End of the road for Google Drive in Transmit

https://blog.panic.com/end-of-the-road-for-google-drive-and-transmit/

by donatj • 2 years ago

336 189 2 years ago

blog.panic.com

mzagaja• 2 years ago

Google really is wrecking hell on third party integrations.

Jyaif• 2 years ago

"The fastest path to wealth is the construction of these digital platforms, where other people depend on you."

- Eric Schmidt.

Many products leads at Google seem to disagree!

indymike• 2 years ago

Depends.

Build it, get dependent developers, start charging dependent developers, ????, profit.

teqsun• 2 years ago

Title on the blog is now (changed?):

"End of the Road for Google Drive in Transmit"

The being unfamiliar with Transmit the "and" gave me a startle

davedx5• 2 years ago

But then… a couple of months later, Google completely removed the option for us to scan our own code. Instead, to keep access to Google Drive, we would now have to pay one of Google’s business partners to conduct the review.

What a racket. Smells downright anti-competitive The EU will have fun with this when it catches up.

rammer2• 2 years ago

It wasn't even that expensive. Ada security audit from tekta in Spain was under 4k.

There's nothing like a racket here. The list of certification agencies goes from KPMG at top end to smaller companies.

anakaine• 2 years ago

4k is not expensive in enterprise terms, but in small bootstrapped startup terms it is absolutely expensive.

davedx5• 2 years ago

They're partners, not just agencies you independently get to choose, right? That's what I'm getting at with the racket part.

You don't get to interop with one of the biggest cloud providers in the world unless you complete commercial audits with one of their partners.

Given the kind of collusion Google's shown itself capable of [1] do you really think this is all fair?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

aaronharnly• 2 years ago

Just as a data point, we paid $750 for one of these engagements (scan + some discussion about use cases etc) to one of Google's preferred providers. There were multiple options for providers.

petre2• 2 years ago

Smells downright anti-competitive The EU will have fun with this when it catches up

What? The EU wants to introduce certifications for all products and services, further kneecapping local innovation through regulation and costly certifications.

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/cybersecur...

davedx5• 2 years ago

Seems more like a harmonization effort than what Google is proposing here? Or maybe I'm reading it wrong.

If I don't get one of these mandarin-approved certifications, will I no longer be able to do business? [The Google audits are a hard barrier to connecting to their cloud platform]

It's perhaps a difference between prescriptive and descriptive.

mardifoufs8• 2 years ago

The EU absolutely loves adding requirements for certifications, so no I don't think they would get involved here. In fact, it's something they are pushing for in general.

davedx5• 2 years ago

Can you expand on what you mean? Which commercial certifications has the EU pushed?

fragmede2• 2 years ago

The EU will have fun with this when it catches up.

I don't think you know how the EU works.

davedx5• 2 years ago

I live here, I have a fairly good idea. The EU has quite aggressively pursued different big tech companies over the last few years. The fines have become quite material.

bigfatkitten3• 2 years ago

I wonder which VP+ at Google is getting kickbacks from KPMG?

teruakohatu2• 2 years ago

I am not sure smaller devs were given the option of self-scanning code. I always wondered what the point of that was, given that there is no way for Google to ensure that the scanned code was the version distributed, and even then, as soon as a minor update was released it would have been out of date.

dewey7• 2 years ago

Because they don't care about security, it's compliance-checkbox-driven policies.

xp845• 2 years ago

Bingo! The whole thing is for butt-covering purposes. It's just so that when something happens, Google can then say "We followed $STANDARDS_BODY Policy #420.69, so we can't be held responsible!" Theoretically even Panic would gain a little butt-covering from it too. "Look, this vulnerability was so hard to spot that even these very professional security auditors missed it 8 years in a row!"

It's all still pretty worthless though imho.

fidotron• 2 years ago

There is a clear subtext to this and the Play Store changes: everyone interacting with the Google ecosystem is going to be pinned down and deanonymized with rights assigned based on legal identities. This will be done in the name of security. There is no freedom in who you trust here.

The big question here is if all this was preemptive or the response to something.

akira2501• 2 years ago

All monopolies do this. Once they're past the point where the government can effectively regulate them they essentially take over and regulate the market for their own interests. Google is very good at this. They're probably better at this than actually writing code these days.

Which is why anyone and everyone should flat out avoid them as a company.

teruakohatu2• 2 years ago

The original title now reads “…for Google drive in Transmit”. @donatj can you correct the HN title please.

donatj• 2 years ago

Fixed

quantadev7• 2 years ago

Never hitch your wagon to somebody else's horse.

Entire companies have been destroyed because they rely on Amazon, Google, or some other service, and then have the rug pulled. Sometimes companies have even been destroyed, notably by Amazon, for having the wrong political viewpoints.

