Here’s what that Google Drive “security update” message means

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Enlarge (credit: Google Drive)

"A security update will be applied to Drive," Google's weird new email reads. A whole bunch of us on the Ars Technica staff got blasted with this last night. If you visit drive.google.com, you'll also see a message saying, "On September 13, 2021, a security update will be applied to some of your files." You can even see a list of the affected files, which have all gotten an unspecified "security update." So what is this all about?

Google is changing the way content sharing works on Drive. Drive files have two sharing options: a single-person allow list (where you share a Google Doc with specific Google accounts) and a "get link" option (where anyone with the link can access the file). The "get link" option works the same way as unlisted YouTube videos—it's not really private but, theoretically, not quite public, either, since the link needs to be publicized somewhere. The secret sharing links are really just security through obscurity, and it turns out the links are actually guessable.

Along with Drive, Google is also changing the way unlisted YouTube links work, and the YouTube support page actually describes this change better than Drive does:

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