6 ms·

Dropbox.com blocked by Google?

44 points by alunny 17y ago

SwellJoe 17y ago
Since it is effectively a free and anonymous hosting service (files hosted can be shared publicly via HTTP), I can easily imagine it being used for distributing malware.
- catch23 17y ago
  though couldn't any of the file storage places have the same issue (mosso, s3, etc)?
  - shaddi 17y ago
    Because they just switched domains (getdropbox.com to dropbox.com), they haven't built up a positive reputation on their new domain yet. As a result, only a handful of instances of malware being served by a user can get the domain blocked. I wonder how effective this sort of attack would be against Dropbox in the future.
    - zachware 17y ago
      Valid point and it crossed my mind too, however Google's systems are aware of domain shifts (I assume the Dropbox folks filed a domain change) and it should know about its 'transferred' positive rap. If the block is solely based on malware distribution then Facebook would have suffered the same fait ages ago. Amisdst all the data Google stores it should be clear that Dropbox isn't a random site freely dropping malware around the web. If it can't figure it out then a good old fashioned human should.
      - shaddi 17y ago
        I'm pretty sure this is the issue. Google wouldn't know to treat Dropbox "special" just because they switched domains. "dropbox.com" hasn't been around long enough in its current incarnation for it to be "clear that [it] isn't a random site freely dropping malware around the web." See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934704 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934704
        zachware 17y ago
        But then what's the point of the change of address tool in Google Webmaster Tools? Screenshot: http://bit.ly/4xZpA8 http://bit.ly/4xZpA8
        shaddi 17y ago
        Obviously it is for this purpose, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean it was used properly in this case or that their change notice was updated in a timely fashion.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    though couldn't any of the file storage places have the same issue (mosso, s3, etc)? They aren't free and anonymous, are they? The free and anonymous part tends to be important to malware distributors. Exploiting existing servers is one way, but free sites are also used quite heavily.
jlr 17y ago
It has been blocked for me too. I am in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Where else is this problem happening? I'm curious as to how widespread it is. Even when I ignore the warning I am unable to visit the site.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
patio11 17y ago
The quickest way to get this resolved is to make it a PR issue for Google. One suggestion: "It has been widely rumored that Google is developing GDrive, a cloud based file hosting service. Today, Google has blocked Dropbox, a cloud based file hosting service which would compete with GDrive, from appearing in its index. Is it fair that Google can unilaterally cause its competitors to essentially disappear from the Internet, without possibility of appeal, for reasons known only to them?"
- sweis 17y ago
  Sites are automatically flagged when malware is detected. Dropbox may be serving malware without knowing it. This page has instructions about how to request a malware review: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=45432#2 http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe...
  - patio11 17y ago
    Google is well-aware that doing business on an Internet scale means you start clocking measurable economic losses immediately when the site goes down, and for all intents and purposes Google has just handed Dropbox a service interruption because Google far and away the most powerful entity on the Internet. I can't even bring Dropbox up in my browser by typing in their domain name, to say nothing of the majority of Internet users who use Google as their primary means of navigation. If it were my business that was down, I'd go for the PR route before asking for a review, because you know what? Google sucks at putting a human in the loop. They hate it. It costs money and doesn't scale to the entire Internet. When I type stuff into forms at Google, I expect to hear back around a week later on those occassions when they actually get back to me, and I pay Google thousands of dollars to provide the service I'm asking about. One would hope I'm getting the good customer experience compared to some anonymous malware distributor saying they've reformed their ways. (Less you think I'm joking: Google for [reinclusion request] to see what Google's suggested timeline is for reinclusion in their index if you are bounced out for SEO practices they don't approve of. Hint: think months, not minutes.] In the amusing-to-contemplate-fantasy-world where there was any entity as powerful as Google on the Internet, and that entity blocked access to 60% of Google users for distributing malware (well, it is highly likely that Google is a contributing factor to more malware infections than anyone else on earth -- see "owns navigation on the Internet"), I highly doubt that Larry would ask Sergey to write something into a web form somewhere and then, you know, wait until somebody got around to addressing it.
jacquesm 17y ago
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Adropbox.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Adropbox.com&ie=utf... shows 71 pages indexed http://www.google.com/search?q=dropbox.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=dropbox.com&ie=utf-8&... has 1.7 million mentions It works fine for me... When you switch domains the history of the new domain is somewhat important and how you go about switching is pretty important too if you want to keep your google traffic.
- patio11 17y ago
  They appear to have done it right, though: 301 redirecting the old domain to the corresponding URLs on the new domain, which is the SEO best practice that Google tells you to do. (I know there is a Firefox extension that would let you check this but since I am intensely lazy I opened up a terminal and telneted to www.getdropbox.com on port 80 then typed "GET www.getdropbox.com/" enter, which produced the expected result, a 301 redirect header and some human readable text for idiots like me who test things by telnet.)
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    What I don't get is what they mean with 'dropbox.com blocked by Google', I can't find any proof of that and the diagnostics page shows some history information which indicates that there is not and has not been a problem. Does anybody have a screenshot of what it looks like with the 'problem' visible ?
jlr 17y ago
The BadWare group has a contact number when navigating their site. I'd hate to flood an innocent girl's inbox if she can't do anything. However... the info from the site is: StopBadware.org is a partnership among academic institutions, technology industry leaders, and volunteers, all of whom are committed to protecting Internet and computer users from the threats to privacy and security that are caused by bad software. Resources for reporters: * More information about StopBadware * Our badware application alerts & reports * Our research * Press release archive * Media highlights For press inquiries, please contact Katie Hallen at 463 Communications: Katie Hallen Office: (202) 463-0013 x213 Cell: (202) 679-2394 katie.hallen@463.com
albertni 17y ago
I don't understand how they can block a site this big and this heavily trafficked without even making an attempt to contact anyone.
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  Automation. They accidentally flagged the entire internet a while ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459590 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459590
selvakn 17y ago
its fake.. Check this out http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.google.com http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnost...
piers 17y ago
They've only blocked the secure site for that domain name. Might be because the SSL certificate is still for www.getdropbox.com