My rule of thumb is: Only use open source components, and only run my stuff on Linux. So that way I maintain full control over my stack, and stay mostly immune from the political rug pulls, and other kinds of rug pulls.

stavros2• 2 years ago

Some of these wagons only managed to move because they were hitched to someone else's horse.

gopher_space• 2 years ago

My concern is that people aren't building their own horses the minute it becomes feasible. The farrier now seems mystical and occult to a generation even though they're more than capable of picking up the tools themselves.

dewey7• 2 years ago

That sounds great, but also for an app that interacts with > 10 services and companies it's not really a good advice.

Only use open source components, and only run my stuff on Linux

Most people don't have the luxury of never having to interact with Google Drive, MS Teams, Slack etc.

quantadev7• 2 years ago

Sure integration points to all that are great. The mistake is when your entire company can no longer function at all without Amazon AWS for example. I've worked at a place like that.

EDIT: Of course if you're sure your politics are completely left-leaning you'll have no censorship worries, because these platforms are mostly Silicon Valley run. Also since conservatives basically don't play dirty in this way, the conservatives won't censor stuff just because it's left-leaning. We're for protecting freedom of all legal speech and actions.

mullingitover6• 2 years ago

Sometimes companies have even been destroyed, notably by Amazon, for having the wrong political viewpoints.

Ok, I'll ask: what company did Amazon destroy for having the wrong political viewpoint?

AWS hosts some pretty vile stuff without blinking. The last time a company made a big "woe is me, my ideas are being suppressed" claim against Amazon, it was Parler, and they weren't kicked off for their viewpoints. They were kicked off for operating a crime-ridden site with zero effective moderation.

kurisufag2• 2 years ago

never forget that Old Cloudflare kept lulzsec's site up /while they were defacing .gov pages/, then gave a talk at DEF CON about how they managed it.

we can have better standards for speech and platforming than "you didn't moderate enough".

Spivak• 2 years ago

Look, they were kicked off for their content. I hesitate to call their content "viewpoints" but it's become roughly synonymous with speech so I guess it kinda fits. Regardless, I'm happy they did it. I think there is room for "exception that proves the rule" type behavior. When the bridge too far is literal Nazis I'm okay with considering AWS to still be politically neutral. No ToS violation (which was flimsy at best) needed.

jasonvorhe• 2 years ago

They quickly kicked off WikiLeaks under political pressure.

Moto7451• 2 years ago

I don’t know about the political stuff that poster is talking about but this is true for quite a few small stores that transitioned to mail order as Amazon really took off. If you couldn’t handle complaints quickly enough or had too many flagged listings (stuff Amazon didn’t want to allow on the platform for one reason or another) you could get kicked off without much recourse except trying to open a new account and hope you were not caught.

You could see this as good for the consumer in cases where the abuse is bad but the store I was at in the 00s got kicked off for selling some Martial Arts equipment legal in 47 States but on a naughty list we were unaware of. We listed it in a few colors and that was enough to get kicked out.

TwiztidK• 2 years ago

Not too long after Parler was kicked off AWS, I was on a call with hundreds of representatives from power utilities about a modeling tool we were transitioning to. It was mentioned that the tool was hosted on AWS and someone suggested they have a fallback plan in case they got kicked off like "other companies".

0xdeadbeefbabe• 2 years ago

Then have the write political viewpoints instead. It seems popular.

AStonesThrow• 2 years ago

Enjoy the ride https://youtu.be/2mdg9h4HjPw?si=f12DQK1pYt9fILSN

thelittleone• 2 years ago

Worth mentioning Stripe among the destroyers. Sure a percentage of those who complain on r/stripe are breaking ToS, but it's evident that a substantial % are not. Stripe ToS allows them to profit from investing held funds. Once funds are held, nobody at Stripe responds. Has taken years for some to get their funds returned. I wonder how much funds they have on hold at any one time and how much they're making on it.

tiltowait2• 2 years ago

Never hitch your wagon to somebody else's horse.

Though this was a nice and welcome feature, it wasn’t Transmit’s only feature nor even its main one. I don’t think this sentiment applies, exactly.

cyberax• 2 years ago

Entire companies have been destroyed because they rely on Amazon

I assume the retail side, not the AWS?

crabmusket• 2 years ago

That's not really relevant to the problem at hand, which is the ability to integrate with the large and widely used tech giants' platforms. Customers do use Google Drive (unfortunately) and thus the need to integrate.

dewey7• 2 years ago

Even the "audit" they require for increasing something simple as your YouTube API quota is already annoying and a massive waste of time, and this is not even close to the one they are requiring from Panic.

