Google Solves Sharing Bug In Google Docs 69
RichardDeVries writes "Three weeks ago, I contacted Google about a bug in Google Docs that shared documents without permission. The issue has been resolved and affected documents have had their collaborators removed. The documents' owners have been notified: 'To help remedy this issue, we have used an automated process to remove collaborators and viewers from the documents that we identified as being affected. Since the impacted documents are now accessible only to you, you will need to re-share the documents manually.' See my journal entry for details on my contact with Google. Although I think Google handled the issue admirably, this raises questions (again) about cloud computing, as well as Google's eternal beta-status for a lot of their services."
It took them 3 weeks (Score:1, Interesting)
...to understand what you meant when you reported had a bug in Google Docs.
Re:I'll keep my docs offline thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
This little bug is nothing compared to all the crap we've had to go through with MS Office security issues.
Of course using google docs requires common sense. Like don't keep a documented list of your credit card details on it but it's not wise to do that on your desktop either.
Re:Raises questions? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well let's say that you're using SharePoint internally, and there's a bug in it. It's not exposed to the entire world, but it IS exposed to the entire organization (which can be just as bad, depending on the bug). More importantly, it's on a hundred thousand different sysadmins to patch said bug on their own MOSS installations, rather than a SAAS company patching it once and having the bug fixed for everyone.
Imagine for a moment if IE was somehow SAAS instead of a desktop app. That would mean that IE6 would NO LONGER EXIST, and that everyone would have an up-to-date version of IE7. And as soon as IE8 comes out of beta, IE7 will also die - instantly, worldwide - and then web developers everywhere will rejoice.
Obviously that simply doesn't work for a web browser (well, it could, but not as it's done now - and it's obviously not the most practical approach), but for all of the problems that SAAS can bring, it also solves a tremendous number of other issues. For something where security is priority number one, it's often not the best choice, but you can't beat it for keeping things up to date. And when you're dealing with closed-source software, that's already beyond your control so you might as well reap the benefits of the instant updates.
It's facebook too (Score:3, Interesting)
Similar bug is in FB. Grant an app perms; delete some friends, the app still has write perms on you when your delteted friends do something. As a programmer I'm making a wild guess it's grabbing your friends list when you sign up, not when you run it.
I suppose it's more of a "practices" thing than a "bug in facebook". But envision some scenario with, uh, you can figure it out.