EFF Warns Not to Use Google Desktop 562
neelm writes "The EFF is asking users not to use the new version of Google Desktop that has a 'search across computers' option. The option will store copies of documents on your hard drive on Google servers, where the government or anyone who wants to may subpoena (i.e. no search warrants) the information. Google says it is not yet scanning the files for advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility."
Copernic (Score:5, Informative)
Feature must be enabled first (Score:5, Informative)
What about copyright? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:store copies? (Score:2, Informative)
From Google site [google.com]: In order to share your indexed files between your computers, we first copy this content to Google Desktop servers located at Google. This is necessary, for example, if one of your computers is turned off or otherwise offline when new or updated items are indexed on another of your machines...
At first I didn't believe it either. Even though they say it will never be accessible by others, this is nothing short of a waste of my bandwidth, not to mention any privacy issues. Now this? Do no evil? Comeon, google. I wouldn't even call that a fuzzy philosophical debate.Re:store copies? (Score:5, Informative)
Search Across Computers also has the following preferences, found on the Desktop Preferences page:
* Name this computer: This name will be displayed on remote computers that are part of the same Google account group.
* My other computers can search this computer's:
o Documents and web history
o Documents only
o Web history only
* Clear my files from Google: In order to share your indexed files between your computers, we first copy this content to Google Desktop servers located at Google. This is necessary, for example, if one of your computers is turned off or otherwise offline when new or updated items are indexed on another of your machines. We store this data temporarily on Google Desktop servers and automatically delete older flies, and your data is never accessible by anyone doing a Google search. You can learn more by reading the Google Desktop privacy policy.
While your data is automatically deleted from our servers, you can use the Clear my Files from Google button to manually remove all your files from Google Desktop servers. Note that if these files haven't yet been copied to your other computers, clicking this button will prevent you from finding them when you search from your other computers. The files will, of course, still be searchable from their computer of origin.
So it appears that your data will be on a Google Server temporarily. Also, is it really feasible that Google would even want to maintain a SAN Array capable of storing EVERY document for EVERY user of this thing? Why would they want to waste their money collecting everybody's garbage?
--
Want to share a file across the network between your computers? Just use FTP or PCAnywhere. I wish that VNC software would allow file transfers (hint, hint)
Re:Double standards? (Score:5, Informative)
And can someone please explain to parent why it's a good idea to RTFA? It specifically says, "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".
If you don't want Google searching your files, quit your bitching and select "No, thanks, don't upload my files" or whatever.
Re:Wow, wow, wow.. let me get this straight.. (Score:1, Informative)
Except I don't believe you can "disable" it. From google's own website, you have to use the "Clear my files from Google" feature. So, I assume once you install desktop 3, it's on by default with no option as you cite. It would be akin (I guess) to using "Clear Cache" in your browser, which is a forgettable bit of maintenance.
Re:Wow, wow, wow.. let me get this straight.. (Score:2, Informative)
I did find this (later while reading about Desktop 3): Search Across Computers respects all your Google Desktop indexing prefences. If you use the "Don't Search These Items" preference to remove specifc files and folders from Google Desktop's index, they also won't be visible from any other computer in your group.
Is that the option you cite?Re:Wow, wow, wow.. let me get this straight.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow, wow, wow.. let me get this straight.. (Score:2, Informative)
"If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature [snip]"
Having difficulty with the meaning of "chooses to use it"?
Re:store copies? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Copernic (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Copernic (Score:5, Informative)
Have you tried the windows search? OMG its so slow. You are talking 10+ mins to search all my hard drives/folders.
You know why?
It's actually "searching". It's not a background process or daemon or whatever sitting in your memory, taking note of everything you're editing, changing, adding to or deleting from your file system. It doesn't take 6 hours to find the time to create its searchable database like Google desktop does. It just searches. It's find / -name 'filename'. That's all it does.
When I heard how fast google search was, I thought "how perfect". At the time, I worked at a local computer shop who did lots of backups. We'd pull a hard drive out of a client's computer and search for the requested data (i.e. jpegs, doc files, address book, etc). Google Desktop search was going to revolutionize our task. Damn kludgey MS Search.
When you install GDS, it informs you that it may take a few hours to fully index the HDD. That's *slower* than MS search. Not to mention, utterly useless when you're attaching 50GB of data to the host computer 3 times a day, digging through it, and removing it.
Know why MS's search is slow? Because that's actually how long it takes.
~W
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Campaign:Break up with Google this Valentine's Day (Score:3, Informative)
It is easy to forget that by agreeing to censor its search engine in cahoots with the Chinese dictatorship, Google is now also helping repress millions of Tibetans who have suffered under harsh military occupation by the Chinese since 1950.
Since people tend to be more familiar with the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust or Stalin's invasions and gulags, what if Google had made a business pact with the Nazis or Stalin providing their ignorant populations with entertainment and "harmless legitimate-looking facts" while suppressing all knowledge of the horrors those regimes caused to the people they oppressed?
This is what Google (and Microsoft and Yahoo) are doing in China today. All knowledge of the Chinese crimes against the Tibetan nation or the Tibetan people's struggle to regain their independence are systematically wiped out from their search results as if none of it ever happened, at the behest of the ruling Chinese Communist Party dictatorship.
What is the point of having an "information service" which covers up the most crucial information relating to massive human rights violations? A glorified pacifier to placate the ignorant masses while their ruling regime is busy carrying out genocide to its horrible conclusion?
An estimated 1,500,000 Tibetans (!!) have already perished under the Chinese occupation (nearly a fifth of total population), Tibetan language, buddhist religion, identity and history are systematically suppressed while the CCP is promoting Chinese settlers to overrun Tibet demographically. Not to mention Tibetan natural resources being stolen, nuclear waste dumped there and more nuclear missile sites being built to threaten all democracies south of the Himalayas. Or the brutality of the CCP's paramilitary police against the large number of Tibetan political prisoners being held in secret camps across Tibet. The Chinese population should be allowed to compare these facts to the current feed of Communist Party-driven anti-Japanese propaganda over that brutal, if partial invasion that ceased to take place over sixty years ago. Which invasion is supposed to be less evil and why?
Google's [phayul.com] Chinese (dis)service will compliantly keep any of this information from reaching the Chinese or the Tibetans under Chinese occupation because an unelected and expansionist regime wanted them to collaborate.
This shouldn't be only about self-centered westerners worrying about their god-given personal privacy, although privacy is of course extremely important even in democracies with other safety mechanisms against abuse. No, it is far more sinister when corporations from the "democratic world" are helping cover up a holocaust or genocide being committed by their business partners!
What we need is search, webmail etc. services which are guaranteed to remain neutral and safe without turning evil at the first profit-motive. Or which are not subject to American "shareholders uber alles" mentality which corrupted Google. Could/should such services be based in Switzerland or Sweden, both historically neutral territories without track record of collaborating with dictatorial regimes? Would they need massive financing, thereby potentially subjecting them to the whims of the moral-free financial markets, or could enough of their functions (CPU load, distributed and encrypted storage) be offloaded, a la bittorrent, to contributing users and neutral, respectable institutions?
How could the OSS communities help build safe alternatives to Google's morality and privacy-compromised offerings?
In the meanwhile some Tibetan support groups [studentsfo...etibet.org] are promoting
Re:You can always not check it.. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Or as an alternative (Score:3, Informative)
Index and search my documents and viewed web pages from across all my computers.
(This feature stores your indexed files on Google Desktop servers for copying to your other computers. Learn more about this feature or our Privacy Policy.)
They provide links to both. Much more upfront than say, Bonzai Buddy.
Re:Wow, wow, wow.. let me get this straight.. (Score:3, Informative)
a) the data is only sent if the user says so,
b) the data is apparently encrypted,
c) it is deleted after 30 days.
there need be no privacy concern, if you don't like the idea of handy convenient storage, don't enable it.
Re:Copernic (Score:5, Informative)
It does name searches, it does text searches, it does regular expressions etc.
As for windows search I agree it's a piece of shit. Why they couldn't just put something like locate into place I'll never know.
Of course unless you are forced to use windows I would reccomend a switch to mac. The amazing spotlight search is worth the extra money by itself.
Re:Default option? (Score:2, Informative)
Yes: [google.com]
Is it on by default?
No:
Re:EFF, Shmeff (Score:4, Informative)
It's not that hard!
Re:Campaign:Break up with Google this Valentine's (Score:3, Informative)
>Tibetans who have suffered under harsh military
>occupation by the Chinese since 1950.
man I'm giving up my moderator points but what the heck.
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=free+tibet
Re:Your Searches Are Logged (Score:3, Informative)
Re:EFF, Shmeff (Score:2, Informative)
Don't you think there's a reason that we can only use up to a certain amount of encryption legally? The government allready has the means to decrypt all 'legal' communication within a reasonable amount of time.
And let's not even mention the NSA and their encryption scandals...