The quota increase process is roughly:

1) Fill out the same form every year from scratch

2) Send it into the black hole that's Google "support"

3) A few weeks later receive a reply from someone asking a irrelevant question to our use case

4) Two weeks later another person replies asking for screenshots of the "implementation", so you send a screenshot of "func storeTrailerMetadata()"

5) Another two weeks later, another automated person replies that you got approved.

kyleee• 2 years ago

The process is the punishment

jll29• 2 years ago

That's a diamond of a quote; are you a student of Kafka's?

t0mas88• 2 years ago

The Google "support" black hole even exists for their high budget ad customers. I've seen a case where things went into the Google support black hole for a company spending a few million per month via DV360 / Google Ads. Nothing anyone could do about it, campaign blocked, work with "support" to fix it.

8338550bff96• 2 years ago

Have the same experience with Microsoft support. The difference is the timeline is much shorter and when our issues don't get any traction our rep intervenes and escalates to engineers.

I understand that level-1 support for these orgs are basically documentation librarians. Cool. We pay an incredible amount for premium support, but whatever. It's fine. What matters is that we have a rep that is engaged and cares about us being unblocked and isn't going to let us flounder for issues their support team is not going to solve. Have never seen this level of commitment from Google.

happymellon• 2 years ago

And as much as I dislike Amazon and the juggernaut of AWS, this is how they win me over.

It's rarely a complete black hole, and I have spoken to product engineers and owners for multiple lines.

adamc2• 2 years ago

Just another reason to not deal with Google. Eventually, gravity is going to catch up with them, and they will never recover, because their business culture is shit. Zero interest or focus on the customers.

psd15• 2 years ago

I think they are already dead, tbh. Much like IBM but not so far advanced.

JamesBarney2• 2 years ago

When we filled ours out for a CRM they wanted a video of the CRM. So we showed them a video (from dev with fake data). We appealed the process explaining that Mickey Mouse is a not a real person. They rejected that appeal. So after going back and forth for a week or two we uploaded a video with basically everything but the navmenu blurred out and they finally approved it.

The entire process was awful.

nhubbard• 2 years ago

Any tier of Google Support is 100% a black hole. I had an extremely unusual issue with a service in Google Cloud, tried to debug it and failed. I filed a ticket and waited because P1 was only for “production” issues, but our issue was for development.

A few days later, the Google engineer assigned notes to us that we can escalate to P1 if this is blocking our workflow, even when not in production. I take this to my manager and they agree that it’s time to move it to P1.

We move it to P1 and immediately get traction, only to be stonewalled by a support engineer confidently asserting that the code throwing the error, which only existed in a private Google-maintained container, which only interfaced with our app through launching a cloud job through their platform, was actually our responsibility.

No joke, they actually said “As stated in my prior message, this issue is due to your code”, despite our code being a thin wrapper around their demonstration code to run it from the command line.

In my most business professional tone, I tell them off for lying to us about them debugging on their end and inform them that I will be immediately escalating because of this dissatisfactory response. This finally gets the ticket moving and a few weeks later, a bug fixed version of the entire platform is deployed.

Total time from start to finish:

- P2: 2.5 weeks of daily updates - P1, until we’re told that it’s our fault: 8 hours - P1 escalated until issue was completely fixed: 5 weeks

We paid for premium support. I cannot imagine how bad free support is.

jonnybarnes• 2 years ago

Sounds similar to what iA Writer are going through: https://ia.net/topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite

hoistbypetard• 2 years ago

Sure does. The article even says, on the first screenful of text:

You may have seen iA Writer’s announcement that they are stopping development of their Android version for similar reasons. Our experience was different, but our circumstances are similar. While Google Drive may not be the most popular connection option in Transmit, we know many users rely on it, and we often use it here at Panic to send and receive files from the game developers we work with.

addisonj• 2 years ago

Man... this stuff sucks. If I were panic, I would do the same... but I also wouldn't want to be the one at google to navigate this.

With Google Drive now being at the center of so many companies for storing business data, I am certain it is a juicy target, and third party access with full access to read and write to that big hard drive full of proprietary data is one that I would understand want to lock down... but not like this?

I don't think the market is anywhere near to shifting where business are going to dump google drive en masse, but as the ecosystem shrinks because so few companies can afford the cost to play in google's backyard, it does make me wonder how many companies are going to absolutely resent google, comparable to the way they resented oracle.

dewey7• 2 years ago

With Google Drive now being at the center of so many companies for storing business data, I am certain it is a juicy target, and third party access with full access to read and write to that big hard drive full of proprietary data is one that I would understand want to lock down... but not like this?

Could be a Google Workspace policy where you can just set that employees can't access the corporate Drive account through third party apps, while it continues to work for personal accounts.

sadeshmukh• 2 years ago

That's already how it works for workspace, in my experience.

resters• 2 years ago

I think if there is one "value" that stands out from Google's culture (as it is reflected onto its customers) it is tremendous lack of empathy.

