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Google Is Bringing Chrome Remote Desktop App To Android
An anonymous reader writes "Google is building a Chrome remote desktop app, which lets you access other computers or another user access your computer over the Internet, for Android. The new addition, called Chromoting, will likely be pushed as a mobile version of the existing Chrome Remote Desktop offering. For those who don't know, the original Chrome Remote Desktop is an extension for Google's browser. It was first released as a beta in October 2011 and could be used to control another one of your own computers as well as a friend's or family member's (usually to help with IT issues)."
Google owns my digital existence. They read my mail, know every website I visit, record all my voice mails, track who I call and can use GPS to track me to within just a few meters of my location on the planet at any given moment. ...I try not to think about it.
Yet somehow Google's services make me feel like they've actually added value to my life. If Google were a government, I'd feel like Winston Smith.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Am I the only one who's gone from 'oooo, that's cool!' to 'I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that' with a lot of new technology from 'the big guys' recently?
Google own my life. And by extension, my Government, other Governments, security agencies, and many corporate interests own my life.
I've known this forever (and tried not to think about it too much), but with recent disclosures, it's really brought it all home.
All tech I look at now I'm finally asking "So... what data does that give you access to?". It's taking time to figure out a migration path for all my current solutions, but I'm slowly trying to find a route where I'm in control of my data. I know that this probably makes me an idiot, and those that were always privacy concious can laugh - but meh, it's better late than never to come to this realization that I can't trust any third party. Isn't it?
Yeah, the idea of letting them access my desktop (or even just potentially capture video of my desktop interactions) is fucking gross. It's sad that we're now in a world where this fear is entirely substantiated and not simple paranoia.
Erm I am running unvetted code all the time. Right now there's gigs of unvetted code in my memory. Heck even your typical linux users will have unvetted code in the form of binary blobs for various drivers, maybe even software packages, not to mention the computer BIOS.
Some how I find it hard to get up in arms about a bit of javascript knowing that it's scope is limited, it is sandboxed, and that it pales in comparison to the security nightmare which is 3rd party applications I am using constantly, most of which have some internet facing element or are riddled with exploitable bugs of their own.
As much as bashing on Google is the in thing to do, the product being discussed is 2 years old, they are just releasing an Android client for it. The world didn't implode when it was released, and I haven't heard of the plugin being exploited in any way either. And users being disallowed from blocking access to Android apps? Well with the 1000s of apps that do the same thing on the market, why not just download the ones with sensible security requirements? When a fart app needs access to my contact list it doesn't get installed, no security risk. And for shit like Angry birds which plays full screen video ads, that's easily defeated by a single keypress which disables data traffic on my phone. I'm unlikely to be browsing the net while playing angry birds anyway.
They are being cavalier with security partially because people don't care, and partially because security problems are usually blown way out of proportion.
I think you are missing the point. This is 2013 and the concern for Google serving you with targeted ads in return for a service has been superseded by the reality that they are essentially a massive data collection service (directly and systematically or indirectly and by coercion -- but let's not act like there aren't nefarious ties to the government, here) for state.
It is 2013 and people *long* for the more carefree days of the past when the biggest security/privacy concern was targeted ads.