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Questioning Google's Privacy Reform

Posted by Soulskill on from the how-private-is-private? dept.

JagsLive makes note of a story questioning whether Google's recent commitment to anonymize IP logs faster is really as good as it sounds. We discussed their announcement a few days ago. CNet's Chris Soghoian takes a closer look: "While the company hasn't said how it de-identifies the cookies, it has revealed in public statements that its IP anonymization technique consists of chopping off the last 8 bits of a user's IP address. As an example, an IP address of a home user could be 173.192.103.121. After 18 months, Google chops this down to 173.192.103.XXX. Since each octet (the numbers between each period of an IP) can contain values from 1-255, Google's anonymization technique allows a user, at most, to hide among 254 other computers. ... Google has now revealed that it will change "some" of the bits of the IP address after 9 months, but less than the eight bits that it masks after the full 18 months. Thus, instead of Google's customers being able to hide among 254 other Internet users, perhaps they'll be able to hide among 64, or 127 other possible IP addresses. By itself, this is a laughable level of anonymity. However, it gets worse."

5 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Well by mindstrm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do all those whining about this anonymize their own server logs? Because I sure don't.... they are doing this to keep the mob away, that's it.

    1. Re:Well by Silas+is+back · · Score: 5, Funny

      Subpoenaing logs for IP 123.456.789 from Google is not the same as getting logs from icanhascheezburger.

      I'm not sure whether you're qualified to talk about IPs giving this example IP.

      --
      this sig is useless
  2. Uh huh, yeah, whatever. by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dont trust anybody what they say about your "privacy".

    Install Firefox 3, AdBlock+, noscript, and torbutton.

    You want complete anonymity, click torbutton (you have to set up tor). You're now damned hidden. No cookie leaks and stuff;.

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  3. Tor is not a solution either by speedtux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    except, of course, that with Tor, the egress routers can (and probably do) look at your unencrypted communications, which often can be traced back to you, too.

    If you want reasonable anonymity, you need to buy VPN access from a source using a non-traceable payment method. And, of course, they can still correlate your online activity on various sites. A single unencrypted Yahoo Mail or GMail session will unlock your entire usage history.

  4. Re:Hide by Anti_Climax · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you're using google services from IPv6, it's even easier to figure out who you are.

    I mean, it's either you or the other guy...

    --
    Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.