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Google Achieves Microsoft-like Evil Status…

Tuesday, February 14th, 2006

Google’s recent Desktop Search tool provides a feature that copies the search index across networked computers, so when you search on one machine, you can see documents stored on another. Sounds reasonably harmless, right?

Turns out the copy is done by temporarily uploading encrypted versions of the files to Google’s servers and then downloading them to the other machines. Google says it deletes the files roughly every 30 days. It also says the user has complete control over which files/folders are included in the search, and that it automatically filters out password protected files and secure web pages.

But none of that matters to the EFF, who is recommending that no one use the feature.

Why? Because Google might one day turn that data over to the federal government if it is subpoenaed during that 30-day window.

Isn’t this just amazing? Forget all the extra features they put in to protect the user. Forget the vanishingly small likelihood that a particular file is residing in a Google server’s temporary cache at the precise moment a subpoena is issued, and forget the relative usefulness of the tool itself (Remember, Google doesn’t build these tools to try and step through privacy minefields – they build them to be useful to their customers). The big news story from a couple of weeks ago has put Google in the bullseye with regard to privacy issues, and all because they refused to submit data after a government request.

Imagine what they’d be saying about the company if it had complied?!?

Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk | 2 Comments »

Two Cool Search Tools

Sunday, February 12th, 2006

Geez, it feels like every third blog entry I make these days is about search engines. Maybe that says something?

Anyway, check out these two cool sites I found:

Twingine
Type in a search string, and it shows you Google & Yahoo’s results side-by-side. Very useful if you plan on searching on both sites anyway (e.g., extensive research projects)

Google vs. Yahoo
Same idea, but this one’s more graphical. Put in your search string, and you get two rows of dots, Google’s results on top, Yahoo’s on the bottom. Lines (literally) connect the dots for where the same pages are returned. Vertical lines near the left of the graph signify agreement between the search engines about what’s most important. Severe diagonal lines signify disagreement. White dots (with no lines) signify sites that were returned in one engine, but not the other.

Categories: Tech Talk | Comments Off on Two Cool Search Tools

Shuffling off this mortal coil…

Saturday, February 11th, 2006

Looks like maybe smaller devices with less functionality aren’t the big hit Apple thought they might be. Suddenly, there’s a 1GB Nano for $149, as compared to the 1GB Shuffle for $99. So for fifty extra dollars, you get a screen that can show (very, very small) photos and, you know, let you choose what song you want to hear.

Check out the comparison chart, about halfway down the page (direct link not available).

Oh, and while I’m at it, this is only slightly less crazy: The 4GB Nano is $249. For fifty dollars more than that, you get a much larger screen and 7.5 times the memory.

Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »

MSPod?

Friday, January 27th, 2006

Look out Apple, here come the big boys…

Categories: Tech Talk | 3 Comments »

More Search Engine Privacy Mania

Wednesday, January 25th, 2006

More noise about the major search engine companies turning over data to the government. It seems we’ve gone right past what has actually happened, paused only briefly at what could have happened, and proceeded directly to what could theoretically happen:

Once government prosecutors get non-identifiable information, they could see patterns that they decide are suspicious, and then go back to subpoena specific data that could identify people whose searches fell within those patterns.

“It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the government would say, ‘we know these searches occurred, so lets have more information,'” Serwin said.

There is no indication that the Justice Department is heading in that direction in the current case, but providing such large amounts of data could be the beginnings of a trend, the lawyer said.

Did everybody get that? There’s no indication that anything of the kind is happening, but what if it did? Wouldn’t the government be evil, evil, evil? And wouldn’t the search engine companies be evil, evil, evil by proxy? Federal government AND big business painted as evil-doers – a double score!

What seems to be missing among all the hysteria is a simple technical question: when a user is logged in to one of these services and performs a search, does the company store the name of the user that conducted the search? If not, then there is nothing to fear – even if the government came calling, the companies would have no data to give them.

Theorizing for a second, I’m tempted to say that the answer is no for two reasons:

1) None of these sites (to my knowledge, anyway) offer a list of recently performed searches for easy re-running (other than client side things like auto-complete or the dropdown in the Google toolbar). If they had history data on a per-user basis, this would seem an obvious, easy to build, and convenient thing to give users.

2) This from Google’s Zeitgeist page:

We should note that in compiling the Zeitgeist, no individual searcher’s information is available or accessible to us. What you see here is a cumulative snapshot of interesting queries people are asking

Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk | 3 Comments »

Privacy Paranoia Strikes Again

Friday, January 20th, 2006

Two stories in the news today about supposed “privacy concerns.”

