS on Linux is stupidly easy to setup
           | 
           | For a user familiar with Linux. Even many macOS and Windows
           | based developers would need some time and research to set
           | something like that up, let alone a non technical person.
        
             | j16sdiz wrote:
             | If this is a problem...
             | 
             | Just buy a ready to use box from synology, qnap, western
             | digital, etc... or just use a usb drive.
        
               | csydas wrote:
               | TBH, synology and qnap have awful track records when it
               | comes to data integrity and cause a ton of issues even
               | when using the software the "intended" way. SMB is a
               | chatty protocol in general which makes it hard to
               | troubleshoot, and because of default lack of write-
               | through, you have a non-trivial chance of a situation
               | where the SMB stack returns "this write was a-okay!" but
               | in fact the data never landed on disk and only hit the
               | cache.
               | 
               | My team works with a lot of clients for backups and we've
               | had so many silent corruption cases with lousy synology
               | and qnap boxes that we just don't support them when using
               | SMB or NFS anymore; the built-in stack is just too
               | unreliable. iSCSI is a bit better, but iSCSI isn't how a
               | lot of people want their NAS to work, so it's always a
               | tough discussion. General purpose servers with proper
               | endpoints have always been better, but it's a hard sell
               | to clients.
               | 
               | Directly-attached USB is marginally better in that you
               | don't deal with network protocols, but a lot of companies
               | cheap out on USB controllers and it's a challenge
               | sometimes to convince clients that the on-board
               | controller is the issue when single (small) file writes
               | work without issue.
               | 
               | But long story short, I'd propose a small general purpose
               | server (even Raspberry Pi!) over a QNAP/Synology any day
               | of the week. The latter does everything simply but with
               | excess mediocrity. From my point of view, they hit MVP
               | across a dozen + items, but competency in none.
        
               | adra wrote:
               | People relying on reliable backups building their own
               | storage servers from scratch. Clearly this is universal
               | sage advice that will certainly not end badly for the
               | vast majority of people -_-.
               | 
               | I'm on my second Synology, the first was a cheapish
               | 4-bay; now I'm using a much pricier 8-bay. This is for
               | personal use, but the time and effort saved by using this
               | over hand building has saved me factors more money. I do
               | recommend NFS over SMB for the cheaper models as smbd is
               | a lot more CPU heavy and transfers actually became CPU
               | bound pretty quickly. I've never had data corruption
               | issues in my 10ish years of use, but one subjective data
               | point is pretty crap.
               | 
               | I don't imagine that there are many personal users who
               | need/want ISCSI or other more raw block I/O protocols. As
               | for businesses, off the shelf solutions in your
               | requirements range are often available, and unless you're
               | looking for very specific optimized workloads, there's
               | probably a bit excessively expensive vendor solution that
               | can meet those requirements.
        
               | aborsy wrote:
               | Qnap has had security problems.
               | 
               | But I have never heard of people saying they have lost
               | data due to flaws in synology.
        
               | mschuster91 wrote:
               | With pre-made boxes, you're viable to run into issues
               | when they graciously decide to force a security update on
               | you. QNAP makes extremely decent boxes but last year's
               | behavior that broke _a lot_ of stuff [1] has all but
               | killed my trust in them.
               | 
               | [1]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/decryptor-released-
               | for-deadbol...
        
               | hyperman1 wrote:
               | You can't just buy backup. You have to think about
               | scenarios and you have to test the restore.
               | 
               | As an example, I have an online account and a synology
               | nas. I test my backup every time I move to a new laptop,
               | by doing the data migration trough the restore.
               | 
               | Synology, it turns out, had changed its backup solution,
               | and finding the installer for the old tools needed to
               | restore was non trivial. They also wanted me to click on
               | every individual file, with 100+ K files to go. The
               | alternative was to download a zip file, except this
               | actually timed out before it could complete. All the data
               | was there, except not in a decent restorable format.
               | 
               | Apart from that, this is not an offline backup. If your
               | house has a fire or whatever, your backup is also gone. A
               | NAS on its own is not enough.
               | 
               | I was hoping to use rsync.net as online provider, but
               | they had no way to receive money from a SEPA IBAN. They
               | also store data outside the EU, exposing me to a foreign
               | legislature with markedly lower consumer protection. When
               | looking to the EU, the storage landscape becomes
               | fragmented quickly. There are options, but its not easy.
        
