[HN Gopher] A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google ... ___________________________________________________________________ A Dad Took Photos of His Kid for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal Author : carbolymer Score : 140 points Date : 2022-11-25 21:47 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (web.archive.org) (TXT) w3m dump (web.archive.org) | sekh60 wrote: | This story broke the camels back for us when it first appeared | here and got us to migrate our email to protonmail and a domain | we bought. | josephcsible wrote: | I wish we had a portable email address format, like phone | numbers are, instead of being inherently tied to a provider. | [deleted] | startupsfail wrote: | This. There should be anti-monopoly regulation that would | state that e-mail addresses belong to users, just like the | phone numbers or domain names. | orangepurple wrote: | I own my domain and therefore my email address will belong | to me as long as I can pay the property tax (ICANN) and | management company (Fastmail). | chrismeller wrote: | You don't own a phone number either. Ever tried to move | between countries? | layer8 wrote: | Owning a domain is close enough. | rosnd wrote: | Buy a domain name, now you have a portable email address. | noirbot wrote: | Though I often have questions about how that works in terms | of managing your domain. I feel like I shouldn't have the | account I manage my domains with tied to an email address | at the domain that's under management. If my email provider | disappears, I'm potentially locked out of the account I | need to log into in order to change the MX records, right? | pyuser583 wrote: | Stratechery covered this ... they pointed out the really f*ed: | part: Google is refusing to reinstate the account. | | Protecting children is important. AI is imperfect. | | But there is no reason the keep the account suspended once it's | clear there was no wrongdoing. | | This man is innocent of doing anything wrong. Google had | suspended him, and removed access to all his online account data. | And refuses to reinstate. | | We balance out liberties with responsibilities all the time. We | allow the state power to protect children, and corporations have | the right to assist them. | | There are careful balancing acts being done. | | But there is no balancing act here. There is no justification for | Googles action. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | This is the part that should receive a Congressional inquiry. I | would love to see Congress drag Sundar Pichai (and no one else) | before them and scream "What the hell is wrong with you?" in | his face. | | We have courts for a reason. They found no wrongdoing. Google | is objectively deciding _they know better than an elected | court_ on what happened. | | This whole situation is absurd and evil. | fossuser wrote: | IIRC there was a follow up which was arguably worse. | | Google implied that the account was suspended because of real | CSAM concerns unrelated to the photos sent to the doctor/police | officer (other photos in their account? the wouldn't go into | details about their decision) and that the officer closing the | case doesn't mean their judgement here is wrong. | | If that's the case I can understand why they're obstinate about | their decision (which otherwise would seem like a dumb mistake | they should just reverse), but the problem is none of this | happens in a place where users have any ability to get | reinstated or have any sort of control over their digital life | - there's no real path any individual has out of this _even_ | after going to the press. | | The user also using all account access (two factor, email, | etc.) is particularly bad. | | The current local max of computing we find ourselves trapped in | (accounts on a handful of megacorporation servers) is awful. | The 90s dream of a decentralized web failed. | shadowgovt wrote: | I'm not normally one to indulge conspiracy theories. | | ... But given the situation and high profile nature of this | incident? | | If that account's still locked, it's locked under sealed FBI | warrant. | | Google has had situations where they work hand-in-give with law | enforcement to resolve something, and when they do, they're | radio-silent on the situation. Sometimes for years, given the | scope. | Waterluvian wrote: | This is the one that causes me to finally commit an entire | weekend to getting off Google. | | Because I have the exact same kinds of photos on my phone, auto- | backed up to Google Photos, intended for his physician. | [deleted] | nehal3m wrote: | NextCloud on a VPS works very well for me. The AIO setup does | all the work for you: https://github.com/nextcloud/all-in-one | Barrin92 wrote: | what happened to the guy was awful but in general, _don 't ever | store medical correspondence on Google cloud or send it over | email or messengers_. Here in the EU and I would be surprised if | it's different in the US there's dedicated apps for telemedicine | which are regulated like medical devices, so there's | confidentiality, no storage or scanning of vieo or audio, and so | on. Sucks but you can't really treat any other services as secure | or