Ah, this is a helpful insight. I didn't realise that this is how the integration works. It seems that, at most, Google could force Slack to update their integration's behaviour (and take down the integration till that happens). But as you mentioned, they can't really fix it themselves.
I probably wouldn't have posted this if I had received this explanation from Google. :)
This was their response:
"Hi! We've decided that the issue you reported is not severe enough for us to track it as a security bug: when someone with access to a doc sends a link over slack, they express their intent to share this document, hence the preview shared independently from the sharing setup on the doc does not represent a significant risk."
Wow, 3 separate mentions on HN is pretty high (and those were the ones you were able to find). This must have been reported dozens of times to Google.
That said, if (a) this is only occurring with the 2 conditions you mentioned and (b) if Google Drive integrations are only allowed with vetted partners, then I suppose this is less exploitable. Someone would have to intentionally put the link into a 3rd party application that had some people who shouldn't have access.
Though it still be a problem I think, privacy is important even internally. Sometimes access needs to be revoked, or people are unaware of all the people who have access to a channel etc.
I would be very, VERY sceptical - the moment he brought in evolution, he argued a theory based on (and nigh-identical to) group selectionism. Except group selectionism has been thoroughly debunked, to the point where he might as well have been spouting Lamarckism - read "The Selfish Gene", by Richard Dawkins.
Put simply, you can't just jump from looking at individual survival to looking at a group's survival, because any individual could just be a free-rider. More importantly, what's actually been observed is that group selectionism simply doesn't happen in the real world.
So while anything I said about the rest would be mere opinion, there is at least one multi-paragraph section of his argument that is a GIANT heap of shit.
The Selfish Gene was a phase in our understanding of evolution. The mainstream now agrees that evolution is a whole lot more complicated than that. It's still true that "group selection" is a dirty word to a majority of evolutionary scientists, but this is shifting pretty fast - much less true than it was 10 years ago. Take a look at the works of David Sloan Wilson. I recommend his book, Unto Others. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674930476
Well, the main advice is eating less and exercising more, the author stops short of recommending a radiation source in the home. So, it's not really controversial and is not considered harmful.
A very interesting concept, will definitely need to read more on this!
But what about the kind of research that talks about the dangers of living in cities... like "living in a polluted city is like smoking X cigarettes a day"?
Trivia: It used to be one of the main links at the top of the page about 2+ years ago.
I set a goal several years back of getting into the top 100, then top 50, and so on, and was commenting and posting loads. I guess they didn't like that too much and it disappeared onto the Lists page ;-) I don't post as much now but that's probably a good thing for me.
I set a goal several years back of getting into the top 100, then top 50
Why? Oh, why? I look at my own HN posting as a personal weakness that does nothing to advance my career, general happiness, or sense of personal development. The really successful people I've known in my life don't get caught up in tussling in Internet forums. They stay focused like a laser on goals that are much more recognizable as "success".
And that reminds me to close my browser and think about what I really want to accomplish today!
My time on HN has not been as negative as I infer yours has been though. It benefits me and I enjoy it. That back-handed airy-fairy malarky about what "really successful" people do sounds like a load of preachy cobblers to me though.
I've always kind of found the total points to be a bit irrelevant. But I do take karma into account when posting which probably would prevent me from ever breaking into the top 100 of total points but does prevent me from posting every silly thing that comes into my head[1]. It seems karma's a more relevant metric for value then total.
Not to speak for Peter, but some people like to set goals because the effort to achieve them might reveal interesting bits about the mechanics or psychologies involved, including their own.
Some of us tend toward the product side, some the process side, and some the people side. The people side is the most visible and most likely to arouse suspicion among geeks, but it's not inherently worthless.
And, of course, self-branding and promotion is a thing that people do.
If you venture to a local pond/lake and observe the mallards and black ducks, some of them have one of their eyes open while sleeping because they can keep half of their brain awake. I just happened to notice it while on a daily walk and had to go look it up afterwards. Ducks also make outrageously loud quacks when alarmed (sounding similar to a single person laughing too hard at an unfunny joke). Made me jump more than once when walking after dark.
Not all of them will always sleep with one eye open, but at least a few in a group will in order to keep watch from coyotes, birds of prey and stray cats when they're not in the water.
