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Google Desktop Search Functions As Spyware
dioscaido writes "Users of the Google Desktop Search software beware -- it indexes your files across all users on your PC, bypassing user protections. The Google cache feature allows all users to browse the contents of messages and files it has indexed, irrespective of who is logged in. 'This is not a bug, rather a feature,' says Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products. 'Google Desktop Search is not intended to be used on computers that are shared with more than one person.'" Reminds me of a Neal Stephenson essay: "The Hole Hawg is dangerous because it does exactly what you tell it to. It is not bound by the physical limitations that are inherent in a cheap drill, and neither is it limited by safety interlocks that might be built into a homeowner's product by a liability-conscious manufacturer. The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it."
Well, there you go - Windows Exploit.
The problem in that case becomes Microsoft's, not Google's. It's just using a feature (or a bug, depends on the perspective) that exists in Windows.
It's easy to blame third parties whose software can be exploited because of inherent problems in the OS, but you're passing the buck.
Maybe if the OS were more secure, the possibilities for such exploits wouldn't exist in the first place.
Sounds like another fiasco that Google is gonna have to withstand, just for being honest. Anyone remember when the privacy hounds were out about GMail perpetually storing your mail, and that a *gasp* computer would actually read it! Reminds me exactly of this. Of course, they'll come out and clarify it later, but by then the damage will be done. Oh well.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
The first versions of locate(1) had the same problem - the cronjob was indexing all the files and reporting on all the files even if the user running locate would not be able to learn of the file name. This was used as an way to circumvent the systems with the "security by obscurity" way of collaboration via random directory names. Today's slocate doesn't have this fallacy.
VKh
With default security on Windows XP, each user's cache is accessible to the other users. As are everyone's Outlook data files. This is not great security, but that is not Google's responsibility.
Indeed. Yet another reason I use Opera. With IE, I've never been able to figure out exactly where the cache is, much less how to kill it without trashing the OS. Not that I've tried very hard, because it's so much easier to take care of it in Opera:
* "File"
* "Delete Private Information"
* check all the boxes
* hit OK
Extremely handy when you're at work and you click on a link that didn't go where you meant for it to. Closing the browser is one thing... knowing that goatse guy isn't hiding in some system file somewhere is real peace of mind.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Are you sure? To me, it sounds like they are running as a system service, which can have access to any file.
If MSFT did this, you'd be howling about it.
When the google service is running, surfing to www.google.com shows a Desktop choice. When it is not running it doesn't. This works in IE and Firefox -- but not Lynx.
How can www.google.com tell the service is running on the local computer without using activex? I thought maybe it had some javascript that checked http://127.0.0.1:4whateverportituses, but I didn't see that. Must be that.
If it can do that, it can upload data to google!
I never installed the google search tool since it warned that it be installed as an Internet Explorer "helper application." Ahem, cough....IE...helper application...back to the drawing board google.
That's still an information leak, and thus a security breach. If a user can see filenames of other user's files, or inspect URL's that other users typed in, then they accessed that other user's private data. Just knowing what files are accessed or what webpages were visited, can be as serious a security breach as any, depending on the context.
If the files don't have appropriate permissions set, what expectation do you have of someone not being able to do this? This is why the question whether the files are protected is important.
In UNIX, I could use "locate" to find out whether a co-worker has cookies from porn sites if the permissions are not set. And what about Windows' "Search for files containing the following text?"
We have a total lack of information.....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Makes sense that you don't bite the hand that feeds ya.
next...
This article looks like a plant from the Microsoft PR department. There really is not much of a story here.
I know it has to be driving MS nuts that google is getting into the filesystem niche, especially with all the trouble they've had over the years with putting together a database-based filing system. I imagine if they keep on pushing the release out past Longhorn, google is going to overtake them .
It runs as *four* processes on my box:
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search\GoogleDesktop.exe
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search\GoogleDesktopIndex.exe
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search\GoogleDesktopCrawl.exe
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search\GoogleDesktopOE.exe
Seems like more than enough.
I am finished indexing.
Google has a history of trouble getting their software designed to work well with multi-user Windows XP installations. Their Picasa photo software can only run as the Admin. user. Now their Desktop search software only works for the first user that installs it. Sad...
So why can't Google get it right?
Rent this movie: Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
True story. MS does some bizzare virtualization of the cache directory. What explorer sees really isn't there. Go go command prompt, CD to the cache folder, and do dir /AH and dir /AS and compare to explorer.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Hmm, maybe it's because the GDS indexing process runs with administrative rights and indexes other user's profile folders? :-/ That's at least the only way I can see this being a problem... Otherwise you just have a problem with your security settings on your computer.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Here's the whole (hole?) essay:
http://steve-parker.org/articles/others/stephenso
Some choice quotes:
It's very, very difficult to have both the presence of mind and the physical strength to hang onto a powerful drill that's just flung you off your ladder. Kudos to that guy-- I wasn't so lucky.
There never seemed to be a good happy medium between holding the drill tightly enough that when it hung up I had enough of a grip to let it grind through whatever was hanging it up and loosely enough that when it REALLY hung up I could abandon it without injury.
Apply appropriate Windows/UNIX metaphors.
It is not the location of the Search cache that is the problem, it is that the search itself caches folders belonging to other users which most people expect to be private (My documents/ local settings mail folders etc).
I believe this is a problem for users with either Fat32 User partitions (no inbuilt access rights), or the user running the search is an administrator.
When reading the help for this desktop search, it includes a method for blocking certain folders on your file system, and one specific one it mentions as an example is
"C:\Documents and Settings\private"
They knew of this issue before it even started, so how they let it ship without defaulting the search to local users' folders only I don't know.
I have other security concerns with this tool, but if they can be ironed out, I believe having google on my desktop will still be a "good thing". I was a little freaked out seeing my local files and folders listed essentially in a google window. Yet another shift - like seeing gmail for the 1st time.
liqbase
Are we talking about installing this Google Desktop Search software on Windows XP Home edition or Windows XP Pro? There is a huge difference between how these two operating systems handle user right assignments. Windows XP Home has a very stripped down version of the system whereby you can't easily change user permissions of individual folders. My guess is that most people will set up user accounts on the home version with "Administrator" rights as many programs simply don't work correctly in XP as a "User".
Because XP Pro is typically used in office environments, if you set up a user account and you log in, you will NOT be able to see the other users folders unless an Admin sets those permissions.
Of course, all this seems silly as linux has had proper file permission settings forever whereas Windows has just recently added that feature.
I haven't used WinXP in awhile, so correct me if I am wrong... doesn't XP have a little checkbox in the "User Accounts" dialog that says something like "Make my data private" or something to that effect? I believe it is unchecked by default. Can anyone confirm that by default XP doesn't make user folders strict, and that you have to explicitly enable this option. I'm pretty sure Windows 2000 doesn't work this way.
Just a confirmation please, and if not, a correction against what I've said.
Thanks.
For example, to grant read access to R:\home\lachlan to 'someuser' you would use:To revoke those privs, use:
I think those are the right args anyway, I've switched to linux, so it's been a while. But cacls is the right program.