Shutdowns

In about a week’s time, Google Drive’s Security Update for shared links will be rolling out on September 13. Google is introducing a new resource key to shared links, aiming to make link sharing more secure. This means, that in short, many links shared before September 13 will no longer function beyond that date, rendering many shared files inaccessible.

What you need to know! A few gotchas to this update:

• If any Google account has accessed a shared-link prior to September 13, they will retain full-access to said file/drive beyond that date, unless access is revoked by the owner. More on this later.
• Drive accounts can view their affected files and even opt-out of the security update altogether, if they are not a Family Link account. However this opt-out is possible not before, but after September 13, see https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10729743 for details.
• Don’t worry about your petitions getting blocked; Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are exempted from the update. To be clear, this does not mean all .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files; it only means that Google Workspace‘s native files will not be affected. Links to folders containing Docs, Sheets or Slides do not seem to be exempted either. For further details see https://support.google.com/a/answer/10685032

New Projects

On the subject of Google Drive, recall that accounts which have previously accessed a file will be able to retain access. So we at Data Horde developed a tool just for that purpose. Google-Drivac, allows you to “vaccinate” a particular Google account against a list of links.

Just log into a Google account, copy some cookies, gather a list of links you want to retain access to (either through crawling, or through maybe another account) and presto!

You can find Google-Drivac on our GitHub at https://github.com/Data-Horde/gdrivac.

In the meantime, for those hoarders among you who would prefer a hard-grab, Archive Team is working on doing just that. You can follow development on the Google Drive Warrior on #[email protected]

Last but not least, some of you might recall the panic surrounding Mediafire allegedly deleting accounts from earlier this year. While the threat had been greatly exaggerated, the scare did bring with it some innovation.

Zopolis from the Media Flare project has developed the Automatic Mediafire Link Archiver (AMLA). This is a Chrome extension which automatically records Mediafire links on websites you visit, in the background. These links are then forwarded to Ajay’s MediaFire URL Submitter public database and Archive Team who periodically grab its contents. All website activity is tracked by default, so if you’re keen on your privacy you should also restrict its permissions in the extension settings.

AMLA can be downloaded from here: https://github.com/Zopolis4/AMLA, and if you are into URL hunting be sure to visit the Media Flare Discord server.