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EFF Warns Not to Use Google Desktop
neelm writes "The EFF is asking users not to use the new version of Google Desktop that has a 'search across computers' option. The option will store copies of documents on your hard drive on Google servers, where the government or anyone who wants to may subpoena (i.e. no search warrants) the information. Google says it is not yet scanning the files for advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility."
If I had to count on one company to stand up and fight for personal privacy, human rights and not bow down to political pressures, it would have to be teh Google.
Meanwhile, Chinese users please click here.
Hey now, people, don't you know Google is GOOD, not EVIL?
I thought it stored an index. I know this is bad enough, but if it was actual copies would be at least get a free back up out of it.
are said 'files' able to be traced to certain people?
I guess if google already stored and indexed all your files then "Comrade! Where are your papers?" won't be necessary.
Double-plus good!
I use Copernic instead of Google Desktop. I used GDS until I got a new laptop for work. Then I tried Copernic. I'm not sure if it is any better than GDS. The one aspect of Copernic I really appreciate is that it isn't integrated into my web browser. It has its own search application that looks like what I expect an indexing application to look like.
where I come from it's spelled "warrants". Thanks
By user demand, Google introduces Google Anal Probe Beta (hereafter GAP). GAP searches that last gap of yours that we haven't been able to reach. We will be able to recommend foods you might like, various restaurants and whether you've ever been abducted by aliens.
"Google, is this painful?" you might ask. Not anymore! Thanks to GooLube Beta you won't feel a thing.
Folks, I'm not overly inclined to paranoia, but be careful. Unique application identifiers? Uploading information for across-machine search? Google never deletes anything. Ever. They might not be doing anything insidious with it now. But in five years, ten years? Who can say.
Seriously, I've been using slashdot for ages, and this kind of problem -- in this case more obvious than most -- is just retarded.
The new Google Desktop sends "copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents [to] Google's own servers"?
That's scary. What happened to "do no evil"?
Either Google is dropping that premise, or the EFF is overreacting. I wouldn't rule out the latter, in the least..
I am the maverick of Slashdot
It kind of makes one wonder how long it will be until we simply stop thinking about where our documents are stored. I've kind of assumed that, soon enough, we'll simply have our key that we'll use to access our information anywhere, anytime. Seeing the things coming out of 37Signals and other likeminded businesses that allow you to store and edit information online from anywhere, it really seems like this is the way we're headed. The only thing is, will we find some way to keep our information more secure, or will the average joe just stop caring?
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
And Google will help them. Just a matter of time.
Double standards boggle my mind. Microsoft would be lynched for half the things Google gets away from. Can someone please tell me why having your all private correspondence (gmail) or your file system (desktop) searchable by someone OTHER THAN ORIGINAL OWNER is a good idea? I know Google not suppose to extract any information, but if they CAN at some point they WILL.
I just Google'd "Electronic Frontier Foundation" and all that came back were news stories about how Mitch Kapor kills puppies. On the bright side, it told me my results were being filtered to comply with local laws and/or demonize one of Google's critics.
I briefly used Google Desktop because everyone raved about its amazing versatility. I also wanted a desktop search similar to Spotlight. When Google Desktop started bookmarking sites for me and linking to things I didn't ask for, I stopped using it almost immediately. I'm not interested in having a computer moderate my life for me. I wouldn't trust any company with personal data, even if it is Google. Hell, I don't really even trust Google that much. It seems like they're growing too big too fast, built on too many creative yet economically-tenuous technologies. When will the house of cards collapse?
I'm actually using Google to back up a lot of my word (well, OOo now) files, MP3s, and PDFs. At least most of the ones under 10 MB.
Troll-o-riffic!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Wow, I hope you're joking. So you wouldn't mind if your really helpful and easy to use email client sent a copy of all your emails to the FBI. I mean after all it makes writing emails so much easier, who cares about privacy.
Just because this can be used this way doesn't mean it will. As long as Google lets its users know that the information they use with this isn't private I see no reason to consider Google evil for offering this. I, however, who was thinking of using Google Desktop, will avoid it like the plague.
Don't enable the "search across computers" option. I doubt Google would enable it by default, as that would suck up a terrible amount of bandwidth and server storage, unless they're confident that they have the resources to burn on a feature that nobody will use (to search computers they own [bad pun]).
Well it depends. Do you care if the police can go through your stuff without a warrant? If not, then no problem. But many people do believe in privacy from the government (the founding fathers believed in it enough to include it in the constitution) and wish to keep their privacy. For them, this article would certainly be an eye-opener.
Well, if everyone has two GB of space, it makes sense to use it somehow. These guys sure do want to get their hands on a lot of data.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Like a search warrant, a subpoena requires a judge's signature. So there's not much to worry about in terms of no oversight.
Google Desktop has the option of searching your web history / my Documents from across your own multiple computers, after you have ENABlED it. It is not enabled by default, and only if you sign in with your google account are you allowed to search. Ofcourse the sub-poena threat is there, and it is a good point that id like to keep in mind, but perhaps they should advise us not to check the option rather than not install it at all.
Why should I avoid using software that makes my life easier just because of the threat of my privacy being "violated" . . .
Because you have never been refered to as "The Defendant."
Oh, but you will be. You will be!
KFG
so i don't even have to be online for hackers to get into my files? sweet!
what the EFF recommends is to not use this feature. Does anyone know if it is enabled by default?
*is a Debian user*
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Do Know Evil
There, fixed that for ya.
The "search across computers" options is DISABLED by default. The user has to turn it on, and only then is any data stored on Google servers (and then it is only stored on the servers for no more than a month). CNN was repeating the same inaccurate statement this morning.
Are you serious? The only reason Bush is in hot water is because he didn't get a warrant, but had he asked, some judge would have given it to him anyway... Judges almost always rubber stamp warrants, after all, if "Law Enforcement" asks, they must need it, right?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I guess anyone can easily upload copyrighted MP3's? Does that mean Google is a RIAA target now?
. . . doesn't call home. Period. Not for updates, not for search aggregation, not for ad display. Does it exist? I know X1 calls home. I know Copernic calls home. I know GDS calls home. Maybe Lotus Magellan doesn't :).
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Hey... if you want to read my e-mails be my guest, just make sure I get access to yours. The only thing wrong with traditional surveillance is the imbalence of power between the watchers and the watched. However, new technology is starting to correct this imbalance. Instead of fighting against the tide we should strive to make a completely transparent society. Currently only the rich, powerful and crooked have the ability to peek behind your veil of "privacy".... let's work to turn this situation around. Go Google!
I'm using google desktop right now and for a while I've been wondering if there's anything better. What I really want is something that searches file/folder names for strings or words. I dont care a whole lot about the contents.
.jpg files for the above example. And something thats faster than that awefully slow windows search. Windows search usually does more of what I want than google desktop does, but dang is it slow, and not very flexible. Heck, I'd keep google if it had something to limit its searching to filenames instead of the insides of files.
For instance if I had a file names "my family pics from vacation to hawaii in 2006 2314.jpg"
I'd like to be able to find that with a search of keywords like:
family pics
hawaii vacation
2006 pics
etc. Currently google desktop turns up way too many hits, when all I want are files with those words in the filename.
So I want more of a filename (and foldername!) searcher than anything else. Bonus if it can only search
It's disabled by default. It's no threat unless you choose to use it, in which case it's still mostly benign. BTW, OF COURSE everything Google does is used for advertising data gathering. That's how their business works. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's been that way from day one.
