Government searching of searches

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Art Wolinsky <awolinsky () oii org>
Date: January 24, 2006 12:31:28 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Government searching of searches

About a month or so ago, someone on IP wrote about the search tool,  
Watson.  I downloaded it and have been using it quite a bit.  A few  
minutes ago I was working on research for the creation of Child  
Safety curriculum for WiredSafety.org.  I opened a Word document that  
contained the text of Parry Aftab's next book.  Immediately, Watson  
went to work.  As I began exploring the results, each click resulted  
in new searches being done automatically by Watson.

As I was doing this I couldn't help but think of the governments  
request for Google searches.  Since Watson searches Google, the  
searches done automatically by the software would become part of the  
search phrase database at Google.  Watson is generating searches  
quicker than I could and with terms I might never use, yet they are  
being attributed to me.

Anyone gaining access to that data without my personal information  
would be getting searches that were not generated by a human, which  
would obviously not be valid for proving any point about what people  
were searching for and retrieving.  Anyone getting that data with my  
personal information attached would getting searches attributed to me  
that I actually never made.  Considering the topics of child  
pornography, Internet predators, hacking, and similar subjects, the  
conclusions about me based on these searches could be entirely off base.

The fact that this could happen is a bit disconcerting, but the fact  
that I have to be worried about it happening is a sad commentary on  
the state of our society and the government's intrusion in our lives.

Art

Art Wolinsky
OEO 3DWriting, Inc.
awolinsky () 3dwriting com
http://www.3dwriting.com

I am perfectly capable of learning from my mistakes.
I will surely learn a great deal today.




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