Last week, I received an unsolicited email from a person named Emma.
She said she works for a “language learning app” and they were big fans of the “Smashing Security” podcast (yes…) and would love to have a member of the team on the show.
They wouldn’t talk about anything related to cybersecurity, which makes me wonder if they’ve actually heard the podcast I co-host.
Instead, here’s what they’re pitching (product names redacted because they don’t pay for advertising):
Topics such as Language Teaching, EdTech, Learning Science, and GPT-3 in Linguistics can be covered.
Since your podcast is in the tech space, your audience will likely be most interested in: [REDACTED]Our AI language chatbot powered by GPT-3 technology.
Hmm, that may or may not be interesting, but it feels a bit far from what “Smashing Security” listeners want to hear.
What annoys me is that not only does this spam land in my email inbox, but when I go into Google Drive, I find that they also shared an unwanted 3-page proposal document with me. I understand.
As Ars Technica
Drive will show you shared files in your Shared Documents folder, notify you of shares on your phone, highlight “new and recent files” at the top of the Drive interface, list files in searches, and email you about them. I will send. No indication that you know the file sharer at all.
Good news for those who are annoyed by Google Drive files shared by strangers. I have a spam folder in my google drive.
According to Google, once a junk file is moved to your spam folder, you won’t receive any further notifications about it and it won’t appear anywhere outside of your spam folder. Google also determines if a file is unwanted and automatically moves it to the spam folder, similar to email spam.
If a file stays in your Google Drive spam folder for more than 30 days, it will be permanently deleted.
Indeed, in my particular instance, the file was shared as part of a clumsy attempt to promote an inappropriate company on a popular podcast.But in the past there have been reports of Abusive ex-partner abuses Google Drive.
😡
Four weeks ago, I found myself still shared and actively putting pictures in a Google Drive photo folder maintained by my abusive ex-husband.
At the same time, I also learned that there is no way to **remove my access from a folder that was given view-only access**.
— Jessica Lord (@jllord) December 27, 2018
Others have reported being shared files containing ads, pornographic content, dating scams, and malware.
The problem of shared file spam in Google Drive may not be as big a problem as email spam or instant messaging spam, but Google will wake up to this problem and develop a solution to keep users from being overwhelmed with unwanted communications. is good.
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