First, Google:

Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration’s demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet’s leading search engine — a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google’s search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

In court papers that the San Jose Mercury News reported on after seeing them Wednesday, the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It goes on to say the government asked all the major search engines for a random sampling, in order to determine how often web searches return pornographic sites. Note that they’re not asking for who did the searches, just the searches themselves. We continue:

Although the government says it isn’t seeking any data that ties personal information to search requests, the subpoena still raises serious privacy concerns, experts said. Those worries have been magnified by recent revelations that the White House authorized eavesdropping on civilian communications after the Sept. 11 attacks without obtaining court approval.

(Side note: Another example of news cataloging, as discussed previously).

But aside for creating a chance to mention the eavesdropping case again, why are privacy experts concerned? We continue again:

The content of search request sometimes contain information about the person making the query.

For instance, it’s not unusual for search requests to include names, medical profiles or Social Security information, said Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum.

“This is exactly the kind of thing we have been worrying about with search engines for some time,” Dixon said.

OK, Pam – here’s a news flash for you: the name in the search request is the name of the person the searcher is looking for, not the name of the searcher. If someone Googles “Brian Greenberg,” it could be me (OK, yeah, I admit it, I check every so often. What, you don’t???) But if someone Googles “Pamela Anderson,” odds are pretty good it’s not her. This sounds a whole lot like a concern in search of a problem, me thinks.

Moving on, we come to a company that usually stays out of the “ticking off consumers” fray: Apple:

The MiniStore, part of the latest version of the iTunes music store, displays a bottom pane that shows artists and music titles a person may be interested in buying, based on the songs they selected in their personal music library. According to a posting on the Boing Boing blog directory, the store transmitted to Apple information related to users’ listening habits, as well as their unique Apple identifier that’s tied to their credit card, mother’s maiden name and other personal information.

The disclosure brought criticism from privacy advocates, who objected to Apple not making it clear to users that it was gathering personal data, and not asking permission first.

“Allowing users to upload information voluntarily and expressly with adequate privacy protections is pro-user; surreptitiously siphoning it into a remote database without any privacy guarantees is not. It’s time for Apple to pick a side of the line and walk it,” Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote on its Web site.

The quote from the EFF sounds ominous, but if you read more deeply into their article, you see this:

What Apple does with this information is unknown, although Apple has represented that they are not collecting data on its users — yet. Nor has Apple disclosed the steps they take to prevent disclosure or leakage of the information to third parties.

Ironically, this news comes on the heels of the recent Sony BMG DRM fiasco, a part of which included an undisclosed “phone home” feature of its own. Is the Apple MiniStore a rootkit DRM? Not from what we can tell, but it is part of a dangerous trend EFF has been witnessing in the digital music space market.

(Another Side Note: See the news cataloging again? This has about as much in common with Sony’s rootkit as chocolate does with brussel sprouts. No matter – we need to mention something that’s already established as “serious” to add “serious points” to our current story. But I digress…again).

According to Apple, they’re not storing the data – just using it to determine a recommendation and then throwing it away. Now, of course, they could be lying. Or they could be telling the truth, but have secret plans to start keeping the data one day. But as of now, the phrase “surreptitiously siphoning [user data] into a remote database without any privacy guarantees” seems a little, well, presumptuous, no?

In the end, Apple responded to the criticism by adding an opt-out feature to iTunes, which seems to have placated everybody. That’s a good result, although it makes me wonder: if Apple’s intent was to try and sell more music (as opposed to eventually blackmailing people who are still listening to Brittney Spears, for instance), then their modification to iTunes was done as a bow to political pressure in order to avoid a public relations nightmare, not as a way to preserve user privacy. With that kind of influence over a major retailer like iTunes, doesn’t what the EFF did seem a little like blackmail itself?

Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk | 2 Comments »

The Unholy Alliance continues

Wednesday, January 18th, 2006

When we first heard about the Mactel machines, I wrote that the big win for Apple was Macintosh hardware running Windows, turning them from a niche shop into a major hardware provider to major corporations overnight.

At the time, Apple’s official comment was that it wouldn’t sell nor encourage Windows on a Mac platform.

Today’s Internetweek article references this idea, but it’s a little vague. It sounds like Apple is standing by it’s original statement, but InternetWeek is now spinning it to mean “they’re not going to stop it.”