private. | kodt wrote: | It sounds like a secure platform was likely used to send it to | the doctor but the photos were taken on a phone and auto backed | up to Google Photos and also texted to his wife's iPhone. | cozzyd wrote: | right but most people take pictures with their phones nowadays, | which might automatically backup up to google photos. | Waterluvian wrote: | And the supermajority of users of this set of systems and | features are entirely technically unaware of how to | micromanage it. | | To them, they have a phone that backs up to the cloud. | [deleted] | xeromal wrote: | Sounds like there almost needs to be an incognito mode for | cameras. | themacguffinman wrote: | There is. The Android camera app has a button on the top- | right corner that lets you quickly switch between saving to | "photo storage" or "locked folder". If you pick "locked | folder", it saves it to a special folder that isn't backed | up to the cloud and requires a screen lock to open. | wholinator2 wrote: | I figure it's probably not typical but I disable every single | piece of tracking possible and disallow any external cloud | storage on every device I have. I just don't actually have a | need to give Google thousands of my photographs and access to | every piece of my personal history. The benefit would be | marginal and the cost is unlikely but potentially | catastrophic. (And seemingly more likely every year). Every | new device I get I go through every setting and turn off all | the new bullshit they've put in to steal my privacy, because | they do constantly add to the attack surface. | afandian wrote: | I don't trust anyone with health data, honestly. Two examples | from the UK: | | Babylon data breach for UK GPs: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23471347 | | Palantir getting its teeth into the NHS: | | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56183785 | | Next time I need a doctors appointment I'll do my best to make | it in-person. | warbler73 wrote: | Apple's Photos app tried to tell me that my child was my lover in | their photo event labeling, which really pissed me off a lot. | bagels wrote: | Does getting your google account blocked prevent you from using | GCP? There are so many stories of people losing access to google | accounts that it seems way too risky to use GCP when this sort of | thing can happen. | cypress66 wrote: | I don't know why people use gcp, I would like to hear some | opinions. | | The way I see it, if you don't mind price, you go with AWS | (most polished). If you mind price gcp isn't really much | cheaper, so you go with something actually cheap like OCI. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Potentially yes, if you use a personal account for GCP. Don't | do it. | | If you have to use GCP, use a burner account... because Google | is absolutely asinine right now. | | I would not trust Google if they were a hired employee to turn | on my sprinklers in the morning. | | Edit: For this reason, I am actually all in favor of having | GCP, AWS, Azure, etc declared utilities. Unless there is a | crime, we have a _right_ to an account. Your electricity | company can't cut you off whenever they feel like. | ronsor wrote: | Google aggressively links accounts together. If you ever hire | someone who was banned by big G, kiss everything goodbye. | josephcsible wrote: | > If you have to use GCP, use a burner account | | Does that actually help? Don't they collect enough of your | data to be able to correlate accounts? | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Perhaps, but better safe than sorry. If you had a small | business and relied on Google Workspace, the damage for one | mistake like this could be incalculable. | | Imagine losing your contacts, your photos, your emails with | clients, your cloud setup... because you had the humanity | to take care of your child. | | It is impossible to underestimate Google now. | dylan604 wrote: | You're going to have to start using your GCP like it's a | freedom fighting session. Never used from the same public | wifi. Don't use a public wifi within xDistance from your | house. Only interact with GCP from a freshly spun up | VM/Tails boot/etc. If no available wifi access, only use a | mobile hotspot that is prepaid in cash where the burner was | bought by someone else (so their shiny mugs are on the | security camera), buy that burner in a different town, and | all the other paranoid things to safe in a hostile world. | Just to use Google | lrvick wrote: | I just use Whonix in a QubesOS VM routed via Tor. | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | That works? I would expect Google to ban accounts just | for using Tor. | kadoban wrote: | Doesn't Google famously link accounts that have ever had | anything to do with each other, and ban them as a group? I | recall some businesses getting their play store accounts | banned because some dev did sketchy stuff separately, or the | other way around. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | If so, treat everything that Google offers as ephemeral. | They deserve no additional respect. | FeistySkink wrote: | Anecdotal, but I know somebody who got their personal Google | account blocked and then the company they work for GCP | account blocked just because their names "looked" the same as | somebody else's on the sanction list, even though it was a | different person. I'm not sure they ever got the personal one | back. | autotune wrote: | GCP is so awful to deal with directly their sales people | ghost you after you submit your LLC info to raise limits. | Then the sales person you were working with initially gets | sacked, and weeks later a new one comes on board and tries to | pick up where you left off again. | walrus01 wrote: | imagine what happens if you use google's domain registrar | services. | | even if you were to run a domain name zonefile that pointed its | MX at something non-google and had zero A records or CNAMEs | pointing at things hosted on GCP, you'd still risk being unable | to login or admin your domain. | markdown wrote: | Shit, this gave me pause. | | My dog has crypto* and my vet asked me to send him pics at | various states of arousal so I have numerous pics of dog junk on | my phone. | | * Cryptorchidism is the medical term that refers to the failure | of one or both testicles (testes) to descend into the scrotum. | layer8 wrote: | Thanks for the footnote, it's quite confusing otherwise. :) | kodt wrote: | I just figured his dog had its own bitcoin wallet. | layer8 wrote: | Yeah, everyone and their dog has crypto these days | (possibly Dogecoin), but then it gets weird with the | arousal. | rosnd wrote: | This is such a weird story. Is google really using computer | vision to detect CSAM? How could that possibly work? This seems | like a tremendous technical challenge. | | Usually photoDNA has been deployed for this, but that almost | certainly wouldn't be triggered by the dad uploading his own | photos that hadn't been previously marked as CSAM in the photoDNA | database. | mopsi wrote: | Everyone's using AI, and widely. I sell stuff online and sync a | product feed to Facebook. Products often get banned based on | image analysis. Sometimes it is reasonably close, eg darts | getting classified as dangerous weapons, other times sneakers | get that classification. | | If I appeal, it usually gets overturned, but sometimes sneakers | get confirmed as weapons after review. There seems to be no | image history; when a previously whitelisted product gets | imported again (with a minor change in description or | something), it may get classified as weapon again. | | Needless to say, my ad spend is now zero and I expect my | account to get banned any moment. | | Fuzzy AI-based image analysis is OK for things like extracting | roof shapes from aerial images, but seems totally inadequate | for moderation, because it lacks nuance and context. | culanuchachamim wrote: | Original thread 3 months ago: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32538805 | jack7e wrote: | +1 for the archive link | morgosmaci wrote: | It was removed but there was a discussion about a similar account | over on the Photos reddit this week. | https://old.reddit.com/r/googlephotos/comments/yzz03x/it_loo... | baggy_trough wrote: | Outrageous and unacceptable. | 9991 wrote: | Then don't accept it. Null route Google in your hosts file and | move on with your life. | josephcsible wrote: | It's been three months, and AFAIK, Google still hasn't given him | his account back yet. | Overtonwindow wrote: | That would require Google to at least tacitly Admit that they | made a mistake. | duxup wrote: | Or that one guy who can restore accounts to get to it. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Forget that - Google states to the media they had reviewed the | situation and had decided to _uphold his ban._ | | Good luck convincing them to admit their "appeal" system, and | their media review, were mistakes. Google is too arrogant for | that. | Alupis wrote: | It might be worth remembering we only have one side of the | story here. How do we know we can thoroughly trust the Dad | any more than we can thoroughly trust Google? Perhaps there | are more pictures Dad took the article doesn't know about? | Perhaps Google can't verify it was indeed Dad's child in the | images? | | Perhaps there is more to the story than what the article lets | on...perhaps not. We will never really know. | drewmol wrote: | Google seemed to review the images and determine they were | for the reason he explained, but the video of his wife | naked in the bed with his son seemed to be what was still | considered an issue. Perhaps they were asleep while he | filmed the video? | loeg wrote: | SFPD investigated the other photos, too, and determined | there was no crime. | josephcsible wrote: | The police investigated and verified that Google's | accusations were completely false. | | Also: | | > we only have one side of the story here | | In real court, if you don't show up to tell your side of | the story, you're considered to be in the wrong by default. | Why should the court of public opinion be any different, | when Google has had the chance to tell their side but chose | not to? | para_parolu wrote: | We have one side of the story because the other side (huge | corporation) didn't give any information and decided to | keep ban. No transparency there. | | Ps. This "we will