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Comment by OutOfHere | Hacker News Reader

I strongly advise never using Google's Drive storage. They're known to scan all content, and to disable all access if even a single file is "problematic", often misclassified by a bot. If you do use the storage, do backup all your files, and be ready to lose access at any time, with no way to reach any intelligent human.

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I agree with you 100%. We do syncs to another non-google storage account anyway, plus the google accounts are primarily for Android phone usage because photos and videos take up quite a big chunk of space now; they do not have any legitimately important files stored outside of photos sync and phone backups, so there is no deep loss if the account gets banned outside of some inconveniences.

Since we are on the topic of bans & Google, I have a question.

How likely or difficult is it for Google to engage in, for lack of better word, "thought policing"?

You ask your "private" AI assistant to answer a naughty question or help with problematic task(from Google's hidden list) and then you eventually face the ban hammer.

Did anybody ever get banned for searching the wrong keywords?

If Google is smart they'd ban Gemini access while leaving services like Gmail enabled because otherwise customers wouldn't trust them and would avoid Gemini.

I don't think there's any reports of banning from all Google services based on Gemini use.

> Did anybody ever get banned for searching the wrong keywords?

No, but they probably pass clusters of (perceived to be) dangerous searches on to the Feds. Talking out my ass though.

They do pass it on to the feds

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

> They do pass it on to the feds

just like closedai, no?

> we route their conversations to specialized pipelines where they are reviewed by a small team

https://openai.com/index/helping-people-when-they-need-it-mo...

This has never happened to me in more than 5 years of paying for Google Drive. And my drive is chock full of bootleg books and movies and stuff.

Having said that, an offline backup of a couple of terabytes will rarely break the bank and is not a bad idea at all.

I probably need to get on that.

It happens more with adult content or files misclassified as such. It has happened to people.

Secondly, a Google account can be disabled for a broader variety of reasons, not limited to the above causes.

Solution: Use Google Drive to backup a VeraCrypt volume?

Which product do you recommend? OneDrive? Dropbox?

I have to imagine they are all on the lookout for CSAM. They’d simply have to be.

If it goes beyond that then let me know.

There is no evidence that any storage service that offers E2E encryption does any scanning of adult content.

Note that possessing significant adult content in non-E2E storage risks eventual misclassification by a bot.

Oh is Google Drive not E2E? I don’t really use it (or store large files like video on any of them) so I never looked into it.

Filen is quite good, is E2E encrypted and currently offering (final round of) lifetime plans for Black Friday.

They are not super mature yet (though have been around for several years) so the product still has some improvements to be made, but I like it.

They're all the same to restic.

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