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Googling Security
brothke writes "It has been suggested
that if one was somehow able to change history so that aspirin had never been
discovered until now, it would have died in the lab and stand no chance of FDA
approval. Similarly, if we knew the power that Google
would have in 2008 with its ability to aggregate and correlate personal data,
it is arguable that various regulatory and privacy bodies would never allow it
to exist given the extensive privacy issues." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.
Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You?
author
Greg Conti
pages
360
publisher
Addison-Wesley Professional
rating
9
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
978-0321518668
summary
Explores the many security risks around Google and other search engines
In a fascinating and
eye-opening new book Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know
About You?, author Greg Conti explores the many security
risks around Google and other search engines. Part
of the problem is that in the rush to get content onto the web, organizations
often give short shrift to the security and privacy of their
data. At the individual level, those who make use of
the innumerable and ever expanding amount of Google free services can end up
paying for those services with their personal information being compromised,
or shared in ways they would not truly approve of; but implicitly do so via
their acceptance of the
Google
Terms of
Service.
While the book focuses specifically on Google, the security issues detailed are just as relevant to Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask and the more than 50 other search engines.
My friend and SEO guru Shimon Sandler has a blog around search engine optimization (SEO). In the over three years that his blog has been around, my recent post on The Need for Security in SEO was the first on the topic of SEO security. Similar SEO blogs have a very low number (and often no) articles on SEO and security. Sandler notes that when he mentions privacy issues around search to his clients, it is often the first time they have thought of it.
The book opens with the observation that Google's business model is built on the prospect of providing its services for free. From the individual user's perspective, this is a model that they can live with. But the inherent risk is that the services really are not completely free; they come at the cost of the loss of control of one's personal information that they share with Google.
The book lists over 50 Google services and applications which collect personal information. From mail, alerts, blogging, news, desktop, images, maps, groups, video and more. People are placing a great deal of trust into Google as each time they use a Google service, they are trusting the organization to safeguard their personal information. In chapter 5, the book lists over 20 stated uses and advantages of Google Groups, and the possible information disclosure risks of each.
In the books 10 chapters, the author provides a systematic overview of how Google gets your personal data and what it does with it. In chapter 3, the book details how disparate pieces of data can be aggregated and mined to create extremely detailed user profiles. These profiles are invaluable to advertisers who will pay Google dearly for such meticulous user data. This level of personal data aggregation was impossible to obtain just a few years ago, given the lack of computing power, combined with the single point of user data. The book notes that this level of personalization, while golden to advertisers, is a privacy anathema.
Chapter 6 is particularly interesting in that it details the risks of using Google Maps. Conti explains that the privacy issue via the use of Google Maps is that it combines disclosure risks of search and connects it to mapping. You are now sharing geographic locations and the associated interactions. By clicking on a link in a Google map, the user discloses and strengthens the link between the search they performed and what they deemed as important in the result. By aggregating source IP addresses and destinations searches, Google can easily ascertain confidential data.
After detailing over 250 pages of the risks of Google and related services, Chapter 9 is about countermeasures. Short of simply not using the services, the book notes that there is no clear solution for protecting yourself and company from web-based information disclosure. Nonetheless, the chapter lists a number of things that can be done to reduce the threat. Some are easier, some are harder; but they can ultimately add up to a significant layer of protection. Chapter 9 details 11 specific steps that help users appreciate the magnitude of their disclosures and make informed decisions about which search services to use.
Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You? is an important book given that far too many people do not realize how much personal information they are disclosing on a daily basis. An important point that the book makes is that small information disclosures are not truly small when they are aggregated over the course of years. Advances in data mining and artificial intelligence are magnifying the importance of the threat, all under the guise of improving the end-user experience. The book emphasizes the need to evaluate the short-term computing gains with the long-term privacy losses.
The final chapter notes that apathy is the enemy. As a user becomes aware of the magnitude of the threat, they will see it grow every day. But the next step is to take action. Be it with technical countermeasures, taking your business where privacy is better supported, or petitioning lawmakers.
As to the underlying question, "how much does Google know about you?", the answer is that it is a colossal amount, far more than most people realize. For anyone who uses the Internet, Googling Security should be on their list of required reading. The risks that Google and other search engines present are of great consequence and can't be overlooked. If not, privacy could slowly be a thing of the past.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You? from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
While the book focuses specifically on Google, the security issues detailed are just as relevant to Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask and the more than 50 other search engines.