- Google maps appears to be designed by non-drivers. Much of hte time it is impossible to find out the name of cross streets near one's location by zooming in. Pins get added accidentally and are hard to categorize and find, there is no notion of neighborhoods, and the voice directions say the same redundant thing over and over (and it is often misleading). No intelligent person could design the product that way if they actually used it.

- Google's parental control features in android lack granularity, and the bias is toward kids watching garbage content as there is no way to share curated lists or for creators to become curators of high quality youtube content, etc. For anyone with young kids this is a must have feature and Google has ignored this kind of thing for years. Also if your kid's phone dies there is no way to remove it from the FamilyLink app! Someone really tested it thoroughly!

- Google Home / Nest. Exceptionally buggy devices. Basic functionality like shared speakers (all Nest over Nest wifi) are buggy and slow. "Hey Google" takes an extra few seconds to respond compared to Alexa and none of it is compatible with Google Advanced Security (Google's own feature!). Nobody building this tech is using it at home or else they would be furious about these big oversights.

- Gemini in Gmail is a total dud. It can't tell me what upcoming events are listed in my email inbox. It biases toward searching the inbox, and GMail inbox search has been highly broken for years. I participated in a user study at Google a while back and the PM admitted it was broken and would not be fixed.

Google is now a cash cow advertising business and thanks to Eric Schmidt (a brilliant but morally lacking individual) it has become a major defense contractor.

Thanks to OpenAI and others, Google search is already dead. The market hasn't caught up with this yet. I sincerely regret making gmail my main email, as the company seems to have completely lost its way. In spite of a lot of brilliance the lack of empathy with users and the need to deliver products that solve problems continues to persist.

artooro• 2 years ago

It's almost like the incentives at Google are misaligned, who knew.

FredPret• 2 years ago

Probably a big part of the problem is this:

- good engineers and managers earn well, especially in the US

- they want to own premium products

- where Google and Apple compete, Apple has gone for the premium end and Google has gone for the mass-market end

- speculation: thus Google employees aren't living in their own ecosystem

hn_throwaway_996• 2 years ago

I wrote this response to another front page HN article on a similar topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41664753

I know everyone loves to dunk on Google, and I definitely agree their communication and customer service to app developers is shite, but this change to permissions scope is a good thing. If you have full, unfettered access to large number of people's Google Drive data, you're a huge target for malevolent actors. If you can't afford the new audit requirements (which I've done and are quite easy - if anything I'm sympathetic to the argument that they're more "box ticking" than valuable security audits), then I'd really question your ability to appropriately safeguard so much critically private data. For reference, these audits are about 1/20th as complicated as a full SOC 2 audit, for example.

FWIW I'm not previously familiar with this Transmit app, but based on their use cases (e.g. backup) it sounds like the limited "drive.file" scope wouldn't work for them. Still, if you want complete, unfettered access to my entire Drive account, I don't think it's a bad thing that Google is enforcing some minimal security standards.

dewey7• 2 years ago

which I've done and are quite easy - if anything

Did you read the part where it took multiple months to continue because of slow replies and non-working tooling from Google's side?

It's also pretty expensive for a relatively niche app, it might be fine if you are Dropbox or a big VC funded Mail app but for smaller companies it's not "easy".

I don't think it's a bad thing that Google is enforcing some minimal security standards.

How would Google find out if the version that they are "scanning" is the same one that gets uploaded to the app store on every small app update? Zero, so there's no security benefit.

rammer2• 2 years ago

We've done it too, first time it was hard but it's required and recommended.

It raises the bar for low effort hackers and improves security.

I disagree with the op. Sorry mate go through the casa audit and get the access .

SoftTalker2• 2 years ago

If you can't afford the new audit requirements ... then I'd really question your ability to appropriately safeguard so much critically private data.

Because large companies that can afford it have proven to be exemplars at safeguarding private data?

ChadNauseam• 2 years ago

If you can't afford to buy starbucks every day, I'd really question your ability to buy a private jet. However, that doesn't mean that being able to afford to buy starbucks every day is sufficient to being able to afford to buy a private jet.

IncreasePosts• 2 years ago

Like google? Yes, I think so. Probably one of the best track records among big tech, so maybe their security practices should carry more weight?

ianlevesque• 2 years ago

I think it's relevant that Transmit is a local native app. There's no hosted app exposed to the internet to hack here. Google made one lengthy process that doesn't fit this use case.

StarterPro• 2 years ago

If they are connecting to Google Drive, is that not connected to the internet?

mikeocool2• 2 years ago

Panic runs a cloud-hosted sync service that syncs your credentials and connection info between different instances of Transmit you may have.

No idea if that's what google is targeting here, but that is a cloud service, that presumably gets a copy of people's Google Drive OAuth keys if they use Google Drive with Transmit and the sync service.

AlexandrB• 2 years ago

Google's not my dad. It's not their responsibility (or their place) to audit every piece of software I use to interact with their services. I'm tired of being treated like a child who needs every sharp corner ground down for my safety.

