Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop (Major Privacy Concerns!)

[linuxgeek]

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February 09, 2006

Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation

Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop

San Francisco - Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.

"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "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. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it. Other litigants—your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whoever—could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."

The privacy problem arises because the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only limited privacy protection to emails and other files that are stored with online service providers—much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it's on your computer at home. And even that lower level of legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to allow it.

"This Google product highlights a key privacy problem in the digital age," said Cindy Cohn, EFF's Legal Director. "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."

For more on Google's data collection:
http://news.com.com/FAQ+When+Google+is+not+your+friend/2100-1025_3-6034666.html?tag=nl http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/21/google_subpoena_roils_the_web http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/20/EDGEPGPHA61.DTL http://news.com.com/ Bill+would+force+Web+sites+to+delete+personal+info/2100-1028_3-6036951.html

 

[someplace]

That is MESSED UP. Thanks for the alert.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the heads-up Linux. I wasn't planning on using it anyway, but good to know. I don't get it-- I seem to hear nonstop about OPSEC computer-style, you'd think "the government" wouldn't want this software out there...

 

[linuxgeek]

I suspect the thing that would make the govt happy with this is if they can get a subpeona for goggle's data, they have access to datamine whatever is on their harddrives reguardless of its origin. Depending on what the EULA says, may be forfeiting any right to priviacy for data uploaded to them.

 

[Peregrinator]

Fuck. Has Google responded to the criticism? I like the Desktop.

 

[linuxgeek]

may be possible to use the desktop without using the particular feature. I don't use the product at all, so I don't know. I suspect some of what the EFF is hoping to do is pressure google to remove the feature by encouraging ppl to not use the product with the feature at all.

 

[Peregrinator]

When you first load it, it asks if you want it to search/index your computer. If you say yes, it scans everything, and then you have a little search box where you can search your hd. If you load the desktop without the scan, I would guess it just wouldn't use that part of the product.

 

[linuxgeek]

that would make sense.

I'm just surprized that if they are keeping your docs they index on their computers they don't provide the option to have them encrypted. With some of the encryption schemes out there, they could keep the NSA busy for years trying to crack the files open. Well, presuming they don't get quantum computing working outside of lab proof of concept experiments.

 

[Peregrinator]

Yeah, I'm surprised, too, actually. We'll have to wait and see what Google's response is. It may be a tempest in a teapot. And yeah on the quantum computing....there will be no security then, I would think.

They probably already have it.

 

[Image]

Something tells me I will be sinking further into "The house of pain"

 

[linuxgeek]

The concept behind the encryptions schemes I'm familiar with isn't that they are unbreakable, just that it would take years and years to do it with current computer technology. With quantum computing, what would have taken years goes to weeks to days or maybe less.

 

[Peregrinator]

Yup. My brother briefed some NSA guys on some of his research a few years ago. (He's a quantum chemist.) That was the big thing, encryption and counterencryption.

Cool book: Check out Tsingh's "The Code Book." History and explanation of encryption. Very cool.

 

[linuxgeek]

have read that one. LadyC got it for me as a Xmas present a Xmas 2 or 3 ago. enjoyed it much. Incorporated some of it into my security lecture.

 

[Peregrinator]

I liked it for the James Bond aspects.

To whom do you lecture?

 

[ShamelessFlirt]

may be possible to use the desktop without using the particular feature. I don't use the product at all, so I don't know. I suspect some of what the EFF is hoping to do is pressure google to remove the feature by encouraging ppl to not use the product with the feature at all.

Are you sure they're copying actual files and not just creating an index??

 

[linuxgeek]

I liked it for the James Bond aspects.

To whom do you lecture?

college students. introducing them to unix/linux. take a class to try and break through the naïvety many have when it comes to the internet.

 

[linuxgeek]

Are you sure they're copying actual files and not just creating an index??

Going by the article, the claim is they are making a copy with the new version of the google desktop. I have no direct knowledge.

 

[Peregrinator]

college students. introducing them to unix/linux. take a class to try and break through the naïvety many have when it comes to the internet.

That's a damned good idea.

 

[ShamelessFlirt]

Going by the article, the claim is they are making a copy with the new version of the google desktop. I have no direct knowledge.

That's what I get for skimming the article, based on the wording I'd have to say you're right.

Geeze.

 

[Peregrinator]

I just found this here.

With Google's product, you can also restrict portions of your computer from being indexed using the "Don't Search These Items" box on the Desktop Preferences page. However, you'd better understand exactly where your data is stored and how the Windows file structure works. Unfortunately, many like my mom find this stuff a mystery.

It would help if Google's tool provided more precise and easy to use restriction control. The free Copernic Desktop Search provides a good example of this. You can pick exactly what you want indexed with Copernic, be it within a particular section of your computer or mail folders within Outlook. With Google, you either index all your email or none of it.

 

[linuxgeek]

*PSA bump*

 

[Adrenaline]

I wonder where this feature fell on Google's "Do no evil" scale.

 

[linuxgeek]

probably somewhere around "DOH!"

 

[gypsywitch]

Weren/t things like this going on before or is this really a new technology?

Sony sure has their hands full with that case.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

I stopped using Google when I learned they supported the needs of the Chinese Government over the ideals of the US Government (and most of the rest of the free world.) Our government is of the people and theirs is of whomever can gain the most power.