never really know" is triggered me. This | phrase used by Russian propaganda when they got caught in | crimes every damn time. | Alupis wrote: | > We have one side of the story because the other side | (huge corporation) didn't give any information and | decided to keep ban. No transparency there. | | I'm not sure why we expect Google to provide transparency | for CSAM bans/investigations. That would be highly | irregular, and not just for Google. | | The Dad has legal path(s) to take if he feels he was | truly wronged. Paths that would ultimately cost nothing | if he prevailed. Paths that would likely force Google to | undo their decision if Dad's statements are in fact the | truth and Google has no other data/evidence. | | Dad chose not do do any of that though... why? I'm | confident there are lawyers out there that would even | represent Dad for free. | | > This phrase used by Russian propaganda when they got | caught in crimes every damn time. | | What? | [deleted] | bawolff wrote: | This is always true, and a fundamental reason why free | societies adopted the notion of open courts: to ensure that | all sides of the story are known and innocent people don't | suffer based on ifs and maybes. | Alupis wrote: | The Dad appears to have chosen not to sue Google for some | reason. The dollar amount quoted in the article is | peanuts for what these things normally cost, making it | sound more like an arbitration thing. | | Typically if you win arbitration or court, the losing | party pays the lawyers anyway - so why did he not pursue | this? | rokhayakebe wrote: | How can we trust the dad? | | I think if someone was doing something criminal and their | access was blocked, they will juat quietly walk away. But | talking to the press? That would be a new level. | wastedimage wrote: | Seems hard to believe that if it really is this cut and dry some | SVP would have unfucked it by now in order to avoid the PR | disaster. I suppose that would require someone to take a risk | though and it's easier for everyone to hide from something like | this. | lrvick wrote: | Google will not lose any significant number of users no matter | how shitty they are, because most people have no idea how to | leave. | fersarr wrote: | So, basically if I have disabled cloud backups in google photos, | this shouldn't affect me right? | lrvick wrote: | Do not send them via plaintext email, or a proprietary chat | system. Also be aware that other corpo apps on your phone may | harvest and back them up too or scan them in place. US cell | carriers require extensive root access malware like OMA-DM | toolkits that can be triggered to spy on anything on your phone | at any time. | | As long as you use proprietary software on your devices you | will never be safe from this type of thing. | loeg wrote: | For now they don't scan the contents of your phone, yes. If | that changes, potentially no. | formerly_proven wrote: | > Mark did not remember this video and no longer had access to | it, but he said it sounded like a private moment he would have | been inspired to capture, not realizing it would ever be viewed | or judged by anyone else. | | Recontextualisation is one hell of a drug. | drewmol wrote: | Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they were asleep in the video | and that's what Google still had issue with. Perhaps not but if | so, it would explain things a bit better. | LAC-Tech wrote: | Thanks for the reminder. | | Wife and I take a lot of photos of our newborn, including in the | bath. We think nothing of it, but probably worth figuring out a | digital plan. | cpcallen wrote: | Use a film camera and develop the film yourself. | Cameri wrote: | That Google snoops and watches your video, photos and emails | should not be a surprise to anyone in 2022. If your entire online | identity is tied to a string that ends in @gmail.com they own | you. | [deleted] | jacob019 wrote: | These stories of people being banned by google without recourse | are so common, it's amazing that anyone here is still using | google for anything important. First of all, get off of gmail. If | you do nothing else, get off of gmail. I'm very happy with | fastmail, they provide email, calendar, contacts, notes, and some | cloud storage for a monthly fee. | | I've also come to love nextcloud, I started using it to replace | google photos, but there are tons of other great features too. I | use it for photos, notes, calendar, contacts, news, and some | collaboration stuff. It's open source, you can self-host, or get | a hosted account somewhere. | | While you're degoogling, start using duckduckgo for search. It's | a better experience than google these days, and if you really | want to send a query over to google, just add !g to the end of | the search. | | Get off of Chrome too. I would prefer that you use firefox, but | chromium works fine too. | | Getting off of google voice took a bit more work. I ported my | number to Telnyx, wrote a SMS-to-XMPP bridge, and set up Asterisk | to route voice calls. I'm happy with that solution but it won't | be practical for most, so maybe someone else can comment on | google voice alternatives. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-25 23:00 UTC)