Edit: Next logical step is auditing every IMAP client before you can connect it to Gmail. Ridiculous.

hn_throwaway_996• 2 years ago

You say that, but I've been in plenty of situations where people say they're comfortable taking on the risk themselves, but then when shit blows up, they come and blame the biggest actor (with the biggest pockets) they can. I mean, just check out some sob stories that made the front pages of NYT and Washington Post when people got scammed out of a lot of crypto money - I've read a bunch of those and always the first thing I think is "lord, there is no way these people should have had a dime in crypto in the first place", but then when they lose their money they're the first to blame everyone else but themselves.

jasonjayr• 2 years ago

Edit: Next logical step is auditing every IMAP client before you can connect it to Gmail. Ridiculous.

Actually .... They're not that far away from that, if they're not already implementing it. Office365, and Google, if they haven't already have disabled basic Auth for IMAP/SMTP, and only supporting oauth2. Which requires a AppId/ClientSecret handed out out by registering your app with Microsoft/Google.

It seems that you can still steal thunderbirds appid/clientsecret from their open source code, for now ( https://simondobson.org/2024/02/03/getting-email/ ) , but ......

jsnell4• 2 years ago

They're the ones who will take the blame when a third-party app gets compromised and is used to siphon off people's data.

This isn't a theoretical concern. It's pretty much exactly what happened with Cambridge Analytica. Facebook didn't really do anything wrong; they provided an API for data access, people explicitly authorized an app with broad access their data, and it turned out that the app was basically a trojan horse for data collection. And politicians, the media, the general public, and even the technologically savvier people who should know better all blamed Facebook for this.

acdha5• 2 years ago

That seems like a poor argument for an app which doesn’t mirror data or accept commands remotely (if I can control your app on your device, I can control the official Google Drive app) but there is a general point about full drive access. However, I think the answer there is for Google to improve the security model for Drive - for example, allow the user to select a non-root folder which Transmit or iA Writer can use and have some UI indicating that it’s shared. Instead, this process serves as a competitive moat and isn’t very effective – all of the large companies that we’ve seen getting breached are going to pay KPMG to spend time on performative box checking, and your data will still be exfiltrated but they’ll at least say they’re very sorry.

joshuamorton2• 2 years ago

However, I think the answer there is for Google to improve the security model for Drive - for example, allow the user to select a non-root folder which Transmit or iA Writer can use and have some UI indicating that it’s shared.

The oauth scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file [0]basically allows this. If memory serves the app can use this scope, create a folder, and have access to things within that folder, it can certainly have access to all files created via the app (which should in general be true for iA and probably also Transmit). Offhand, I don't actually see what iA or Transmit are doing that needs the broader scope, though TotalCommander, trying to be a replacement file manager would still need the biggest scopes.

[0]: See https://developers.google.com/drive/api/guides/api-specific-..., the drive.file scope is non-sensitive so it needs a much more cursory approval process

Ferret74462• 2 years ago

How do you know it doesn't mirror data or accept commands remotely, or that it has no vulnerabilities/backdoors which can make it do so? Perhaps you could do an audit of it or something...

cpr• 2 years ago

The problem is that if you want to provide a full-featured file picker, and not rely on Google's limited browser-based version, your app will require the full "drive" scope. (We do, and we do, for our InDesign-to-Google Docs connector plugin.)

If you use some of the lower-tier CASA labs, it's not that expensive (4K/year), but it is definitely a nuisance for a pure desktop plugin like ours that has absolutely no cloud component (other than connecting to GDocs).

tlogan• 2 years ago

The problem with Google’s security certifications, especially when compared to competitors like Salesforce and Microsoft, is how disorganized the process is. While these companies all require security reviews, Google’s approach seems particularly disorganized: if something goes wrong, there’s almost no one to contact for help.

The certifications themselves are valuable, but Google’s main issue lies in its poor communication and support. Third-party developers, even those paying $60k annually for re-certification, struggle to get timely responses or any at all.

What’s ironic is that the very partners handling these certifications often avoid using Google themselves because it’s “unreliable if something unusual happens.”

And that’s the crux of the issue—when things do go wrong or something unusual happens, it’s incredibly difficult to resolve.

hn_throwaway_996• 2 years ago

100% agree. Again, my position is that Google rightfully deserves all the criticism they get around communication and customer support. I just think it's a mistake to confuse that criticism with Google's change to enforce better security for highly sensitive permission scopes.

rakoo3• 2 years ago

This assumes that Google can be trusted with my data and other apps can't, and that I'm ok with Google assessing the safety of other apps. It's something that is automatic, and right now it needs to be explained.