             | datavirtue wrote:
             | Western Digital, Netgear, or Buffalo will do it for you.
             | The cost is a trade of your time...plus the added value of
             | a device that does one thing and does it well.
        
           | mschuster91 wrote:
           | As for "cloud provider and encrypted" - how did you do that?
           | Basically, what I want is a way to back up about 8 TB of data
           | on my (LUKS-encrypted) home server to the cloud, given the
           | following constraints:
           | 
           | - data retrieval is not needed except for recovery case
           | 
           | - ideally, the backup process on the home server side should
           | not be more difficult than a cron job running "rsync -avz
           | --delete /mnt/raid user@server:/mnt/storage"
           | 
           | - integrity of everything should be assured - there's a
           | couple of filesystem-level backups made with "rsync -av" on
           | the data store which means UID/GID, chmod, symlinks, special
           | files (e.g. device files) and whatever Samba uses to store
           | Time Machine xattr metadata must be kept, and there should
           | (but not must) be a way to verify if the file content in the
           | backup is still intact.
           | 
           | - there must be absolutely no way for the cloud or server
           | hosting provider or someone gaining access to the server e.g.
           | via an RCE in the SSH or other sync daemon to access any data
           | (both content and metadata like file name) both in transit
           | and at rest
           | 
           | - it should be _somewhat_ affordable (e.g. Amazon Glacier is
           | ~33 $ a month, Backblaze ~40$ a month)
           | 
           | - ideally, there should be some form of asymmetric encryption
           | be used so that decrypting the data requires the possession
           | of one of three off-site YubiKeys with each having a distinct
           | on-key-generated RSA4096 key and the corresponding password.
           | 
           | The easiest way to accomplish the first three targets would
           | be to simply spin up a tiny AWS EC2 instance with an attached
           | LUKS-encrypted EBS volume or rent a dedicated/colo server
           | somewhere with the same setup and run "rsync -avAHX --delete"
           | on the home server, but that's not affordable and there is a
           | risk of the provider/a hacker accessing/manipulating the
           | cloud server while it is running.
           | 
           | Duplicity plus any "dumb storage" seems to fulfill almost all
           | constraints, but it seems to require either symmetric
           | encryption or access to the private key on the home server -
           | otherwise, how would it be able to decrypt and read the
           | existing backup to find out what has already been backed up?
        
             | lobocinza wrote:
             | > there must be absolutely no way for the cloud or server
             | hosting provider or someone gaining access to the server
             | e.g. via an RCE in the SSH or other sync daemon to access
             | any data (both content and metadata like file name) both in
             | transit and at rest
             | 
             | Gocryptfs.
        
             | tentacleuno wrote:
             | > As for "cloud provider and encrypted" - how did you do
             | that? Basically, what I want is a way to back up about 8 TB
             | of data on my (LUKS-encrypted) home server to the cloud
             | 
             | I personally just throw it all into a .7z file and then
             | upload it to a cloud service (Mega, specifically). I chose
             | 7z as it has the capability to encrypt file names, which
             | would otherwise leak a lot of metadata to the cloud storage
             | provider.
             | 
             | The main downside of this is that Mega deletes your stuff
             | after 3 months of idle time, so I need to periodically
             | check in on it to make it think I'm still using it.
             | 
             | I am really not sure how 8TB of data would fare with this
             | setup though. For one, you'd definitely want to set up some
             | sort of streaming thing instead of buffering the .7z file
             | on the server and then uploading it.
        