The article seems to be blaming Google for doing this. What the government takes from Google is not Google's fault, people should be gleaming their eye at the government for trying to delve into people's personal lives. Google is trying to create a service, and a very good service at that. Google is a privacy advocate, they are not destroying your privacy. All data they collect is very secure, and Google has shown they are willing to fight in court for users' privacy.
People should be looking at the government. In my opinion, if US Government uses Google to watch what people do on the internet, they aren't much better than China.
This is not Google's fault. Stop blaming them.
As for this statement:
"...while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password."
Google is pretty good about passwords. If someone gets your password, it's your fault. Second, I'm not convinced you can search your records remotely. The Google Desktop search runs directly from your computer, you can't access or search your files remotely using this feature. Proof: If you have it installed, what IP does it go to when you search your files? 127.0.0.1:4664 Oh snap, what a concept!
It's all bullshit. People need to start giving people the facts and stop praying on their ignorance.
The end.
google.slashdot
What percentage of your hard drive is files that are unique to you? It's still going to be significant, but manageable I think.
Oh, and "invite a friend" to gmail :) Social networks mapped: Check.
If they can get every file on your desktop, and you are working on a new project you want to patent, how exactly do you prevent Google or someone working for Google from deciding they want to patent it first?
locate "family pics" | grep \.jpg$
Google's not fighting for individual rights in that court case. Google's fighting for Google's rights, or, at its broadest, corporate rights. There's no issue of individual rights involved. So your pick of Google, and its nonsensical false choice against the EFF (why choose?), doesn't hold any weight earned by legal insight on your part. In fact, since the story we're discussing shows that Google's desktop search puts your privacy at serious risk, your sticking to them seems to have no merit at all, beyond your adorable belief in the power of a (nonbinding) corporate motto like "don't be evil".
--
make install -not war
I read about this earlier and my first thought was: This is going to be a nightmare for businesses.
Can you imagine the kind of trouble employees and companies could get in if confidential data is being stored on Google's servers?
God help the company that accidentally gets medical or financial data stored on Google's servers.
This is a huge gaping security hole for companies. Google's Desktop Search is going to end up on the list of unnaceptable software... even if the feature is disabled by default.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I have nothing to hide from Google or the government. All of you paranoid people out there must have stuff you want to keep secret... not me. I am using the new Desktop and I like it very much! Suit yourselves though.
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
Double standards boggle my mind. Microsoft would be lynched for half the things Google gets away from. Can someone please tell me why having your all private correspondence (gmail) or your file system (desktop) searchable by someone OTHER THAN ORIGINAL OWNER is a good idea? I know Google not suppose to extract any information, but if they CAN at some point they WILL.
You overestimate the intellect of the average human being, I don't think logic has anything to do with it. Apart from religion and politics nothing reduces the IQ of a human being as quickly and effectively as greed. The reasoning goes something like this: - DUH dude!! Google Desktop is free... as in free beer! What more do I need to know?!?!
The EULA, which presumably can be changed without prior notifications and states that by using GMail/Google Desktop you agree to allow Google to scanning your data for advertising, only gets read after the damage has been done. After that the reaction is usually to quote Homer Simpson: - DOH!
Personally I will stick with spotlight.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Wow, I am amazed google will upload all the files on your machine. That must really chew through a lot of bandwidth, especially if they ever expand beyond just "text-based documents" (whatever that means. I write and record audiobooks, does that mean the resulting mp3s are "text-based"?). Also, most ISPs have some bandwidth limitation (I think mine is currently something like 3GB a month), how are they going to squeeze through my 100+GB of data to get it onto their servers?
Google is taking quite a risk of being a custodian of all that personal data.
FREE - Java, J2EE and Ajax Audiobooks for Software Developers - www.DeveloperAdvantage.com
With all the recent commotion about domestic wiretapping without a court order I've developed an instinct to want to protect my privacy. I simply can't stand the idea that even if google as a corporation is doing no evil with the users' data, some evil employee might want to spy on his ex girlfriend or that guy in high school who boinked his first love.
Don't forget that Google now logs Google Talk chats in Gmail.
This is here so you don't ignore the last two lines of my posts.
No, KFG, people who are that braindead most certainly will be the informants of the Thought Police. you and I, however, will be liquidated in the order of our threat to the System. That means i'm first and you're 2nd. Give it 5 years or 1 year if there's a nuclear exchange.
Promote freedom; fight fascism.
...they're is no search, but The Party still finds YOU!
Being a long-time Apple user, owning an Apple IIGS, PowerBook 520c, Blue & White PowerMac G3, and now a PowerMac G5 with dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5s with oogles of RAM for multitasking and video/image processing for my viewing enjoyment. I have to admit that I use and support much open source software: OpenOffice, NeoOffice, GIMP, etc... on MacOSX. Is there anyone out there (I'm a cliff-jumping lemming) who can write ANYTHING close to the functionality of Apple's SPOTLIGHT search engine? I have an older version of Google Desktop at work and SpotLight beats Google Desktop hands down everytime - no trolling intended. I am very surprised that someone has not written an open source equivalent of spotlight for Linux/Windows to date. Anyone have any suggestions as to why this has not happened yet? Competition is good, and it inspires/requires expressions of creativity.
What a sensationalist release...
..."
:)
"Unless you configure Google Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters,
The option to access other PCs, which sends index information to Google, is turned off by default.
Plenty of people will leave it off as they'll have no use for the feature, and this particular feature is also not the only new thing in Google Desktop. The widget-like panels you can drag around your screen are neat too.
MyLinkVault - online bookmarks with a fast drag-and-dr
This is one of those ideas that always sees to get developed by someone with more enthusiasm than common sense. There's a CNN article about this, and one quote from it really stood out for me: "Despite the privacy concerns likely to be raised, Google executives are confident the product will appeal to many people wanting a way to use a home computer to hunt data stored on an office computer, or vice versa."
"Privacy concerns?" Something like this is going to be a nightmare to many corporations! Yes, now your employees can transfer work files to their home computers - and vice versa. Can you say "security hole?" Suuure you can! I can't imagine there are too many network admins out there who are going to want this anywhere in their system.
Even for a home user, what's the point? Really, if you need to move personal files between computers there are already easy methods of doing so. Home networks, CDs or even, if you're a bit daring, uploading it to the space that many ISP's give you for webspace, and downloading it from there! You even get to delete it. Letting a third party like Google have access to it, and store it strikes me as very scary. Thanks, but no thanks!
Remember, they have to send this using your personal internet connection. They obviously can't be sending the gigabytes of data required for a regular GDS search nor required to reconstruct that much. Then again, it's probably enough just to get some import documents.
I say to reverse engineer the protocol and use it as essentially an inifnite internet storage space. Encrypt your data, of course.
Oh yeah, couldn't google encrypt the information client side to prevent abuse?
it has gone to far, they dont need my personal data, i hate that
If you have a gmail account, Google already knows who your friends and family are. That's okay if you can trust the company, and the political system.
Now Google seems to be becoming one of those amoral companies. The new Google Desktop takes advantage of people who don't understand what is happening. Is Google going from "Do no harm" to "Anything if it makes money"?
Unfortunately, the U.S. government believes that it can perform surveillance anywhere and can keep the reasons secret. The U.S. government often forces companies not to disclose that they have given information to the government. So, maybe no company can be trusted.
--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & you pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
The EFF isn't advising people to avoid Google Desktop, just not to enable the feature, which IMHO makes complete sense. Google can't prevent the files from being taken if they're subpoenaed and a court orders them to make them available, now can they? It's not up to Google and the EFF knows this. They're not saying anything against Google here, just that people should be careful who they let have access to their files.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I bet Steve Balmer got a big stiffie.
