Comments on: Security issues with Google Docs

By: EL DOCS « Majedi's Blog

EL DOCS « Majedi's Blog — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:47:02 +0000

[...] igual que sugiere Ade Barkah (la persona que ha descubierto este incidente) en este post de su blog personal, hemos creado un nuevo documento de texto, hemos insertado una imagen, hemos compartido dicho [...]

By: Update to Google Docs security issues « peekay

Update to Google Docs security issues « peekay — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:32:51 +0000

[...] 13, 2009 by peekay Back in March I wrote about a few security issues with Google Docs while keeping some details [...]

By: Unos cambios en el blog « Blog numismático

Unos cambios en el blog « Blog numismático — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:03:50 +0000

[...] parece ser que se ajusta a mis necesidades a pesar de los errores de seguridad que indican aquí y aquí. Confío en que para una aplicación tan sencilla nadie intentará buscarme las [...]

By: Is It Secure? Google Docs for Journalists: Part 3 | Digital News Journalist

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:14:33 +0000

[...] security blunder back in 2007, when the software was still new. And security consultant Ade Barkah expressed concerns in March ‘09 about certain Docs features, to which Google has responded. These are good reminders that no software system is perfect, nor is [...]

By: Google Enables Document Sharing Among Groups « Sathish's Blog

Google Enables Document Sharing Among Groups « Sathish's Blog — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:26:10 +0000

[...] as sharing. For example, in March, Ade Barkah, founder of IT consultancy Blue Wax, published a blog post warning about potentially risky implementations of image handling and document sharing in Google [...]

By: Google Docs and security « A Pretty Simple blog

Google Docs and security « A Pretty Simple blog — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:54:06 +0000

[...] has again rocked Google’s boat. Only last week, security consultant Ade Barkah wrote a blog post about the security issues with Google Docs. In it, he [...]

By: Jonas B.

Jonas B. — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:44:18 +0000

I don’t use Google Docs myself but critique should always be fair, and I get the feeling this isn’t.

1. The necessary key _is_ protected by the access lists, no? Then the image is hardly public. Had it been named “password” instead of “id”, would that have satistied you?

2. All document programs including Microsofts stores full history. That blueprint would have been stolen from a .doc as well if you gave out your document. That’s why we give out PDFs.

3. This sounds like it may be a real issue, but since you don’t give any information we don’t know.

By: Privatlivet er offentligt med Google Docs: Voipbloggen

Privatlivet er offentligt med Google Docs: Voipbloggen — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:47:12 +0000

[...] Det ser ud til at der er alvorlige sikkerhedsproblemer med Google Docs. Jeg kan ikke sige at jeg er overrasket over at der er problemer, men jeg er overrasket over deres alvor og hvor banale problemerne er. Læs mere om Google Docs sikkerhedsproblemer. [...]

By: Google weist Kritik an Sicherheit von Text und Tabellen zur�ck - Telekommunikation | News | ZDNet.de

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:05:41 +0000

[...] [...]

By: ahab

ahab — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:21:48 +0000

The sad fact is that much of what Ade Barkah is revealing has been discussed over and over again in the Google Docs help forums for the last couple of years.

The Google Docs team however decided not to take much action and thus lowered the level of usability of Google Docs to that of a toy application only good enough for dad, mom and the children to play with.

Business users are supposed to be using Google Docs in conjunction with Google Apps which offers slightly more security; provided the admin and users made use of it!

Unfortunately the user interface of Google Docs lacks any warnings and help links that might have educated the Google Docs users to avoid the worst security issues (i.e. the ones related to sharing) and the help in general is often ambiguous and void of any warnings.

Google Docs is a good web application but for some unknown reason the main accent has been to put it into the market as ‘easy to use’ instead of as a ’secure way to share’. We can only hope Google and the Google Docs team learns from this and makes security a more important issue; they have had ample time to prepare for it.

André H Banen (a.k.a. ahab)