My friend and SEO guru Shimon Sandler has a blog around search engine optimization (SEO). In the over three years that his blog has been around, my recent post on The Need for Security in SEO was the first on the topic of SEO security. Similar SEO blogs have a very low number (and often no) articles on SEO and security. Sandler notes that when he mentions privacy issues around search to his clients, it is often the first time they have thought of it.
The book opens with the observation that Google's business model is built on the prospect of providing its services for free. From the individual user's perspective, this is a model that they can live with. But the inherent risk is that the services really are not completely free; they come at the cost of the loss of control of one's personal information that they share with Google.
The book lists over 50 Google services and applications which collect personal information. From mail, alerts, blogging, news, desktop, images, maps, groups, video and more. People are placing a great deal of trust into Google as each time they use a Google service, they are trusting the organization to safeguard their personal information. In chapter 5, the book lists over 20 stated uses and advantages of Google Groups, and the possible information disclosure risks of each.
In the books 10 chapters, the author provides a systematic overview of how Google gets your personal data and what it does with it. In chapter 3, the book details how disparate pieces of data can be aggregated and mined to create extremely detailed user profiles. These profiles are invaluable to advertisers who will pay Google dearly for such meticulous user data. This level of personal data aggregation was impossible to obtain just a few years ago, given the lack of computing power, combined with the single point of user data. The book notes that this level of personalization, while golden to advertisers, is a privacy anathema.
Chapter 6 is particularly interesting in that it details the risks of using Google Maps. Conti explains that the privacy issue via the use of Google Maps is that it combines disclosure risks of search and connects it to mapping. You are now sharing geographic locations and the associated interactions. By clicking on a link in a Google map, the user discloses and strengthens the link between the search they performed and what they deemed as important in the result. By aggregating source IP addresses and destinations searches, Google can easily ascertain confidential data.
After detailing over 250 pages of the risks of Google and related services, Chapter 9 is about countermeasures. Short of simply not using the services, the book notes that there is no clear solution for protecting yourself and company from web-based information disclosure. Nonetheless, the chapter lists a number of things that can be done to reduce the threat. Some are easier, some are harder; but they can ultimately add up to a significant layer of protection. Chapter 9 details 11 specific steps that help users appreciate the magnitude of their disclosures and make informed decisions about which search services to use.
Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You? is an important book given that far too many people do not realize how much personal information they are disclosing on a daily basis. An important point that the book makes is that small information disclosures are not truly small when they are aggregated over the course of years. Advances in data mining and artificial intelligence are magnifying the importance of the threat, all under the guise of improving the end-user experience. The book emphasizes the need to evaluate the short-term computing gains with the long-term privacy losses.
The final chapter notes that apathy is the enemy. As a user becomes aware of the magnitude of the threat, they will see it grow every day. But the next step is to take action. Be it with technical countermeasures, taking your business where privacy is better supported, or petitioning lawmakers.
As to the underlying question, "how much does Google know about you?", the answer is that it is a colossal amount, far more than most people realize. For anyone who uses the Internet, Googling Security should be on their list of required reading. The risks that Google and other search engines present are of great consequence and can't be overlooked. If not, privacy could slowly be a thing of the past.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You? from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Googling Security
About 830,000,000 results returned.
Similarly, cell phone cameras would have been banned from ever being marketed. It's way too easy to film goverment officials and law enforcement agencies commiting abuses of power, when before that it used to be your word against theirs, with their word always winning.
Forget the what-if-we-knew-x-years-ago supposition : why does nobody - no regulatory body that is - demand that Google explain exactly what data they collect and what the heck they do with it?
Really, it seems that, since they started out saying "do no evil", everybody took their word for it and let it go at that. Google is worth billions, reaches millions worldwide, provides dozens of services people have come to rely on, and yet no-one knows what they do exactly, aside from banalities such as "their business model is selling ads". Heck, even Microsoft is under 100x more intense scrutiny than Google...
I like and use Google services as much as the next guy, but their ultra-secretive habits make me very wary of them.
My grandparents refused I remember a long time ago to give out their Social Security Number to anyone.
I remember when you put your credit card onto the manual machine and then made sure to get the carbons.
For the luxury of convenience we have given up our security our anonynimity in not just the digital world but the world at large.