Other services, such as Danger, Visto etc. store user files on their servers. The difference here is that google makes them searchable. Google reps are right, users want mobile access to their data. This makes it so that all you need is Google desktop on your wireless device and you have access to your important files. I think that they have to do this in order to compete with WinCE and other mobile OS environments....
Good or not, I think it is a sound business decision. What they do with, and how they care for your data will show in the coming months, and I would approach any such thing with caution in usage.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I've assumed my spot up against the wall has been reserved for about 40 years now.
Note, however, I did not include any reference to the government. Nothing spells "invasion of privacy" quite like a divorce lawyer.
On the whole it's better to be put up against the wall. The pain goes away quickly.
KFG
My instructor for my java class read the eula and refused to join due to the fact all the words in the emails are searched and indexed
http://saveie6.com/
1st off, you're a tool if you use the MS Windows OS.
2nd off, you're ignorant for trusting Google (no matter what OS you choose), and simply retarded for WILLINGLY installing/using their desktop search spyware (err, software).
I use google, and I am well aware of what I should and should not allow them to record. You have to assume that ANYTHING you do on google (or any other website for that matter) is recorded, being sniffed, or monitored by who knows!?
Revealing personal information, pictures, anything on a public web site, is a common-sense 'no-no'.
Don't blame google for their transition into the darkside, blame yourself! =/
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
You could just get Superbar which is an alternative.
I think it's funny that people assume Google wouldn't have the storage space to keep desktop search data around longer than absolutely necessary.
People... this company keeps multiple cached copies of the entire Internet. Adding a few opted-in hard drives to the mix is simply not a problem.
It's good that they claim to only keep the data for a month. But are they guaranteeing it'll be deleted after a month? Are there backups? Mirrors? Old index copies that might be subpoenable?
Linux is STILL for fags.
I'm getting more and more annoyed at the privacy strategies of organizations like the EFF. I'm generally a big fan of them, I think I've even donated money (as a grad student that's saying alot), but like most online privacy activists they have a very short shighted view of privacy.
The attitude of many of these privacy activisits is somehow that we can draw a line in the sand and refuse to give out any more information about ourselves to anyone. Not letting google have our information is just another example but traffic cameras, search histories, purchase histories are others. I'm not going to argue about whether this would be worthwhile if we could do it here but it simply isn't achievable. At least for the near future people are going to continue to give more and more of their information to companies. Giving advice like 'don't use google desktop' and stuff like this just marginalizes the EFF in terms of privacy. If they took a more pragmatic approach they could do a great deal more good.
In particular in this case the EFF should recognize that SOONER OR LATER PEOPLE ARE GOING TO PUT PERSONAL INFORMATION ON SERVERS THEY DON'T OWN. The conveince benefits are just too great for people not to want their stuff accesable everywhere and the cost of running your own servers is just too great. Rather than telling people not to use any of these products and convincing a few people with privacy paranoia they should be concentrating on improving the protections that information will have.
Personally if I wanted any company to be the first one to do this it would be google. They are the most likely to mount a serious legal defense against any subpeonas or other legal challenges. The EFF should be working with google to beef up the legal and technical defenses not fighting a losing battle to keep everyone's information on their own computers. For a first step how about bargaining with google and withdrawing their recommendation that no one use google desktop (though of course still warn people about the possible risk) in return for a promise/money from google to lobby for tougher protections for such data. Someone is going to do this eventually and I would rather have the law and precedent shaped by google than MS (who might not even tell about subpeonas). Basically at some point the distinction between personal info and buisness records needs to be fixed for internet stuff.
As an aside I think the greater goal of restricting the personal info that is availible on you just isn't compatible with personal freedoms. Every one of us leaks tons of information in a thousand personal interactions a day. Many of these interactions happen in public and in full view of strangers/aquintances. Unless we impose draconian laws banning people from using wearable computers that aid name recognition and record snippets of what they see for later use or abridge people's freedom of speech to post video blog entries about what happened to them today eventually powerfull search technology will make tons of information availible online. The EFF should be figuring out ways to handle this loss of privacy gracefully (so poor people don't lose more than the rich etc..) and minimize the harmfull impact not trying to put the digital genie back in the bottle.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
They are a FOR PROFIT company.: They cannot be truly trusted. Contrary to public delusion, companies have no morals - only profit motive.
http://desktop.google.com/about.html
...
12. What about my privacy? Does Google Desktop share my content with anyone?
We treat your privacy with the utmost respect. Google Desktop doesn't make your computer's content accessible to Google or anyone else without your explicit consent. The application also offers privacy options such as locking search, encrypting the index, and not indexing password-protected Office files or secure (HTTPS) web pages.
If you activate the Search Across Computers feature, your indexed files will be sent to Google Desktop servers for copying to your other computers on which you've also activated Search Across Computers. Your index and data files are never accessible to anyone via a Google web search. And if you don't activate Search Across Computers, your Google Desktop index and data files never leave your computer.
You can learn more by reading the Google Desktop privacy policy or about the Search Across Computers feature.
One's right to protect own privacy doesn't come with footnote saying "If you don't lock your door, you'll loose your right." One's right to protect own privacy should be honored wheather door is open or locked. Feature hindered to enable and a distance one has to go to take advantage of those features which is to protect privacy, cannot be viewed anything less than to evade one's privacy.
Google shouldn't make it as an "Optional Feature" to protect the privacy of its users, but make it ONLY feature to protect privacy. There is no room for hypocricy when it comes to where one stands in a land of bullshit.
Google's intent is clear. Google may "do no evil," but it surely does a lot of "think evil" and I'm more afraid of that.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Got an email from IT first thing this morning saying "do not install Google Desktop" on any work machine.
If I had to count on one company to stand up and fight for personal privacy,
It wouldn't be "teh Google". I mean, what, are you astroturfing? They refused government requests for that information because that information is their stock in trade. They haven't got a whole lot else of any real value. As I pointed out before, it would be like asking walmart to give up their entire stock of beans, while still buying it in, forever. And on the recent yahoo turning in a dissident debacle, how long do you think it will be before the same exact thing happens to google?
Meanwhile, Chinese users please click here.
What is that meant to be? You think that site isn't blocked in China too?
I think you are smoking "teh crack".
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
I have a big question. Why is everyone so uptight about the rights of "American citizens", and apparently not concerned about the rights of visiting foreigners in the US?
All the Bush-haters have seizures every time they can complain about him 'violating' the rights of American citizens. Does this mean if the only people 'spied' on were foreigners, you guys would be OK with it?
Personally, if I went to France to live, and found out the government spied on me for no reason, I would be pissed even though I am not a French citizen. If I went to China, I would expect to be spied on, whether I was a Chinese citizen or not. The US Constitution does not specify that non-citizens have no rights, the Fifth Amendment applies to the government's actions, not the nationality of the person.
So please, for the love of God, stop ranting about "American citizens", because you are just showing your ignorance. Rant about people. The Democrats/liberals/anti-bushies can't seem to figure it out. But the Republicans/conservatives/pro-bushies don't seem to notice the contradiction either.
"This is going to be a nightmare for businesses."
That was my first reaction to the headline as well.
Holy-can-of-worms Batman!
It's not just a gov't subpeona that businesses or persons need to worry about.
Another post I've read here talks about the disgruntled insider who dumps the information out on the the Internet or what about blackmail?
Could happen, did happen at AOL recently.