Maybe the demand will force Apple’s hand here? Or maybe the whole thing is a marketing campaign to reach the ultimate goal without the zealots claiming they “sold out?”

Stay tuned…

Categories: Tech Talk | 1 Comment »

The oldest form of piracy…

Wednesday, January 18th, 2006

If you’re of my generation, the first thing you did that even resembled piracy was taping songs off the radio. I can remember putting the tape recorder right next to the speaker (no audio in/out in those days), and insisting that everyone in the house/room be quiet during the song.

Well, technology has improved far beyond the presence of audio in/out, and now (digitally) taping something off the (satellite) radio can score you a professional quality CD.

So guess what? The RIAA is trying to make it illegal.

Why am I not surprised?

Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk, Words about Music | Comments Off on The oldest form of piracy…

I Hear They’re Considering Using Computers Too…

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006

InternetWeek is reporting that the NSA’s website has been caught “placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.” These insidious little files are called “cookies.”

All together now….<forehead smack>

Six paragraphs in, the article mentions that “Cookies are widely used at commercial Web sites and can make Internet browsing more convenient by letting sites remember user preferences.” Of course, it then goes on to mention the recent New York Times flack regarding the NSA and the warantless phone call tapping. How many millions of people do you think will read this somewhere and take it as absolute proof that the government is spying on us through their websites?

Now, to be fair, persistent cookies on federal websites were made illegal in 2003 (session cookies are not). The NSA got a software upgrade and the software installed with persistent cookies defaulted on. When alerted to the problem, they turned them off. Sounds legit to me. But Daniel Brandt, the privacy activist who found the cookies says, “mistakes happen, ‘but in any case, it’s illegal. The (guideline) doesn’t say anything about doing it accidentally.'” That’s right Daniel – let’s throw ’em all in jail for persistent cookies. Maybe they’ll even start calling it “cookie-gate.” Sheesh…

Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk | 4 Comments »

The Geeky side of a Disney Vacation

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006

One more word on the disney trip, but this time for the select few people that I know read this blog with some regularity: the things my family & friends would find bizarre if I brought up in a “What I did on my vacation” conversation:

  • As some of you know, I have an iTrip attachment for the iPod that lets me play the thing through the car radio to keep the kids entertained on car trips. Turns out, when we hit the hotel room & have a few hours to kill, I was able to do the same thing with the crappy little clock radio in the room, and prevent the standard “veg out in front of the TV until we hit the theme parks” mode that I assumed would happen. Kids were amazed to hear their own music in the hotel room, too. I was very proud…
  • Disney technology is an absolute marvel. Quick example: the electrical (nighttime) parade through Magic Kingdom is about 25 minutes long. We were sitting about 20 minutes into the parade route. There are speakers hidden all throughout the park (I couldn’t find them even though I periodically looked for them). At fifteen minutes past the posted parade start time, I hand’t heard a peep and them – whammo! trumpet fanfares and an announcement from Jiminy Cricket that the parade was starting in five minutes. We got the entire experience (music & characters) just like the folks at the beginning of the route got, and there was nothing to indicate that the sound was moving along with the floats. I’m told the floats actually have RFID devices on them, so that the speakers react to the actual position of the floats (rather than running on a timing routine). That way, if the parade has to stop for whatever reason (technical difficulty, kid runs out in front of Mickey’s float), the appropriate music stays with the approrpiate character/float. Awesome stuff & highly effective…
  • For $30 in Epcot, I took a one-hour Segway class. Got to ride one for about 45 minutes, ask a bunch of questions, etc. Quick review: it’s not as effortless as it was made to sound when it came out. You need to practice a bit to get the hang of it. After the 45 minutes, I was pretty good at generally moving around, but going up & down hills (especially down) was still a little uncomfortable). Also, you use a dial on one of the handlebars to turn, so you really can’t have both hands free for any length of time while riding it. Finally, something that hadn’t occurred to me until I was on one: if you’re walking around for 45 minutes, your leg muscles are getting exercise. If you’re on a Segway for 45 minutes, your legs are basically standing still for that entire time. When I got off the thing, I had some significant cramps/soreness. Odd for a device I would have thought would be a pleasant alternative to walking around all day. The instructor told me they’re working on a four-wheeled version that you sit in, rather than stand on. In any case, I still stand by my original assessment from years ago: if they cost $200, there’d be millions of them all around the country. At $3,500+, they’re mildly interesting for postmen, security guards, etc., but they’ll never catch on.

Categories: Tech Talk, The Disneyverse | 2 Comments »

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