Yes, assessing the trustability of apps is important. No, I don't trust Google to do it properly. Maybe I didn't choose Google because I find them the best, but because I have to (because Google, surprise surprise, forces itself down the throat of everyone, so the people I want to collaborate with use it).

Did my apps certify Google as a trustable provider ?

hn_throwaway_996• 2 years ago

If you don't trust Google, why are you using Drive in the first place?

theamk• 2 years ago

That makes no sense - if you don't trust Google Drive, don't use it.

Google is not "forcing itself down the throat" with Google Drive, and even my Android phone comes with 3 cloud providers.

And yes, your apps certified Google as a trustable provider when they added support for it. Such support is not automatic, it requires non-trivial effort, and presumable no one would do it for services they do not trust.

xp845• 2 years ago

if you want complete, unfettered access to my entire Drive account,

Panic never got complete or unfettered (or any) access to my Google Drive. I got access. I used their application, which can easily be supervised with Little Snitch or other software to prove that is not sending a copy of my credentials or my files to Panic. If it were OSS it would be even more categorically provable that it's not giving access to anyone but the end user, but these draconian requirements would still apply.

The point is, Google is telling THEIR users, not Panic, that they aren't qualified to use their own judgment to select a client. It woudl be just as bad as Microsoft saying that if you want to check your email or access SharePoint you can't use anything but Edge (insert jokes about how they basically did do that 20 years ago with MSIE, but let's be serious, that sort of thing would be rightfully mocked today).

I don't think it's a bad thing that Google is enforcing some minimal security standards.

These certification programs are 100% a moneymaking program to engage in a lot of box-checking, which I'd wager has zero correlation with a positive outcome for anyone other than the shareholders of the "labs" that do these audits.

oarsinsync• 2 years ago

The point is, Google is telling THEIR users, not Panic, that they aren't qualified to use their own judgment to select a client. It woudl be just as bad as Microsoft saying that if you want to check your email or access SharePoint you can't use anything but Edge (insert jokes about how they basically did do that 20 years ago with MSIE, but let's be serious, that sort of thing would be rightfully mocked today).

Isn't Google doing the same thing today with YouTube? Isn't that what led MS to give up on EdgeHTML and adopt Blink instead?

amiantos• 2 years ago

They're my files in Google Drive. If I've made the choice to buy a product from Panic, and I trust Panic as a company personally, it should be my right to decide to give Panic access to my files in Google Drive. It is not up to Google to shuffle money into the pockets of their security partners under the guise of doing it for my safety. My safety and the safety of my files is my responsibility, not Google's, and it's oddly convenient from a monetary perspective (both for Google itself and their partners) for Google to suddenly care a lot more about this than they used to, so it does not seem particularly altruistic in any way.

psd15• 2 years ago

I agree with your point for, say, Linux.

For the plebs, no, they do not have the capacity. Out there is 7 billion meatbags who have had of a million years of selection for a tribal savannah environment, ten thousand years of selection for an agrarian lifestyle, two hundred years of selection for life in cities, and ten years of selection in the information era.

They're fucking children. They are savannah monkeys. They fall victim to rudimentary scams. They are unable to make an informed choice.

When you get into the billions of users, you become a parent to those users. Parents don't let toddlers get into the knife drawer.

zoogeny• 2 years ago

This is both a curse and an opportunity. Compliance is one of those things that is costly and time-consuming but can lead to entrenchment in certain industries. I worked for a client eons ago that went through the enormous hassle of HIPPA compliance and now it is a bit of a moat for them. Having SOC 2 compliance almost feels like table stakes for b2b SaaS these days.

It does disgust me that Google is going this route. I wonder how much influence is coming from governmental agencies. It is possible they are being forced in some way based on some kind of KYC-like requirements. Or perhaps the volume of bad actors is even higher than I imagine and Google is being forced to do this just to keep the lights on for the API at all. But the fact of the matter is that they are offloading the cost of whatever compliance they need onto their platform users, the people who are spending time and effort to improve the Google ecosystem. It feels petty and short-sighted but I suppose that Google has shifted into an extraction phase on behalf of their investors. We'll probably see a lot more of this kind of nickel and diming from them.

imhoguy2• 2 years ago

As per mentioned Ghisler page: "The security assessment would have to be performed by a specialized company, and costs up to $75'000 per year and program (so $150'000 for 32bit+64-bit). This is not sustainable even with a subscription." [0]

This is death kiss to indie developement.

But paradoxically it is great. Killing interoperability is nail to coffin. This brings more and more focus to alternative solutions out of Google market, especially in independent software area. Like yt-dlp, FreeTube, F-Droid - actually all my family uses them and I recommend it to everyone. I can't wait to get some alternative GDrive client lib which simulates browser to throw data over that garden wall, and I don't care if it nags with captcha. The more hassle the more people are going to hate that ivory tower.