Google may have their stuff together security-wise today, but how about the future?
I agree with parent post, I can see corporations adding Google Desktop to the banned list pretty quickly.
With Sarbanes-Oxley, corps can't afford the risk.
But do you run Linux?
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
I ask of anyone who plays their "I have nothing to hide" card: please post your google loginname and password for the world to see. I bet you think twice.
not that I have anything against google, but..
why in the heck does anyone need a 3rd party tool to help them search their 'desktop' anyway? I never have any trouble finding my files.
EFF: Warns Not to Use Google Desktop
Google: Who is EFF? (quickly deletes EFF index.)
You can't handle the truth.
It's not required that you use all Google products and releases because Google is not a Supreme Being (contrary to my experiences). It's taken me a long time to realize this, but Google isn't infallible. They have made many mistakes and are similar to other businesses in that they sometimes just cave to market pressure. Google has released some excellent products and features, but that doesn't mean you must trust them blindly.
Have you tried Total Commander? (It's nifty, you can send the results of a file/foldername search into the the file manager window. You can also do more advanced searches like 'older than X' or 'filesize larger than Y'. Or use regular expressions.)
GP is wrong, Windows search really is slow, even for something that searches the whole hard disk. It doesn't "really take that long". If you Start/Run/"cmd", cd\ then 'dir foo* /a/s/b' it is much faster than Windows search.
Yes, I actually had this article pop up on my Google Desktop.
1) How much bandwidth does this use? Does Google really upload each of your shared files to its servers?
2) Is it actually uploading the file or an index of the files?
Here is one way to support Google's stance.. sign the petition http://www.e-thepeople.org/petition/14787/view
In fact I only care about the police going through my stuff without a warrant b/c it would be a waste of their time, and as a tax-payer, I would get annoyed that they're not doing their job properly. I really don't have any text files that I would consider "top-secret," by any means. I pay taxes using an accountant, have no medical files whatsoever on any PC that I own, and so on.
Mod me down (again) if you want, but I'm really starting to think that the EFF is over-reacting to GDS. If you're that paranoid, yes I said paranoid, don't use it.
I mean really. If its for advertising, its probably just going to pick up key words, I'd be surprised if they could write an effective algorithm to understand context right now.
...or is it going to just be trained to spot XYZ sponsored product? ...what if it came across a junk mail folder not 'appropriately' titled and started targeting you with more enlargement "medicine" ?
consider "I dont hate the Xbox", or "I'd hate it if the Xbox...[was more expensive or whatever]", or "I wish the Xbox would fsck write off"
does software do a good job of determing context currently?
First they came for my email and I did not speak out because I use Thunderbird. Then they came for Word Doc's and I did not speak out because I use Open Office. Then they came for Pay Pal and I did not speak out because I use Craig's List. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
If the Google Desktop indexed only select directories, that would be quite useful. If it indexed all of any type of document, uh, hey... whoa there!
That's a nope.
Be heard || Be herd
It is easy to forget that by agreeing to censor its search engine in cahoots with the Chinese dictatorship, Google is now also helping repress millions of Tibetans who have suffered under harsh military occupation by the Chinese since 1950.
Since people tend to be more familiar with the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust or Stalin's invasions and gulags, what if Google had made a business pact with the Nazis or Stalin providing their ignorant populations with entertainment and "harmless legitimate-looking facts" while suppressing all knowledge of the horrors those regimes caused to the people they oppressed?
This is what Google (and Microsoft and Yahoo) are doing in China today. All knowledge of the Chinese crimes against the Tibetan nation or the Tibetan people's struggle to regain their independence are systematically wiped out from their search results as if none of it ever happened, at the behest of the ruling Chinese Communist Party dictatorship.
What is the point of having an "information service" which covers up the most crucial information relating to massive human rights violations? A glorified pacifier to placate the ignorant masses while their ruling regime is busy carrying out genocide to its horrible conclusion?
An estimated 1,500,000 Tibetans (!!) have already perished under the Chinese occupation (nearly a fifth of total population), Tibetan language, buddhist religion, identity and history are systematically suppressed while the CCP is promoting Chinese settlers to overrun Tibet demographically. Not to mention Tibetan natural resources being stolen, nuclear waste dumped there and more nuclear missile sites being built to threaten all democracies south of the Himalayas. Or the brutality of the CCP's paramilitary police against the large number of Tibetan political prisoners being held in secret camps across Tibet. The Chinese population should be allowed to compare these facts to the current feed of Communist Party-driven anti-Japanese propaganda over that brutal, if partial invasion that ceased to take place over sixty years ago. Which invasion is supposed to be less evil and why?
Google's Chinese (dis)service will compliantly keep any of this information from reaching the Chinese or the Tibetans under Chinese occupation because an unelected and expansionist regime wanted them to collaborate.
This shouldn't be only about self-centered westerners worrying about their god-given personal privacy, although privacy is of course extremely important even in democracies with other safety mechanisms against abuse. No, it is far more sinister when corporations from the "democratic world" are helping cover up a holocaust or genocide being committed by their business partners!
What we need is search, webmail etc. services which are guaranteed to remain neutral and safe without turning evil at the first profit-motive. Or which are not subject to American "shareholders uber alles" mentality which corrupted Google. Could/should such services be based in Switzerland or Sweden, both historically neutral territories without track record of collaborating with dictatorial regimes? Would they need massive financing, thereby potentially subjecting them to the whims of the moral-free financial markets, or could enough of their functions (CPU load, distributed and encrypted storage) be offloaded, a la bittorrent, to contributing users and neutral, respectable institutions?
How could the OSS communities help build safe alternatives to Google's morality and privacy-compromised offerings?
In the meanwhile some Tibetan support groups are promoting
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
What I would like to know is:
Can this option be disabled?
Is it on by default?
I'm not so worried about my home machine so much as users at work with possibly sensitive documents being saved online.
I put my very private stuff in a safe deposit box in a bank. I do not actually own the deposit box. Is the bank hurting my privacy? Can the bank hurt my privacy?
I rent an apartment and do all the private stuff (including the extremely private stuff) in this apartment. I do not actually own the apartment. Is the apartment owner hurting my privacy? Can the apartment owner hurt my privacy?
I have my emails containing private information stored in a server. I do not actually own the server. Is the sevice provider hurting my privacy? Can the service provider hurt my privacy?
I believe storing your index in Google server is the same thing. Think the few megabytes Google uses to store your index as your rented storage space.
It is stupid to only trust stuff you own. If you need extreme privacy, get an isolated island. Oh, sorry for those satellites
When China demands Google censor searches, they agree. So if China asks Google to search user's desktops for keywords (Democracy, Revolution, Freedom, etc), will Google agree there?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What I find distressing about all the anti-Google stuff going on is that people seem to have so little faith in Google. Yet, have they really ever betrayed us? All that Google did in China was physically add new servers in China, and like every single other server in China, it has to be censored. The Chinese can still try to use Google's non-Chinese servers using a Chinese-language interface if they want the full Google; they'll just be subject to the intermittent slowdowns and outages that have *always* been associated with Google's non-Chinese servers. And I know, because I've been to China... Google simply *added* new servers that people could opt to never use if they so desired and didn't restrict anything that was in place before; so how on Earth was that bad? Especially since, unlike other services, Google openly discloses this in the search results? (More of my thoughts on Google in China are here for anyone interestd.)
