more on Google Desktop 3 can move restricted data into Google's servers?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] Google Desktop 3 can move restricted data into
Google's servers?
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 14:08:32 -0800 (PST)
From: d f tweney <dylan () tweney com>
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
References: <4408B822.2060007 () farber net>

This is true. If you've enabled the "Search Across Computers" feature in
GD 3, it will upload an encrypted copy of any file you open/work on to
Google. I wrote about this in more detail a couple weeks ago for
Technology Review:

http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16364,300,p1.html

Google's Private Lives

Its new desktop search application would make your personal files
available for government searches without your knowledge.

By Dylan Tweney

A new search technology from Google makes it possible for law
enforcement officials to examine personal documents from your hard
drive, without your knowing it, according to the digital-rights advocacy
organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Released last week, Google Desktop 3, the latest version of the
company's desktop search utility, adds a "Search Across Computers"
feature that automatically uploads files from a user's computer onto
Google's servers. Then, when a search is performed on any computer owned
by the user, Google Desktop will pull search results from both the Web
and information stored on all the user's computers.

Certainly, such a feature will be handy for anyone trying to coordinate
a project from different locations. Yet the idea of turning over private
files to a public company is worrisome to privacy advocates. In fact, in
a press release, the EFF has urged consumers to avoid the Search Across
Computers feature because it would make consumers' files more vulnerable
to subpoenas from government investigators as well as private litigants.

...

MORE:

http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16364,300,p1.html


On
Fri, 3 Mar 2006, Dave Farber wrote:

> do read the url and make safe decisions. djf
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Google Desktop 3 can move restricted data into Google's servers?
> Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:25:26 -0800
> From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall () gmail com>
> Reply-To: joehall () pobox com
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
>
> The below alert claims that Google Desktop 3 copies files from your
> computer to Google's servers.  I hope that this is incorrect, although
> even copying an index of some sort of the contents of a computer with
> sensitive information seems like a bad idea. -Joe
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Steve Chan <...@gmail.com>
> Date: Mar 3, 2006 11:10 AM
> Subject: [fun@sims] Google Desktop 3 can move restricted data into
> Google's servers
>
>
>    Just FYI, if you have sensitive data on your computer (such as
> data related to research projects subject to HIPPA, FERPA, GLBA) then
> Google Desktop may put you in violatation:
>
> http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Fall2006/905.html
>
>   The Berkeley announcement doesn't lay out the sorts of things that
> may be violated, but this message to the UCSD community is quite
> clear:

-- 
Dylan Tweney   writer/editor

dylan () tweney com
mobile: (650) 483-2896
http://dylan.tweney.com

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