[0] https://www.ghisler.com/googledrivehelp.htm

LegitShady2• 2 years ago

Its the kiss of death for google drive support, and eventually when many apps don't support using google drive people who are on it will switch to other cloud storage providers.

adamc2• 2 years ago

Yep. I use drive but keep waiting for some clear alternative to arrive. My biggest use is just keeping D&D campaign-related materials there.

Google is a drag.

ffsm8• 2 years ago

WebDAV is pretty easy to configure on all operating systems I'm aware of. You wouldn't even need a third party client.

You can do that self hosted or via fastmail or similar

psd15• 2 years ago

Sync thing runs on any device you own. I have a docker container running FileBrowser for Web access.

dghlsakjg• 2 years ago

I'm surprised that there isn't more support for just using object storage via a GUI.

I would love for as user friendly way to just use Backblaze or some other S3 compatible provider as my drive.

Edit: I guess that's sort of exactly what Transmit does, but I want something that is simple enough that anyone can use it.

xp845• 2 years ago

Transmit is as "easy" as one could imagine software of that type being.

You do have to know what a file is and what a directory is, mind you, which is something I can non-ironically say does rule out half of GenZ or anyone else raised in the postmodern era, where 'content' just lives 'in' an 'app' and can be searched for (and if you're lucky, found). But I don't think people of that minimum level of sophistication are in the market for products like Backblaze or S3 - they're just out there paying for more iCloud storage (or new laptops) because Apple said they are out of space.

closeparen2• 2 years ago

This is what everyone said they wanted after Cambridge Analytica! For platforms to exercise due diligence before allowing users to delegate their access to third parties.

sam_lowry_• 2 years ago

Before Cambridge Analytica I could get language stats for Belgium down to municipalities.

These are illegal otherwise, but very useful for journalists reporting on political matters.

csinode• 2 years ago

Wasn't a significant part of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that Facebook gave them access to user data _without_ the user's consent?

kmeisthax• 2 years ago

Yes, the situation superficially resembles Cambridge Analytica, but there's a few differences here. People aren't building detailed dossiers of themselves on Google Drive like they were on Facebook, and Transmit is a client app that is honest, open and up-front about how it uses your data - to move it in and out of Google Drive.

To be clear, the problem with Cambridge Analytica was not Cambridge Analytica. The problem was - and still is - Facebook's habit of getting everyone to overshare and self-surveil. There needs to be some control and vetting over the apps that have access to your data but not so much that actually honest developers are quitting the game.

My guess is that Google just doesn't want third-party clients (you can't shove "AI" or "Investor Advertising" into it), so they're slowly turning up the heat by abusing the data scare.

hn_throwaway_996• 2 years ago

There is some massive confusion around the types and costs of audits required for full Drive permissions scope (and I definitely blame Google for the lack of communication/direction on this). I had to get this audit for an app and it was nowhere near 75k - I believe it was well under 10k. Another commenter said they had it done for $4k: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41781325

dbmnt2• 2 years ago

That still sucks and is prohibitive for indie developers. As the post mentions, in reality this program adds very little value for any of the involved parties.

dewey7• 2 years ago

The more hassle the more people are going to hate that ivory tower.

This is a bit naive, a very small percentage of people would be interested in these alternative solutions. Most people don't even install any third party software on their computer and just use the browser for everything.

joemi• 2 years ago

Raising the barrier for access like Google has done feels very anti-small company. Sure, it's more secure, but I have to wonder if they could improve security without excluding smaller companies like this. Seeing as it's Google, they probably could and specifically choose not to.

LegitShady2• 2 years ago

I think its totally reasonable. If google wants to make drive functionality expensive and annoying for devs to include, then devs are going to drop support.

I appreciate that this seems to be some additional security for drive access which is ostensibly a good thing but it doesn't seem like the review is very useful or catches any bad actors or errors.

tracerbulletx• 2 years ago

This policy is to create a moat for AI offerings.

tiltowait2• 2 years ago

That’s a real shame. I use the feature a lot, but I can’t blame Panic for it.

fweimer2• 2 years ago

Any idea what this means for Google Drive support in rclone and similar tools?

hyperknot• 2 years ago

Yes, wanted to ask the same, what will happen to rclone? Is it unaffected?

zer0zzz• 2 years ago

Yeah was wondering the same.

thebiss• 2 years ago

rclone strongly recommends users create their own individual API key:

It is strongly recommended to use your own client ID as the default rclone ID is heavily used. If you have multiple services running, it is recommended to use an API key for each service. The default Google quota is 10 transactions per second so it is recommended to stay under that number as if you use more than that, it will cause rclone to rate limit and make things slower.

https://rclone.org/drive/#making-your-own-client-id

fweimer2• 2 years ago

I'm worried that such API keys won't be usable anymore because even API keys for personal use with a single account require that application security review.