Putting aside China, Google has lived up to its principles, from how frank it is about disclosing potential privacy issues (most other companies would try to cover it up) to how it handles its installers to offering a promimently-placed option to delete your account and every bit of data associated with it in the account manager (for other sites that even have account deletion, most of the time, it took endless menu-digging to find the right place!) to Google's push for open chat standards to Google's torrent of money towards open source. I, for one, believe that Google is on the side of the users. By going from nothing to superstar based almost entirely on word-of-mouth, Google demonstrated how powerful cultivating user trust can be, and Google (and its investors) would have to be idiotic to overlook that so easily. Yes, Google collects a lot of information (just like everyone else), and it takes a lot of pains to remind everyone that any reading/analysis of that information is done by machine (and every time your e-mail passed through a spam filter like SpamAssassin or the filters that are built into every other webmail provider, it's being read and analyzed by a machine, and nobody seems to throw arms up for that).
Google is probably one of the few 800-lb gorillas who is on the side of the user rights and privacy, and the EFF is idiotic for being so quick to condemn a company that I think is really an ally.
"Rather than telling people not to use any of these products and convincing a few people with privacy paranoia they should be concentrating on improving the protections that information will have."
EFF is concentrating on this: they've announced a major lawsuit against AT&T for participating in the government's illegal wiretapping program.
But the surveillance powers of the state have expanded many times through the Bush Administration (and Clinton was hardly a friend of privacy, for that matter). So while it's important to put corporations on notice that their participation in surveillance might land them in hot water, it's likewise important to let the public know that corporations are often left with no choice, and required to surveil them secretly (e.g., because of FISA warrants, or through CALEA wiretapping).
EFF isn't pursuing a monotonic "stop sharing your information" strategy. It's approaching this on many prongs: lobbying the government to sunset the PATRIOT Act, asking the Supreme Court to strike it down, suing companies that participate in surveillance, publishing best-practices documents for privacy-friendly server-logging, and warning the public about the potential for privacy ruptures arising from law and practice.
It's unfair to characterize EFF as merely wagging its fingers at the public. The organization is pursuing this on every possible front.
(Disclosure: I am a former EFF employee)
Right on! Not only do we have google more or less allowing the Chinese to rewrite history, well ok maybe not a rewrite, but certainly omitting the access to some of facts, google may be inadvertently spreading personal history. Yeah I know "its only temporary" and google "is serious about protecting your personal data" and won't index it for the whole web to see..yada..yada..none the less this whole thing seems out of control.
Score 4, Informative
What OS are you using? Because there's this wonderful OS, you may have heard of it, it's called Windows 3.0, is able to search for file names. Now it may not search for a file folder, but it could. I haven't used it in some time.
Above: Score 3, Interesting
but I spent them all earlier today. Otherwise. I would definetly mod this post up. Well said.
By the same logic, there's nothing compelling you to buy Microsoft Windows, or Standard Oil kerosene in 1900. If you don't want your money going to Bill Gates or Rockefeller, simply don't buy from them -- stop whining about how evil their practices are.
cube.google.com ~ A volunteer recruitment site to assist and produce new google products to assist new and old users with helpful software through community only open source documents and files.
Resistance is futile.
~--~
Do not mind the one with the crazy, for he is sane
"Google is probably one of the few 800-lb gorillas who is on the side of the user rights and privacy"
unless you live in china i guess
power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
principles become roadbumps to profit
google has jumped the shark, stop idolizing them, they've passed out of the "do no evil" zone
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Magellan was great. Lotus didn't know what to do with it.
Shame MS didn't buy it and bundle it with DOS!
Disclaimer: I know the guys who wrote it and X1.
As Google's power grows, that power starts corrupting Google. It's inevitable. Those idealistic founders may still hug trees and wear heart-warming slogans on their shirts, but seasoned business executives know better how to milk the cash cow. And they are in charge now.
Yet, have they really ever betrayed us?
You are assuming a dichotomy where none exists. Hardly ever betrayals are so clear-cut. Your local politician may promise $foo, but after one month on the job he says $bar is better - did he betray you, or he simply knows better now? If in a war a soldier tells his girlfriend that his unit is short on ammo, and the GF is with resistance, is it a betrayal? I would expect a smooth, gentle slide from "do no evil" to "do no evil unless you don't mind, and we give you a candy for that" to then "do no evil unless you fail to enter a 26-digit prime number here and now to opt out" to ... you see my point. And that's what is happening.
I, for one, believe that Google is on the side of the users.
You are personifying a company - a collective organism who does not think as humans do, and does not behave as humans do. It is genetically hardwired to get as much money out of you, me and everyone as it legally can. I would be wary of such an animal.
By going from nothing to superstar based almost entirely on word-of-mouth, Google demonstrated how powerful cultivating user trust can be
Mixing the "Google as a startup in a garage" with the "Google as a billion dollar publicly owned business" here. They are not the same, and different people are at the helm now. They don't care what the founders thought back then. They are not the founders.
Whenever I hear or read something from the EFF it sounds like "don't", "no", etc but never "do" or "yes". I thought this here
http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
would mean quite a lot of freedom but the EFF doesn't even answer my mail. Doesn't EFF work for the freedom or doesn't EFF understand what it means? What shall I do so this freedom sinks into their minds or what can I do to make this future become true?
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
I'm beginning to think that I'm the only person who creates directory hierarchies for my documents, and names them with meaningful names.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
it's just that principles are now filtered through more and more layers of other agendas
"do no evil" is now "do no evil except when... and... and... "
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This privacy paranoia is just crazy. You OUGHT to just assume anything and everything you do on the internet is emailed directly to the FBI, the CIA, and your mom. Just don't do anything wrong and you have nothing to worry about. I greatly like and respect the EFF but they need to get off of the privacy bandwagon. Nobody actually cares what you do online 99.9999% of the time.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Aren't subpoenas subject to the same standards of review that search warrants are? i.e. a judge has to sign off on them?
Hmmm, let's see: storing searchable copies of all the documents belonging to every user on Google's servers is in the best interest of: a) The users, who pay nothing; b) The advertisers that have made Google a $150 billion company; c) The shareholders; d) The CIA and NSA.
Do the math people.
A-Bomb
Alright google has now become too scary for me.
*sigh* I'm getting really tired of seeing this kind of bullcrap spouted all over slashdot whenever Google gets mentioned. Believing point blank that google is evil because they now have a china specific version of their search engine is ludicrous.
Firstly the chinese specific portal was created because the experience delivered by their worldwide portal was less than adequate (whether this is the result of filtering thanks to the great firewall of china I don't know). As a result people in china now have a search engine that works. Does it filter out some content? Yes, but it clearly indicates when it has. As a result people in China now get a search engine that lets them know clearly that information is being censored (which may spur some to try and find what that is), and they are being given a resource which cannot possibly filter out everything, there will undoubtedly be holes through which the chinese people can educate themselves.
Ultimately the chinese people see a gain from Google opening its china specific search, which is what it's really about isn't it; the good of the chinese people.
As a Google employee (anonymous, blah), I assure you that this is not the case. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are firmly in charge of Google; I have yet to see a single decision which I can't clearly say was endorsed by them. And they are as idealistic as ever. You don't have to believe me, of course, but I have no reason to lie.
If you have a beef with China, why don't you start with Walmart or any of the other off-shoring corporations who have no problem working with a dictatorship just to save a few bucks. It's easy to act all high and mighty when most of the things you own say "Made in China" on them.
What I find distressing about all the anti-Google stuff going on is that people seem to have so little faith in Google.
Newsflash: Google != God ; faith is highly inappropriate here.