               | mschuster91 wrote:
               | Re-uploading 8 TB each month is impossible, here in
               | Germany all you can get on a residential VDSL line is
               | ~10-20 MBit/s, which means you're stuck at 24/7 uploading
               | for way over a month.
        
               | KingOfCoders wrote:
               | Germany: I get 100mbit upload consistently and with 1gbit
               | fiber would get 200mbit+. If in dire need with a second
               | provider that has the fiber in my home already I could
               | get 400mbit+ upload.
        
             | sekh60 wrote:
             | Look into restic or Borg backup. Restic with rclone can
             | directly backup to a lot of cloud providers, with Borg you
             | may have to remount the remote share.
        
               | KingOfCoders wrote:
               | Used rsync.net with borg successfully for years, +1
        
             | jmmv wrote:
             | I think https://www.tarsnap.com/ might do the trick for
             | you.
        
             | msh wrote:
             | Rclone does the encryption and incremental backups
        
             | hx833001 wrote:
             | Aws Glacier deep archive would be $8 a month
        
               | rectang wrote:
               | At least until you need to restore, then I understand
               | that you will pay much more.
        
             | mindslight wrote:
             | > _ideally, there should be some form of asymmetric
             | encryption be used so that decrypting the data requires the
             | possession of one of three off-site YubiKeys with each
             | having a distinct on-key-generated RSA4096 key and the
             | corresponding password_
             | 
             | This last one seems to drastically change the design into a
             | place that hasn't really been developed. It would be quite
             | neat, in addition to adding other properties like a
             | compromise of the backed up server couldn't be used to
             | destroy a backup. But assuming your goal is to
             | pragmatically get it done, I would forgo this and accept
             | that your backed up server is going to have full control
             | over the backups.
             | 
             | FWIW I view online/cloud backups as having the strength of
             | being synced often, and therefore up to date in case
             | physical damage happens to the server. For longer term
             | storage I use offsite drives in a safe deposit box, that
             | take care of things like infrastructure being compromised
             | and deliberately deleted along with online backups. For
             | long term data integrity I use ZFS, borg verify, and ad-hoc
             | sha512sums (for things that don't change much, like music
             | collection).
             | 
             | In general keep in mind that your 8TB to backup likely has
             | a power law distribution where your really important
             | filesets are much smaller and can therefore be
             | inexpensively backed up with more copies.
             | 
             | The best pricing I've seen for block devices is Kimsufi (10
             | USD / 2TB-mo) and buyvm.net (5 USD / 1TB-mo) although I
             | haven't used the latter.
        
               | lobocinza wrote:
               | > In general keep in mind that your 8TB to backup likely
               | has a power law distribution where your really important
               | filesets are much smaller and can therefore be
               | inexpensively backed up with more copies.
               | 
               | In my personal experience a simple ignore list can reduce
               | size by an order of magnitude. Things that doesn't make
               | sense to backup like thumbnails, cache files, development
               | dependencies. And smaller is more robust, not only can it
               | be inexpensively backed up with more copies but it can
               | also be synced more frequently with a lower risk of
               | partition and also is quicker to download and restore.
        
             | cesarb wrote:
             | An option which seems to match most if not all of your
             | requirements is borgbackup. As for the private key,
             | borgbackup has several modes, the default being one where
             | the private key is stored on the server but encrypted with
             | a passphrase; if you don't like it, you could use the mode
             | where the private key encrypted with the passphrase is kept
             | locally and then backup that (very small) key file
             | separately.
        
             | useragent86 wrote:
             | Friendly, pedantic, hopefully helpful reminder:
             | 
             | > - ideally, the backup process on the home server side
             | should not be more difficult than a cron job running "rsync
             | -avz --delete /mnt/raid user@server:/mnt/storage"
             | 
             | A mirror is not the same thing as a backup.
        