Furthermore, the Google Cloud console is not included in the typical Workspace subscription (for obvious reasons).

whalesalad• 2 years ago

I don't use Google Drive and probably never will but FWIW Transmit is still one of the best all-around data transfer apps that exist. I always miss it when I am on my Linux workstation. Being able to quickly connect to an S3 bucket and dump files and edit their permissions is a huge plus. Not to mention basic SFTP access like Cyberduck or Filezilla would do. I have never regretted my purchase of Transmit, it's great!

xp845• 2 years ago

Same. I used to pirate it back when Serial Box was a thing and I was a broke college kid, and I've been licensed since growing up. An essential tool. I would say it should be built into the OS, but that's a joke since modern-day Microsoft and Apple could never provide such a useful tool without sanding everything down to a smooth minimalist surface with no discoverability.

jrnichols• 2 years ago

I agree.

Also believe that Unison was the perfect NNTP client and I miss it still.

seec• 2 years ago

Yeah Transmit is one of the OG Mac apps (OS X) that were great at a reasonable price. Sadly, they don't make them like this anymore.

xyst• 2 years ago

we would now have to pay one of Google’s business partners to conduct the review

This is straight out of the IBM playbook. Did Google pick up some IBM flunkies recently?

What a terrible business practice. This was a company that once proudly displayed the motto, “don’t be evil” and even proved itself in various situations. Those days are long gone as the company is filled with more brain dead, unimaginative MBA flunkies.

kulor• 2 years ago

Having recently had an infuriating experience with an Android app submission, it seems there's a horde of people in a similar jam, running the senseless bureaucratic review process gauntlet: https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1ck1wyp/did_goo...

cageface• 2 years ago

I just dropped support for Android on my app. From now on it will be iOS only. That’s where all the users willing to pay for apps seem to be anyway any dealing with Google bureaucracy just isn’t worth it.

advisedwang• 2 years ago

I'm not familiar with Panic, but the blog post really should explain why the require "full access to users’ files on Drive" and moving to a reduced scope isn't viable.

tkone• 2 years ago

Transmit is a file transfer client (like FTP). It needs access to your entire drive because you might want to copy something to/from anywhere in your drive.

LeoPanthera• 2 years ago

Transmit is a file transfer app. It includes a file browser for your local and remote filesystems. Full access is literally the entire point of it.

https://www.panic.com/transmit/

Cthulhu_• 2 years ago

Before anyone else does this... make sure people actually use it enough to invest the time and money into it.

I mean for Apple / Android / Windows? app store reviews you often don't get much choice (not until EU laws are fully complied with anyway), as I've found out the hard way over the years developing apps.

mikewarot• 2 years ago

This is the end result of having compute as a utility, without having equivalent protection mechanisms in place all the way down to the endpoints.

Imagine what would happen if we didn't have fuses and circuit breakers everywhere we use electricity. Any defective toaster could bring down the entire grid it was plugged into. There would have to be entirely new teams of inspectors and certifications and laws about even plugging in a lamp.

Madness

Yet here we are, 40+ years after collectively deciding that MULTICS was too complicated, and Unix was the way to go.

I thought we'd be able to see the folly of our ways by 2025 at the latest, but it's not going to happen. 8(

SanjayMehta• 2 years ago

FTA this jumped out at me:

“Eventually, by reaching out through friends of friends of friends to find someone inside Google who could help, we got in contact with a Google employee who was very helpful in getting the process started.”

Sounds exactly like dealing with an incompetent government agency.

alanfranz• 2 years ago

I’m not sure about how this is happening. Transmit is a desktop app - or does it have a cloud hosted component?

If it’s a desktop app, it should be possible to generate an api key and pass it to the desktop app, that’s it. Google doesn’t know or care about who’s using it at that point.

The security flow being discussed should impact cloud-hosted applications.

What am I missing?

StewardMcOy2• 2 years ago

You're not missing anything, it's just that

Google doesn’t know or care about who’s using it at that point

is incorrect.

Google Drive uses OAuth. Users don't register API keys, apps do, and then users just log in with their Google account.

Google now requires apps to go through manual approval to actually use their OAuth keys, if those apps request certain endpoints. Doesn't matter if the app is local or cloud-hosted, if it makes certain REST requests, it needs special access, and Google controls which API keys get that special access.

See https://developers.google.com/drive/api/guides/api-specific-...

wslh• 2 years ago

ELI5: I’m not familiar with the Google Drive API, but does this mean that even if I try to build my own tool as an individual, I have to go through all these steps? I'm asking because, with many API services, you have to declare an app during setup, even if it’s just for personal use.

psd15• 2 years ago

Compile to apk and sideload; Google won't even know. The audit gate in TFA is a gate to get into the play store.

hs86• 2 years ago

Will this also kill 3rd party Google Drive clients for Linux like Insync?

End of the road for Google Drive in Transmit

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