Why should anyone have faith in a company that has as its sole purpose to make money for its shareholders? (They may have had high ideals in the past, but those went out the window with the IPO, such is the nature of publicly owned companies. Any loyalty toward their users, which by the way are NOT their customers just "eyeballs" to sell to the advertisers, has gotten transferred to the shareholders.)
The correct attitude towards big companies, even the cool ones, is a healthy skepicism, not blind faith, for they will screw you over the moment you turn your back.
*sigh* i'm really getting tired of people spouting bullcrap excuses for supression of freedom. You've used politician double speak to say that the're not supressing freedom they encouraging it! They're not invading, they're liberating!
... at least I know where I keep my files. And if I don't, which happens, say, maybe 2 times a year. I hit the dreaded windowskey-f combination. It's not a particularly bold move. Certainly not sexy. But it works quite nicely. Ok, I'm a dumbass. Forgive me.
Yes, and Google founders are not in control of company anymore, riiiiiight....
More or less, get a grip. Companies are companies, of course, and there is executives who are just plainly greedy and ignore any common sense you will throw at them. My pick Google is not one of those companies with them on the board.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
It is nobody's fault.
It's just that a publicly traded company cannot elude its main purpose in live: make for for its shareholders.
This fact of live will convert slowly but surely the Good Google that we all love into another beast.
It is just a matter of time.
Too much power in on hand is NEVER good. Do Google a favor, don't make it the king of the hill.
With the amount of datacenters google has all over the globe how can you possibly think it can be done for free? And of course you can't effectively distribute a search engine over PC sized nodes.
I'd almost go so far as to say the idea of a free search engine which is as popular as google is almost as realistic as the idea of Tibet being freed.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
So they're evil because they're only mostly good? Would that make Microsoft good, given that they've fallen short of Ultimate Evil and Damnation. "Quick! They're starting the long and slippery slope to redemption - give them a nobel peace prize!"
The sad thing is that that makes more sense than most of the anti-Google arguments I've encountered recently.
You are personifying a company - a collective organism who does not think as humans do, and does not behave as humans do.
There is, of course, the question of corporate culture. Microsoft had this "Microsoft software on every computer" vision statement, and look where it led them. Google declared "do no evil" and by and large all their sins have been vapourware.
So, until such time as Google Evil goes beta, I think I'll save my condemnation for actual documented cases involving events that have already occurred.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Google=SkyNet!
Sig Hansen?
If they disable the option by default, which sounds like the case, and they warn/inform you that when enabled that your computer becomes fair game for them to rifle through, copy, etc. I say nor harm no foul... On the other hand, it is sounds like just another form of spyware. I for one, will be using my encryption program more often to encrypt my set of files that I don't want spyware looking at.... Let this be a lesson!
>Google is now also helping repress millions of
& btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=
>Tibetans who have suffered under harsh military
>occupation by the Chinese since 1950.
man I'm giving up my moderator points but what the heck.
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=free+tibet
I wonder if you actually send the *files* (or just the list of files?)? If you did this, what kinds of files can you upload? And is there any limits to the size? Wouldn't this be space excessive to Google? So, if this is the case. Can you download the files back remotely? If not, I see no need for *searching* remotely, when you can't *access*.
Big Google Is Watching Your Files!
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
That said, I am much more worried about what the more nefarious web denizens intend to do with my information. In all honesty, I don't stand to lose much if the government looks at my files (not to be confused/flamed for 'I don't care if...). But if some balding 35 year old hacker wants to buy a new Capt. Kirk doll to adorn his mom's basement, I may be in trouble. It is for that reason that I do not use Google desktop.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
Tightvnc does file xfer between win32 systems.
http://www.tightvnc.com/intro.html
"We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" -- Kurt Vonnegut
Many concepts about designing databases that don't reveal all people's data to the database administrator are discussed in the book Translucent Databases
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
Actually, Google is currently an exception to this. Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt combined own enough of the company to have full control over it without being challenged.
:)
I don't know the exact details, because there's something about two different classes of stocks, or something. The above is the effect of the way the shares are currently held, though. If you want more info, I'm sure you can find it with a bit of help from Google.
Sure, it won't help if the government wants your data -- they can force you to turn over your keys or send you to Guantanamo -- but I don't think Google will be preasuring you to hand over your keys. I haven't RTFA, and I don't use G.D. but can't you tell it to not scan certain partitions or folders? If not, why does *anybody* use it?!?
PGP, it's your friend!
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
I can't understand why people spring to Google's defence as if they are employees or shareholders whenever issues regarding the search giant pop up here. There are two issues here that people seem to be upset about:
As has been mentioned here, Google, while a large influential company that makes our lives simpler, is still bound by the laws of the countries in which they operate. The company is run by individuals who are open to corruption (since nobody's perfect). Most people would think twice before leaving their PCs unlocked if they walk away from their desks (rather than trusting their colleagues), but a disturbing majority of people here seem to have blind faith in a company simply because they have a "Don't be evil" motto.
Google knew that they would be releasing a new GD version that will allow storing private information on Google servers when Feds asked for search logs. I think that Google refused (and made a big deal out of it by getting ready for a court) just to assure future users of new GD version that they will not be providing any stored data to government.
I will not be surprised, however if once users start using new Google Desktop data storage features widely, Google will just start complying with the gov requests.... Name one big public company that doesn't for a long run?
I hope I am wrong!
I'd like to know why Google logs my searches and ties them to my IP Address. Even if they never hand my searches over to anyone else, I find it a gross violation of my privacy. Does anyone know a good search engine that does not store so much private information?
I'm a happy Linux user with no data being collected by either Microsoft or Google. Unless they make their upcoming closed-source port of GoogleEarth to Linux a trojan, i'm fine, i guess...
I don't feel like it...
I pay money to have a server to run my domains, the government could subpoena all my files I'm storing there if it wanted to. Maybe some cracker could get in there too, either by password or subverting a service. Now google is offering some storage space that could also be subject to the same thing. No big deal. Don't like it, don't use it.
"copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents [to] Google's own servers"?
I've got over 40gb of PDFs. I don't want this feature turned on simply because of the bandwidth it would suck.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I'm beginning to think that I'm the only person who knows how to do long division.
I've been able to index across multiple computers since I've gotten google desktop(or at least until it let you specify which drives to index). Install google desktop on all computers you use. Map network drives to other computers. Index it all. No google server necessary
Granted Google Desktop is free (as is enterprise edition for now too, except support is $10K/yr), there is a very funny side to this too. Most people these days have *way* too much memory and CPU, considering the tasks for which they are using their machines. I mean computing, not realtime 3D rendering, sound synthesis or maneuvering bloated app bits around. The computing side of machines. Personal computers these days have enough power these days to run powerful search engines of their own without farming it across the net. I myself am very happy Google is doing this since last year I designed a simple program that has some of the same functionality and now I can point to Google and say "but my system is safer". How long until those neat ethernet equipped hard disks come with similar searching/rsyncing features? Anyway I keep rating everything I see against the BeOS (now Zeta) live search query folders. So far that is the best darned thing I've seen.
here
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Anyway, if your point was to show how "google.cn" will proudly display honest search results for queries forbidden by the Chinese regime, you'd be better off (well actually worse off but hey...) trying that search from the other side of the Chinese Communist Party's fancy censorship filters, built with the courteous help by certain Cisco Corp.
Not only would do you fail to get uncensored results but the Party's own "Public Security" paramilitary police would be likely to learn where such "illegal" queries originated from. The small number of anti-dictatorship activists who are not only brave enough but also capable of finding and using outside proxies and tunnels but who have no way of communicating to the wider masses are currently not the primary worry for the regime which has itself admitted to "policing" a record 70 thousand uprisings, most of them against corruption and official abuse within the party itself, only last year alone.