And for this price we get one-click shopping and online bill paying and such. But when the waiter swipes you card # it all comes back to you.
And am I any better than anyone else in this regard ? No. Not really.
ACK
For all we know, Google could have an extensive psych profile on each of us, know the names of everyone in our family, and probably even determine our level of education or our professions based simply on our search queries.
:P
Google's reputation, however, is mighty squeaky clean, and until it is revealed just exactly what kind of information their computers can put together from your web habits (and what, exactly, they do with it), I have a feeling we'll be in denial about it for a very long time. I mean, they really, really have a couple billion metric fucktons of money.
I refuse to put any more information into Facebook than I already have because, unlike Google, Facebook doesn't have quite so evident of a business model.
Google away.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I'm predicting that Google's flu tracker is going to end up being used as an argument in favor of a federal data retention mandate if it turns out to be successful for the CDC. While DHS may have recently shown that datamining doesn't work on terrorists, I'll bet that it would certainly work on certain classes of other criminals like sex offenders. How long before the DoJ starts down this path by saying, "hey Google, why don't you keep an eye on suspicious searches for us, and let us know if someone reaches a threshold of $X searches/month so we can see if they're bad dudes banging little kids." The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Think I'm paranoid? Then explain why the USA PATRIOT Act was ready to go so soon after 9-11. It's not like they were just waiting for a justification to present it to Congress...
The premise here is "if only we had known ahead of time, we would have done things differently". In the cases where we did know ahead of time, or enough people did, we still went ahead and did it anyway. *After* the Grand Banks fishery collapsed ... we continued to fish it. A few short years later ... we shut down the entire fishery due to lack of foresight and cooperation.
For some reason, I've never viewed Google as a particularly large threat. They seem to be using the data mining to sell a well targeted audience. Is there a Google service where I can pay to get dirt on my neighbors? There's two guys living out front I'd like to get rid of.
Like a bank, there is a business model to make a lot of money in a hurry by whisking all the deposits off to an island paradise. However, the business model where they maintaining the trust relationship with the fools who deposited in the first place pays better in the long run. When you get down to it, banks sell trust, and not much else.
Do we think our banks don't know a lot about us? If only we had known, we'd have never allowed banks to exist in the first place.
What's happening here is that with mass storage plummeting into the $/TB range, one way or another we were going to have to rethink our entire privacy and public information models rather dramatically.
If only we had known, we'd have never allowed Shugart to spin that first platter.
No, they are saying that aspirin has so many side effects and health risks that it wouldn't be approved if tested under today's rules.
The more usual example given is penicillin.
Penicillin which has saved a million times more lives than even the most hyperactive cartoon hero.
Penicillin which has made so many nightmare deadly diseases into matters of a week feeling a bit off.
That same penicillin wouldn't have a chance of getting through drug trials.Penicillin allergy is one of the most common drug allergies and the way drug trials are run the moment the first test subjects went into anaphylactic shock the trials would stop and the drug would be thrown in the bin. Never mind it's potential. Never mind the value we now know it has, it would have gone in the bin if it had had to pass modern drug trials and countless lives would have been lost.
Funny side note. If you thought peanuts might cure cancer and you put them through trials as a drug they wouldn't even get to the stage of being given to actual cancer patients since someone would almost certainly have a severe reaction before that point.
The aspirin thing is retarded. If aspirin were created today, it would cost $5 a pill and make billions for Bayer. Then a plaintiff's lawyer would sue Bayer for billion bucks after Reye's syndrome kills some flu-ridden kids who took aspirin, and then Bayer would be rocked with a scandal when the blood-thinning properties of aspirin causes deaths in the elderly who got ulcers using aspirin.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
I'm not sure I agree. Do people "willingly disclose" the contents of their emails, their searches, their map queries, their photos, their videos, etc by using Google services? Personally, I'm trusting them not to compile all that information and sell it - but what if they did?
With data mining, the whole is much more than the sum of the parts. Your individual queries might not be worth protecting - "ooh, I can't have Google know that I want an office chair!" - but in aggregate, they might reveal where you live, your financial status, your relationship troubles, your medical problems, what products you like.... stuff that marketers would die for.
If people knew what their "willingly disclosed" info could be used for, maybe they'd be less willing.
There is actually a great short story about the idea of Google using its collected information for Homeland Security. The story is called "Scroogled". Good read. I'd link to it but I thought it more appropriate to have you Google the title.