44 points by alunny 17y ago

Since it is effectively a free and anonymous hosting service (files hosted can be shared publicly via HTTP), I can easily imagine it being used for distributing malware.

catch23 17y ago
though couldn't any of the file storage places have the same issue (mosso, s3, etc)?
- shaddi 17y ago
  Because they just switched domains (getdropbox.com to dropbox.com), they haven't built up a positive reputation on their new domain yet. As a result, only a handful of instances of malware being served by a user can get the domain blocked. I wonder how effective this sort of attack would be against Dropbox in the future.
  - zachware 17y ago
    Valid point and it crossed my mind too, however Google's systems are aware of domain shifts (I assume the Dropbox folks filed a domain change) and it should know about its 'transferred' positive rap. If the block is solely based on malware distribution then Facebook would have suffered the same fait ages ago. Amisdst all the data Google stores it should be clear that Dropbox isn't a random site freely dropping malware around the web. If it can't figure it out then a good old fashioned human should.
    - shaddi 17y ago
      I'm pretty sure this is the issue. Google wouldn't know to treat Dropbox "special" just because they switched domains. "dropbox.com" hasn't been around long enough in its current incarnation for it to be "clear that [it] isn't a random site freely dropping malware around the web." See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934704 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934704
      - zachware 17y ago
        But then what's the point of the change of address tool in Google Webmaster Tools? Screenshot: http://bit.ly/4xZpA8 http://bit.ly/4xZpA8
        shaddi 17y ago
        Obviously it is for this purpose, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean it was used properly in this case or that their change notice was updated in a timely fashion.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  though couldn't any of the file storage places have the same issue (mosso, s3, etc)? They aren't free and anonymous, are they? The free and anonymous part tends to be important to malware distributors. Exploiting existing servers is one way, but free sites are also used quite heavily.

jlr 17y ago

It has been blocked for me too. I am in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Where else is this problem happening? I'm curious as to how widespread it is. Even when I ignore the warning I am unable to visit the site.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

patio11 17y ago

The quickest way to get this resolved is to make it a PR issue for Google. One suggestion: "It has been widely rumored that Google is developing GDrive, a cloud based file hosting service. Today, Google has blocked Dropbox, a cloud based file hosting service which would compete with GDrive, from appearing in its index. Is it fair that Google can unilaterally cause its competitors to essentially disappear from the Internet, without possibility of appeal, for reasons known only to them?"

sweis 17y ago
Sites are automatically flagged when malware is detected. Dropbox may be serving malware without knowing it. This page has instructions about how to request a malware review: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=45432#2 http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe...
- patio11 17y ago
  Google is well-aware that doing business on an Internet scale means you start clocking measurable economic losses immediately when the site goes down, and for all intents and purposes Google has just handed Dropbox a service interruption because Google far and away the most powerful entity on the Internet. I can't even bring Dropbox up in my browser by typing in their domain name, to say nothing of the majority of Internet users who use Google as their primary means of navigation. If it were my business that was down, I'd go for the PR route before asking for a review, because you know what? Google sucks at putting a human in the loop. They hate it. It costs money and doesn't scale to the entire Internet. When I type stuff into forms at Google, I expect to hear back around a week later on those occassions when they actually get back to me, and I pay Google thousands of dollars to provide the service I'm asking about. One would hope I'm getting the good customer experience compared to some anonymous malware distributor saying they've reformed their ways. (Less you think I'm joking: Google for [reinclusion request] to see what Google's suggested timeline is for reinclusion in their index if you are bounced out for SEO practices they don't approve of. Hint: think months, not minutes.] In the amusing-to-contemplate-fantasy-world where there was any entity as powerful as Google on the Internet, and that entity blocked access to 60% of Google users for distributing malware (well, it is highly likely that Google is a contributing factor to more malware infections than anyone else on earth -- see "owns navigation on the Internet"), I highly doubt that Larry would ask Sergey to write something into a web form somewhere and then, you know, wait until somebody got around to addressing it.

jacquesm 17y ago

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Adropbox.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Adropbox.com&ie=utf... shows 71 pages indexed http://www.google.com/search?q=dropbox.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=dropbox.com&ie=utf-8&... has 1.7 million mentions It works fine for me... When you switch domains the history of the new domain is somewhat important and how you go about switching is pretty important too if you want to keep your google traffic.

patio11 17y ago
They appear to have done it right, though: 301 redirecting the old domain to the corresponding URLs on the new domain, which is the SEO best practice that Google tells you to do. (I know there is a Firefox extension that would let you check this but since I am intensely lazy I opened up a terminal and telneted to www.getdropbox.com on port 80 then typed "GET www.getdropbox.com/" enter, which produced the expected result, a 301 redirect header and some human readable text for idiots like me who test things by telnet.)
- jacquesm 17y ago
  What I don't get is what they mean with 'dropbox.com blocked by Google', I can't find any proof of that and the diagnostics page shows some history information which indicates that there is not and has not been a problem. Does anybody have a screenshot of what it looks like with the 'problem' visible ?

jlr 17y ago

The BadWare group has a contact number when navigating their site. I'd hate to flood an innocent girl's inbox if she can't do anything. However... the info from the site is: StopBadware.org is a partnership among academic institutions, technology industry leaders, and volunteers, all of whom are committed to protecting Internet and computer users from the threats to privacy and security that are caused by bad software. Resources for reporters: * More information about StopBadware * Our badware application alerts & reports * Our research * Press release archive * Media highlights For press inquiries, please contact Katie Hallen at 463 Communications: Katie Hallen Office: (202) 463-0013 x213 Cell: (202) 679-2394 katie.hallen@463.com

albertni 17y ago

I don't understand how they can block a site this big and this heavily trafficked without even making an attempt to contact anyone.

chaosmachine 17y ago
Automation. They accidentally flagged the entire internet a while ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459590 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459590

selvakn 17y ago

its fake.. Check this out http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.google.com http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnost...

piers 17y ago

They've only blocked the secure site for that domain name. Might be because the SSL certificate is still for www.getdropbox.com