Naturally most search results in Beijing's simplified Chinese tend to parrot the pro-regime party line even outside Chinese controlled territories. Very few Chinese within or outside China are able or willing to recognize the brutal reality about their powerful masters.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Usually when I use GDS, I don't know the name of the file. I just know that it contains information about X and possibly Y. So I search for X and Y and voila, there it is, instantly.
If all you ever search for is filenames, more power to you. Some of us are searching for facts, info, things that you don't generally put into filenames.
Example: I was going to send a letter to a friend of mine, but I couldn't find my address book (I'm not a fan of PDAs). I type my friend's name and the keyword "address" into GDS, it finds an email I received with that friends address. Copy it down, send the letter. Easy.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
As an Anonymous Coward, you quite abviously are a secret google operative. You have every reason to lie!
This implies that the files only need to be on a google server for as long as it takes to build the index. It could delete the source even before it copies the index to the user's other machines.
If true, expect a fix tomorrow (:-))
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Hi, I wrote the headline. FTFA:
/. geeks it's an option to download, configre, run a tcpdump and make sure your information is safe (might wanna add some firewall checks too incase it patches itself and that changes your settings). But for the larger number of users out there, like our Moms who we constantly clean up after they download the latest spyware to play bejeweled, the EFF is sending the clear message of do not install.
"Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop"
It's the first line. Of an EFF press release. Later:
"Unless you configure Google Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index."
True, maybe for the
Since you do not follow the EFF, they are saying it's google fault. In fact, they are sueing AT&T because it's their fault they gave the goverment the keys to their database. They think (ya, I know crazy talk here) that a company should be required by law to protect the privacy of the people it has information on, be clear in telling the people what information they have, and who it has been given to. Again, FTFA:
"Many Internet innovations involve storing personal files on a service provider's computer, but under outdated laws, consumers who want to use these new technologies have to surrender their privacy rights. If Google wants consumers to trust it to store copies of personal computer files, emails, search histories and chat logs, and still 'not be evil,' it should stand with EFF and demand that Congress update the privacy laws to better reflect life in the wired world."
Then that is an issue with Cisco. Not google. Google also shows you that the results have been censored which is better then just searching and not realising results are missing (eg. MSN, Yahoo).
I have an idea that might kill google. When you search for something, most of the times the resulting pages are more than 3-4 months old. We don't always need today's posting on the internet to satisfy our query. So, if I were to take the whole Internet snapshot once every six months and sell it, then people can search the Internet locally using any search tool. Hence, no need of google. Let's see whether this idea is feasible. The size of internet is in terabytes, let's say 500 terabytes. Let's say that we splice the Inetrnet according to some criteria such that a slice is only 10 terabytes. So, we would need 20 disks of capacity 500 GB each for that particular slice. The cost would be $10,000 that can be afforded by schools, colleges, corporates, etc. A law school can buy a slice that has pages related to law only. They don't need pages devoted to linux, maths, etc. What do you people think?
...do you measure your quality of life?
I find it kind of amusing how they're saying "don't use Google Desktop", "Google is storing your info that can be accessed easily by the government" and such, yet if you go to eff.org the search is "Powered by Google". Just funny...
Another thing, the Chinese can afford to wait for decades or even generations for better times, but the Tibetans don't have such luxury lest they are willing to face extinction as people, nation, language and culture. Would you also have approved of Google collaborating with the Nazi regime to provide the German and occupied populations Nazi-vetted propaganda while the extermination camps were already operating? If Google gave a note that the information they were providing had to comply with the "government regulations"?
Do you have some particular reason for liking Google?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Why would they want to waste their money collecting everybody's garbage?
simple.
they must be developing artificial intelligence! a worldwide neural net! feed it garbage from everyone on the planet, and it'll soon comprehend everything and everyone!
it is gNet.
I had this service on both my laptops one for personal and other for bussiness. I removed from the bussiness machine because think of the results of having all my companies documents out there.. I think google desktop is a great service but I cann't risk our docs getting out there. Its funny to think the amount most companies have invested into firewalls, secure connections and security then a company comes along and just searchs all your files and stores them locally :)
My personal computer though hhaha good luck to the guy reading the files on that baby :)
Maybe it's time to start calling some of my files "Tiananmen Square", "Falun Gong", or "Dalai Lama". That should keep at least one quarter of the world's population out of my hard drive...
The EFF has a point- The NSA is illegally wire-tapping phones, what's preventing them from getting into google servers illegally? Google Desktop's indexing function in itself is anti-bittorrent. Azureus can't write to the download file if GD is indexing it. It was rather maddening because I had the new Knoppix Live-DVD torrenting and it was cancelled by Azureus at 12.5% because GD was "Using the file".
I agree, however the average joe blow that is buying a new dell that has Google desktop installed when it arrives, don't get the option to choose, nor are very many people informed about the data collection they perform.
Joe Blow may not have the option to choose whether or not Goodle Desktop is installed on his new Dell, but he certainly has the choice of whether or not to purchase that Dell. If Joe Blow chooses to purchase a computer and he chooses to buy a Dell specifically and he chooses not to read the list of software pre-installed on the machine and he chooses to leave the software on the machine after he receives it, how can he not be personally responsible for Google getting information about him.
This is kind of like the tiny fine print on a contract. Also there isn't an 'I Agree' button on the Google Search website, people think they are just looking up information.
There may not be an "I Agree" button, but there is a link to "About Google" where there are links to little things called "Privacy Policy" and "Terms of Service."
When will people understand that Google isn't hiding out in a dark alley hitting passerbys over the head and stealing information. They put out a big colorful sign that says, "Our goal is to organize the world's information" and people come to the big colorful sign and throw information at it. Google has bills to pay and they pay those bills by harvesting, organizing, and re-selling (in a way) that information. Everybody wants something for free, but don't want to believe the reality that nothing is truly free.
Are you one of the people who felt the woman was justified who sued McDonalds for serving her hot coffee because there were not significant warnings that it was hot? Where does personal responsibility end?
Your idea isn't feasible, fo a few reasons:
1. $10,000 is too expensive for a product that is a) instantly "out of date" and b) whose competition (Google) is "free" - at least as viewed by the customer.
2. It isn't scalable. One must assume that Google is working on cashing large sections of the net itself, eventually offering that as an "internet light". I would imagine that with all the dark fibre they're scooping up, they'll be able to deliver their platform directly to consumers - probably for something like $5 a month. Any plans to contend with that?
Google makes these services and software available for free to the average user. They need to support this with advertisment. Google did some great things with relevant text ads. In order to provide relevant ads, the more information they have about you, the better. If you don't like it, then don't use Google. It's not like Microsoft PCs where most people don't have a choice (or don't know about the other choices).
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Again, any examples on that?
It doesn't matter if google will give their all. All that matters is that they are going to do more than the next guy. If people's stuff is going to end up on servers anyway we want to pick the company who will do the most *even if it isn't that much* to go first.
The idea that you can defend your privacy on your own just doesn't work. If everyone you correspond with puts stuff on servers you lose privacy anyway. Even if my suggestion is a slim chance it is the only chance we have.
Also hiring a lobbyist, no matter what position they support isn't the sort of thing that gets you made into road kill. You might not ultimately win but congressmen aren't going to get vindictive because you took them out to dinner. I think the best hope in this area is lobbying lawmakers not the courts (though we should pursue both avenues).
