weinbrenner - Slashdot User

Submission + - Gmail Reveals Browsing History to Contacts as Ads

Submitted by

em8chel

on Tuesday December 25, 2007 @08:18AM

em8chel writes: "We all know that Gmail scans your email messages for key words to display related ad links right next to your correspondence if you use the browser to access your Gmail account. However, it looks like Google might be doing more than just scanning your email messages. It's suspected that your googling history is also being converted to ad links, displayed not (just) to yourself, but also to your Gmail pals.

More details can be found here. Can someone please contact Google to get a confirmation about this?"

Submission + - Google selling search terms to spammers? (209.85.165.104)

Submitted by on Tuesday December 25, 2007 @08:16AM

An anonymous reader writes: A few months ago I searched for a very unique string (with letters,
numbers and shift-number characters) on Google.co.uk. No search terms
were returned. The other day I searched again, and there were three spam
results — one was spam added as hidden comments on a seemingly innocent
tech site, the other were blogspot.com spams (i.e.
yjumdfjsdhsd.blogspot.com).

A couple of other people I know have reported the same thing. Their
quotes:
"I think google sells the search strings to companies. I typed in a
search maybe 3 years ago, and I did a partial search using some of the
same keywords a few months ago. I was surprised to see my exact phrase
that I used years ago, but on a spam site."

"I had an idea of an adult dating site name for a story I was writing,
googled it, and nothing existed. Now it's a couple months later and I
regularly get that search term in the subject line of spam to me.
There's a break in the chain somewhere I guess. "

Does Google sell the terms that people search for?

Notes: I might have used either google.co.uk directly or maybe Firefox's
in-built Google search box. I always use Firefox with RefControl to hide
the referer, NoScript and AdblockPlus turned on with Google adverts
hidden, Google History is disabled, I use OpenDNS but have Google's IPs
hardcoded into my hosts file in case I'm ever DNS-poisoned (and also
because OpenDNS reroutes Google via their own server), I have never had
mal/spyware, I use NOD32, and regularly check for odd TCP connections
and run Rootkit Revealer, etc.

Here are google searches to some of the sites full of search terms. Most
of these need the google cache, as the blogspot sites seem to have been
removed (numbers are easiest to search for because the search strings
are all concatenated):
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=4764958132
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=6126270270
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22121+2319310%22&filter=0

Note that because I use NoScript and AdBlock Plus, I have no idea if any
of these pages are laden with malware. Be careful.

Sometimes Google returns different results for different countries, so
here are some Cache links. You can find other blogspot domains and
hidden comment spam sites by searching for some of the unique keywords
found on these pages:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:Yz-jU4KyWDQJ:rddfedardmb.blogspot.com/+%22121+2319310%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:4MlXZFoTDzIJ:qsschhtrcy.blogspot.com/+%22121+2319310%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:Yg4b30AX8vIJ:crjospiyh.blogspot.com/+%22121+2319310%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:ECWdBoe5QAkJ:crjospiyh.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-website-will-help-you-to-find-out.html+%22121+2319310%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:e7FRCXG68DQJ:srjugojiz.blogspot.com/+%22121+2319310%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:IJFLnDocQNMJ:qbgickstiwu.blogspot.com/2007/12/id-trade-million-pretty-words.html+%22121+2319310%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:Zw_nJFZNLPYJ:sjapeqgyvsru.blogspot.com/+%2297+29950071%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:4Got9ZG1D_YJ:gzymsthst.blogspot.com/+%2297+29950071%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk&lr=lang_en
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:hATOYFipUhYJ:ghwsvpzsqddg.blogspot.com/+%2297+29950071%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=uk&lr=lang_en

The only things I can think of is that either someone is sniffing search
queries destined to Google, Google reveals search words to anyone who
wants to buy adverts (as opposed to advertisers saying "I want to buy a
million searches of the keywords "suntan lotion"), or someone working at
Google sells search terms to SEO companies, or an enterprising SEO
person has found a backdoor to see Google search terms.

Submission + - Google's GMail security failure (davidairey.co.uk)

Submitted by

enc.conf

on Tuesday December 25, 2007 @04:45AM

enc.conf writes: "Google's GMail security hole allows an attacker to inject a filter on behalf of a user while he/she is loggedin in gmail account and visiting evil site exploiting this hole. There is already one victim who published his story of fiasco which led him to loosing his domain name and damaging his business."

Submission + - YouTube censoring atheists. (youtube.com)

Submitted by Metaleks on Monday December 24, 2007 @09:18PM

Metaleks writes: 'Tis the season to be jolly. But all is not well. It would seem that YouTube is censoring those who lack Christmas spirit. One after another, atheists on YouTube are being removed from Top 100 lists, and having their channels stripped of any honours. To prove this wasn't some sort of YouTube glitch, one atheist went as far as creating another account. As soon as he was "discovered" of being an atheist his videos were stripped of any honours and his name taken off of the Top 100 lists. Why is YouTube censoring atheists?

Submission + - Police take fingerprints, even for traffic stops (wbay.com)

Submitted by

Khyber

on Monday December 24, 2007 @04:45AM

Khyber writes: "Green Bay police are now taking on a new tactic to "prevent crime" by fingerprinting you, even for minor traffic violations. The claims seem pretty far-fetched, given the recent surge in the reports of privacy invasions."

Submission + - Google Reader shares private data, ruins Christmas (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Felipe Hoffa on Sunday December 23, 2007 @08:49PM

Felipe Hoffa writes: One week ago Google Reader's team decided showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. Complaints haven't been answered. Some users share their problems, including one family that won't be able to enjoy this Christmas due to this "feature". Will this start happening with all Google products?

You can check a summary of complaints or the whole thread.

Submission + - PGP Key Publishing on Facebook (rotahall.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23, 2007 @05:22PM

An anonymous reader writes: Rosio Pavoris writes about a Facebook app for public key publication. An interesting way to avoid keyservers... considering that public key cryptography was the first real social network. Could the popularity of Facebook be used to bring public key crypto mainstream?

Submission + - Netgear introduces Linux based NAS devices (linuxdevices.com)

Submitted by drewmoney on Sunday December 23, 2007 @01:25PM

drewmoney writes: A LinuxDevices.com article introduces several of Netgear's Linux based NAS devices. These come in a 1.5TB model, all the way up to a 4TB rackmount version. These are geared towards the professional home user, and small and medium businesses. Comes complete with the usual RAID features, file system access and a built in USB print server. All are controlled through a WebGUI and some even have SSH access.

Submission + - Facebook under Fire over Breastfeeding Photos (breastfeeding123.com) 4

Submitted by

NewsCloud

on Saturday November 10, 2007 @11:49PM

NewsCloud writes: "Facebook continues to struggle with when to enforce its own terms of service. While the 78,240 group members who want Facebook to shut down the F*** Islam group are still frustrated, those concerned with photos of breastfeeding mothers can rest more easily. The site has recently come under fire for removing pictures of breastfeeding mothers, and banning users on the grounds that they'd uploaded "obscene content" to their profiles. Says Facebook, "Photos containing an exposed breast do violate our Terms and are removed." In response, more than 33,431 concerned Facebook users have created the "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!" group. Apparently, scantily clad college co-eds, fine and dandy."

Submission + - Trojan found in brand new HD sold in Taiwan (taipeitimes.com)

Submitted by

GSGKT

on Saturday November 10, 2007 @11:40PM

GSGKT writes: "About 1800 of these brand new 300GB or 500GB external HD made for Maxtor in Thailand have Trojan Horse malwares (autorun.inf and ghost.pif) pre-installed. When the HD is in use, these will forward information on HD to two websites in Beijing, China): www.nice8.org or www.we168.org. Potential users of these large HD would be mid/small business, the military, and the government in Taiwan, although no one can prove this to be the continuing war/spying efforts on Taiwan by the People's Liberation Army. /. has a story on Russian Business Network moving to China recently (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/09/1957239). Together, these two stories make an interesting new cyber-crime model: Infecting the HD at the manufacturing sites is far more efficient than to phish the end-users!"

Submission + - Could Christianity survive without the Bible? (associatedcontent.com)

Submitted by

Thisayakorn

on Saturday November 10, 2007 @08:23AM

Thisayakorn writes: "Thus, I would conclude that Christianity could certainly survive without the Bible."

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