       | can16358p wrote:
       | Copyright protections are really getting out of hand, and they
       | are ridiculous:
       | 
       | Nothing to do with this example but today I decided to watch a
       | documentary on my iPhone on Netflix app, which I rarely use on
       | mobile. I liked a scene, took a screenshot to send to someone who
       | might be genuinely interested in watching the documentary (which
       | would even mean potential new customers for Netflix). The
       | screenshot was blank. Then googled it to find it's on DRM
       | grounds.
       | 
       | It takes one person to pirate and distribute a movie online to
       | anywhere on Earth, yet these attempts block normal users from
       | perfectly fair use.
       | 
       | Anyone who is going to pirate things will find a way anyway. Just
       | like the Google example: the whole piracy detection system harms
       | all the perfectly legal, fair use users while pirates have tons
       | of other ways of distributing files anyway.
       | 
       | I wonder when this will end and copyright holders will understand
       | that they're approaching this the wrong way.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | Haha, the fact that Drive engineers couldn't put out a fix
       | quickly does kind of imply something about the
       | product/engineering design cycle. Google does have the reputation
       | in the Bay of being a retirement home for engineers who don't
       | care that much about being good engineers. Looks like that's well
       | deserved.
        
       | noway421 wrote:
       | Given that there's no support you can call, this leaves no
       | recourse if you accidentally sync the wrong .DS_Store. In the
       | reddit post screenshot, there's no button to open a dispute of
       | any kind. I wonder if this also marks your Google account with a
       | "copyright violator" tag and further increases the chance of an
       | automatic ban with the anti spam AI account pruning system that
       | they run.
       | 
       | People who have 10 years worth of data and life linked to their
       | Google Account should be pretty scared.
        
         | KingOfCoders wrote:
         | And if it's your company on GCP good luck.
        
           | jamiek88 wrote:
           | That just scared the shit out of me. Up until an hour ago my
           | company was _completely dependent_ on googles whim.
           | 
           | We often sync workstation backups including similar files to
           | OP.
           | 
           | Wow.
        
       | chmod775 wrote:
       | It is laughable to put something working this badly into your
       | "service" at all.
       | 
       | I realize this was probably 'forced' on some engineers at Google,
       | but I'd still be embarrassed to say I've had a hand in this. A
       | bit like being a supporting character in the worst movie of the
       | year.
       | 
       | At what point do you threaten to quit over being forced to ship
       | crap like automatic scanning of people's private files? I am
       | unable to empathize here at all.
        
         | friedturkey wrote:
         | Unfortunately, past experience at Google is still seen as a
         | good sign in job applications. I think we're at a point where
         | gap years should be a better sign than a stint at that company.
        
           | snovv_crash wrote:
           | Google's engineering is still top-notch. Their product
           | management is what lets the company down.
        
             | ohgodplsno wrote:
             | Google's engineering is, on average, passable. Thousands of
             | brand new grads that have studied to pass 5 rounds of
             | interviews and have no experience are only going to put out
             | barely passable software. Hell, the very reason that Go is
             | so simple is because, by Google's own admission, their sw
             | devs can't be trusted with anything more complex.
             | 
             | What you see coming out of Google that may look cool (when
             | it's not a new chat app they'll kill in two years) has
             | thousands of drones behind.
        
             | bathtub365 wrote:
             | Would building a broken copyright enforcement system fall
             | under engineering or product management?
        
             | jamjamjamjamjam wrote:
             | No it is not
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | "I have a job, it pays me well." That's probably what the
         | majority of employees think. Even the SJW types there don't
         | seem to care about these things.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | Just a guess, but it has the feel of a flawed source database
         | of what's been copyrighted.
         | 
         | Something like a source where if one file in a collection is
         | actually copyrighted, the entire folder/files/collection is
         | assumed to also be copyrighted. And then, each file then goes
         | in a database with a hash, etc.
         | 
         | That would account for this issue, and the earlier one where
         | files with just a one/two/three digit number in them triggered
         | the copyright hammer.
        
       | anothernewdude wrote:
       | Not every copy of a copyrighted file is an infringement. Why is
       | google being insane about this?
        
       | lobocinza wrote:
       | Google doesn't care for it's users and Drive is an horrible
       | product. Don't use it. There are better alternatives for backup
       | both on software and host.
       | 
       | https://github.com/danisztls/arbie
       | 
       | This a backup script that I wrote which does in E2E encryption
       | and syncing integrating Borg, Rclone and Gocryptfs.
        
       | sloan wrote:
       | Oh my gosh, google, get your paws off of our files! You don't get
       | to read them, you see?!
        
       | lobocinza wrote:
       | Have zero trust. Use E2E encryption.
        
       | windex wrote:
       | Google is causing a huge number of headaches of late. The gsuite
       | withdrawal, the forced retiring of perfectly usable apps, the
       | lack of any customer redressal if you get caught in cross fire,
       | the banning of political youtube channels in certain countries,
       | ...
       | 
       | I am actively moving email and data on to my own servers before
       | even more things go down catastrophically.
        
         | kilroy123 wrote:
         | I started the slow process of de-googling my life a few years
         | ago. Google is so bad these days, it's not that hard to replace
         | all the google things. Except one - YouTube.
         | 
         | Gmail -> Fastmail
         | 
         | Browser -> Firefox / Safari
         | 
         | Phone -> iPhone
         | 
         | Google -> DDG
         | 
         | Google Calendar -> Fastmail calendar
         | 
         | Google maps -> Apple Maps
         | 
         | The list goes on and on.
        
         | Gareth321 wrote:
         | I agree. I'm in the process of moving all my services to my own
         | domain so if the worst happens I don't lose access to my
         | primary email address. Anything I upload to GDrive is backup
         | only. I would love if Rumble were to take off because YouTube's
         | censorship over the last couple of years is becoming
         | concerning.
        
       | derekp7 wrote:
       | I was wondering if there is a file format that can be used as a
       | defense against bulk scanning, but isn't necessarily an encrypted
       | file where you would need a key to decode it. What I was thinking
       | is encrypt the file, but store the key in the file in such a way
       | that it requires an expensive computational operation to decode
       | the key. When reading a single file it may take an extra couple
       | seconds to open it, which could be ok for an end user, but it
       | would make mass scanning impractical. One way of doing this I can
       | think of is starting off with a random string that is recorded in
       | the file header, then running it through bcrypt with a suitable
       | cost factor, in order to derive the actual encryption key for the
       | rest of the file.
        
         | keonix wrote:
         | Make it so decoding feasible only using some consumer hardware
         | not usually found in servers, but omnipresent on consumer
         | devices. GPU for example
        
       | DeathMetal3000 wrote:
       | I won't use a drive service that is not e2ee. My files are my own
       | business. There are multiple alternatives out there like sync.com
       | (no, I'm not affiliated with them).
       | 
       | Disclaimer: I also don't store copyrighted material.
        
         | 0xcde4c3db wrote:
         | Unless you are very careful not to, you probably do store
         | copyrighted material, and there's a nontrivial chance that some
         | of it is technically infringing. Copyright is much broader than
         | most people realize, and the continued existence of the
         | information economy largely relies on big copyright holders
         | being reasonable and choosing their battles.
        
       | tpoacher wrote:
       | Is there a good word for when a solution is bad (in a 'defective
       | by design' sense) but offloads all the "badness" to the
       | competitor, ironically making it look good to casual users?
       | 
       | Like mac introducing files that are hidden to a mac but littering
       | the place in other systems.
       | 
       | Or like Google nor caring about false positives as long as its
       | customers (i.e. record labels) are happy.
       | 
       | In any case, I don't lose much sleep when one bad design hits
       | another. My advice is the same as in the general case: avoid such
       | systems.
        
         | tokamak-teapot wrote:
         | The files don't have to 'litter the place' on other systems. We
         | have advanced technology that can hide such files from users.
        
           | vntok wrote:
           | Hiding special files doesn't remove them. They are still
           | there, in every directory, sitting completely useless,
           | thereby littering the place.
        
         | viktorcode wrote:
         | .DS_Store is pretty neat solution to store folder-specific
         | metadata. Whenever a user changes settings on how contents of
         | the folder are displayed the file gets created. And since
         | .DS_Store is a local file it is portable. Nothing breaks when
         | folder is moved anywhere. Some programs use that to present a
         | simple drag'n'drop installation picture. You don't need
         | anything else, just a folder with correctly positioned files
         | and custom background image.
         | 
         | I wouldn't call it a bad solution.
        
         | cesarb wrote:
         | > Is there a good word for when a solution is bad (in a
         | 'defective by design' sense) but offloads all the "badness"
         | 
         | I believe the expression you're looking for is "negative
         | externality".
        
           | tpoacher wrote:
           | That's a good one, but I'm not sure if it captures the full
           | extent of the idea; in this case, the negative externality is
           | a 'feature' for the transacting party, whereas in general the
           | phrase 'negative externality' simply implies some negative
           | external consequence of the transaction was not duly
           | considered during the transaction (at least as I understand
           | it; am I wrong?).
           | 
           | What I have in mind is things like, e.g. youtube amping their
           | ad ratio by 100% when they started offering paid
           | subscriptions. Or Apple intentionally not fixing features
           | that cripple using windows on their new Intel processor. Or
           | IOS shaming android users in their messaging app instead of
           | providing appropriate support. Or MS Word detecting files
           | written in libreoffice as 'corrupt' and offering to fix them.
           | Or matlab introducing syntactical changes that break octave.
           | Or Android making you go through hoops to use software
           | outside of the play store. etc.
           | 
           | In other words, if you're a company engaging in such a
           | tactic, it's probably not that you haven't necessarily
           | considered how a 'feature' might affect users of competing
           | products; it's probably that you _have_ considered it, and it
           | 's just that extra bit of friction to make them feel your own
           | product is more streamlined and superior (for all the wrong
           | reasons).
        
         | csydas wrote:
         | If you're talking about .DS_Store, understand that it's not
         | just by comparison that it's better; .DS_Store does a lot for
         | MacOS users and while they have no idea that .DS_Store does
         | this, your average Mac user probably would be upset to lose
         | things like the Finder column defaults per directory, the
         | window position, etc.
         | 
         | While I understand it's an annoyance to deal with an OS
         | specific feature, at the same time, .DS_Store is so predictable
         | that I just can't see how it's a challenge to deal with.
         | Everything you need to know as a non-Mac user is basically "you
         | don't need to consider this except by special request", and at
         | worst, the end-result of not considering .DS_Store is your
         | user(s) have to reset a few window settings.
         | 
         | I truly don't get the vitriol expressed towards .DS_Store; it's
         | a hidden system file like any other and I struggle to
         | understand the use cases where having .DS_Store in a directory
         | is an issue. I have read countless articles complaining on it,
         | but I've not heard a reason beyond "it junks up file systems",
         | which can be said about _any_ system file.
        
           | prvc wrote:
           | Perhaps that information doesn't need to be preserved. There
           | also doesn't seem to be a way to modify this behavior.
        
           | lurker616 wrote:
           | Why isn't something like that required on windows or linux?
        
             | tomerv wrote:
             | Windows has Thumbs.db
        
               | Tempest1981 wrote:
               | And desktop.ini, for folder customization
        
             | lobocinza wrote:
             | Linux has XDG base directories despite many vendors no
             | using them.
             | 
             | https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory
             | 
             | PS. I don't know about Mac but Windows also have similar
             | directories although more of a mess.
             | 
             | There's no reason to save artifacts or local user config
             | along with data.
        
       | throwawaymanbot wrote:
        
       | [deleted]
        
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