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Google also stated that they are not currently planning world conquest and enslavement of mankind, but have not ruled out the possibility.
I'm guessing somewhere at Google there's a neon sign with the company motto "Don't be evil" and you just know the "don't" is doing a lot of flickering these days.
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duh
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://tightvnc.com/
The latest version of TigtVNC does support file transfers, thanks to persistent requests from DONORS to the project (such as myself).
Download. Donate something.
(Note the last dev version is expected to be released as stable with no additional changes.)
Here's what I don't get about this kind of argument. Why is it wrong for Google to block information that was never available in China in the first place? It's not as though China had access to all of this information before Google got involved.
Maybe this is a naive question. I'll admit that I've only been paying casual attention to the issue. But I don't see how Google's participation is causing any information to be suppressed that wouldn't have been suppressed anyway.
This is the key warning from EFF, people. Currently, if police want to search through your computer, they require a search warrant, but anyone, including your wife you are divorcing, the cops, people who are suing you, can ask for a supoena.
Most regular people won't understand the legal ramifications of this. It means that all your documents will be opened to a weaker form of legal protection, which is very very bad.
It looks like Google has really made a serious mis-step here. Great idea in theory, but bad idea in practice.
Ohmigod! That's why I stopped using AOL!
"We're millions of miles from earth, inside a giant white face, what's impossible?"
Don't you get it? Google is a facade for the NSA!
It's simply amazing the blind faith people have in Google, even when it makes moves that, if made by Microsoft, would fortell the end of the world and cause a panic on Slashdot.
/. willing to spread Google's cheeks and lick their...you know?
Google is a huge company, why is everyone on
Y'all been drinking the Google Kool-Aid and it's gonna getcha.
Anyone figured out how to block or disable the "Search Across Computers" function on a Windows domain?
The best solution (IMHO) would be to block any uploads of data to Google at the firewall level.
The second best solution would be to force disabling this function via a registry key or group policy object.
I did some searching around, and have found nothing on this.
Google Desktop has auto-update, correct? I'm on the 11/01/05 version, and I don't see anything about this. I do see in the privacy policy: "Your computer's content is not made accessible to Google or anyone else without your explicit permission."
Indeed. Corporations are legally required to attempt to make money for their
shareholders (it's called "Fiduciary responsibility").
(This is normally a good thing, because it keeps executives from
taking your money and departing for Brazil.)
Corporations
are actually forbidden from engaging in activities that do not
enhance their business. (This is normally a good thing,
because it prevents executives from buying boats for themselves.)
However, anyone with a bit of imagination can see that both
of those legal requirements have their dark side. Between
them, they prevent corporations from being "nice". They force
corporations to be amoral (not immoral): focussed on making money,
and little else. Corporate charity, for example, is legally
justifiable only from the advertising value it has.
So, Google can perhaps "do no evil", but they cannot legally
promise more than that.
In soviet russia, Pr0n collects you.
Maybe also in other parts of earth.
I dunno.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
"do no evil" has become "do no evil, except in china, and... and... and..."
zzzzzzzzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
same thing, doing a little evil for a greater good
plus if i kill a few bums to do medical research to save thousands, i am doing a little evil to good, right?
where do you draw the line?
how about we do a little evil: invade china, to do much good: free the people from autocracy?
am i understanding you yet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I hate spam, I hate popups.
but im a consumer and I buy things. I get mad when stupid random ads are on sites, or pop up here and there. Still... Say I loved collecting model trains.
Google's engine finds out about this, and shows me a model train ad. I click it and it goes to a site which carries old and hard to find models I never knew existed. IMO targeted marketing would benefit both consumers and marketers.
I stop seeing stupid random crap, and suddenly see things i might be really interested in.
If you don't use it, Google Desktop can't harvest a thing. So don't. Use something else to search across your network. If you must use it, encrypt your data and use the longest possble key allowed. Sure, it someone throws a few terabytes of dedicated processing power at it, they'll crack it in a few days (maybe a little sooner), but that kind of processing time costs a lot and no one is going to thow money at it unless they are pretty sure there's something there that will be useful. I don't use Google Desktop, but I don't need it. With Mac OSX, I have other secure options. I suspect this is a big issue for Windows users; but then, Windows is so full of security holes that I wonder if Google Desktop really adds to that risk.
"The only way to be totally sure is to use Open Source and get down on your knees"
:) With miniturization this day, again f money was no issue, I'd even burn the die myself.
I'm totally with you. I'd like to add though... open source isn't.
If it was me thinking this sh~t up, I'd arrange for certain command sequences to the processor to launch a "firmkit" on demand. It would effectively be impossible to detect. Anomalous behavior could easily be written off as "bugs" or manufacturing defects. IBM, AMD, Intel, Cisco no doubt comply with government requests of this nature and it really isn't too hard to accomplish (since those companies dominate key areas of the hardware landscape) if you have the legal authority behind you.
I too would use open source for the encryption and OS (I'd even edit the code a little and do the compiling myself to change the hash) If possible I'd port everything to a non IBM/AMD/INTEL CPU or (if money is no object) build the encryption hardware from the ground up.
I would also do all my encryption on computers that are NOT on a network other than their own before transfering the encrypted file to a networked machines.
Encryption is completely useless if they can get to the keys via hardware backdoors or software exploits. (btw - I would consider one time pads if appropriate to your usage. Storage is cheap these days and creating entropy data isn't too hard. This way even a 16 qubit quantum computer couldn't get to you)
Intranet/firewall/router just isn't enough if they own Cisco and co or arrange for the chipset inside to be "special"
Either a manual method needs to be used to transfer files (e.g. CDs... I'd even make sure to buffer the exchange medium with dummy files to fill up unused space... just in case some extra data decides to come along for the ride)
or
one needs to jerry-rig custom pipe between the machines using the lowest tech components possible for use in your application. (can you say breadboard, AND/OR/XOR gates and 555 timers
A couple of other points that doesn't get much attention.
1. With all sorts of RF technology on the horizon, it would indicate that the server should be placed in a room that can't leak.
2. I'd also keep tabs on the power supply since having a carrier signal on powerlines is also possible.
Although all these steps are probably overkill at the moment, I'm pretty sure this type of system could only be beat by physical intrusion for the indefinite future. No matter how many holes you plug up today, whatever you leave open will instantly be the choice avenue of billions of annual surveillance dollars.
My reasoning therefore is PLUG THEM ALL. I just wouldn't trust anything else with complete confidence. It really comes down to how much time and money you have to get to this point.
It's not that we are being watched by people (we are by our computers) but that if some flag goes off... or someone doesn't like you... the NSA basically owns you if you are using computers as part of your daily operations and those computers are part of a network.
In conclusion:
I don't know about you but I've been doing this for a loooongggg time and worked on an enterprise level for one of the big guys. Mix in that I've been around the philosophical block and I think I understand the rational of people that are power oriented.
There is only win or lose and everything else is an excuse.
What's really funny about this whole subject is those condescending incompetent fish (that think they're technically oriented because they own a computer). The truth is the people responsible for our assuring our "rights" can (and do) authorize the killing of thousands of people--- yet people seem to think their leaders will lose sleep at night over protecting t
The problem is that "Little Billy" is now "Senile Old Billy". And when he tries to come over and sneeze on your house of cards, he gets winded halfway up the walk - that's when "Little Google' comes out, steals Little Billy's dentures, and throws him in front of a bus.
Or at least that's how it's worked so far, and looks to continue. Google might make some missteps but Microsoft is in a drunken swagger.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley