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Journal tomhudson's Journal: Hey, Google! What about non-personal search instead? 18

Journal by tomhudson

Google wants to "personalize" searches? I can't wait for the lawsuits to begin.
http://search.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/13/167259

Picture the future. Your search results are now "personalized", based on your responses to previous searches. So, while you're not looking, I "borrow" your computer to start doing a ton of searches, and clicking on the most warped results I can find. Or I just swipe your password.

A week later, the boss asks you to do a search for "new neckties" and up pop a bunch of BDSM sites as your "personalized results." Then, a search for "black pants" gets you afro-american porn. "Open Source" returns a picture of the goat guy's "open source" as the first hit. "gift for mom" turns up a ton of MILF sites and pix of penises. "Obama" turns up the KKK, a bunch of White Supremacy sites, and the Anarchists' Cookbook.

That last one would flag you as a "person of interest", as opposed to an "interesting person." Forget about flying anywhere. Heck, forget about your job.

The solution? I don't know, but maybe it's time we moved away from a centralized search engine. We already have software that can index our data - why not make selected portions of that available on a peer-to-peer basis when we're online, and have client software that hits our favourite peers first, then their peers, etc ...?

It would already be personalized, since you'd be getting results from your contacts first. And as for security, if it were done "a la the onion network", as long as enough people don't log searches, it's "anonymous enough."

Hey it sounds like "cloud computing" - but without a central business trying to monetize it. Maybe that's the real future of "the cloud."

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Hey, Google! What about non-personal search instead? More

Hey, Google! What about non-personal search instead?

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  • I just hack your password and have a bot do a bunch of dodgy searching.
    Information is a fluid, and gravity on the web does odd things...

    • Hook me up ... my ip address is 127.25.68.12 :-)

      It's just that it's SO easy to get physical access. Most people don't lock down before going to the washroom, out to lunch, or even ut for the day ... or they have their passwords on a sticky under their keyboard ... or if you know them, you can guess it.

      Google's personalized search was pretty much universally panned as a bad idea, a way for SEO "optimizers" to game the results if Google were to actually pay any attention to them, and a lawsuit waiting to

      • It's just that it's SO easy to get physical access. Most people don't lock down before going to the washroom, out to lunch, or even ut for the day ... or they have their passwords on a sticky under their keyboard ... or if you know them, you can guess it.

        Which is why I have all my work PCs set for 5 minutes to auto-lock. It's a little annoying, but it's still not paranoid enough IMO.

        • 5 minutes. Still more time than is needed to change your keyboard settings, swap your mouse left/right buttons, change your wallpaper. or fire off a quick nastygram :-)

          Of course, the best thing to do is be subtle - like (ahem) changing someone's signature on their email (local or web-based) to something highly controversial. Nobody bothers checking their signature, especially if you include their original signature at the bottom of the new sig.

          "My computer must have a virus" becomes a popular excuse ...

  • A week later, the boss asks you to do a search for "new neckties" and up pop a bunch of BDSM sites as your "personalized results."

    If you live in Britain then this could land you in jail (in the new year). Consensual porn will soon be illegal in Britain.

    The solution? I don't know, but maybe it's time we moved away from a centralized search engine. We already have software that can index our data - why not make selected portions of that available on a peer-to-peer basis when we're online, and have client software that hits our favourite peers first, then their peers, etc ...?

    The software has been around for years (p2p Web spiders/search engines); just Google or search SourceForge. Though I don't think they would scale anywhere to what Google could do (unless or until they ever get out of the geek-fringe arena).

    Notwithstanding Google censors anything illegal or "potentially" illegal (that they know or hear about), so any dodgy results from Google would likel

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Zeriel ( 670422 )

      If you live in Britain then this could land you in jail (in the new year). Consensual porn will soon be illegal in Britain.

      Oh, really? Got any links to news sites on this?

      • Yes:
        www.google.com

        You could also check out the BBC news link (you can Google for this as well).
        I thought this knowledge would be too well known to Slashdoters to require links.

        Best regards,

        UTW

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Zeriel ( 670422 )

          Believe it or not, as someone who isn't a Brit I don't actually read British news. =P

          • Haha. I'm not a Brit either, and I don't read the BBC or other foreign news that often, but it is interesting to note that I did have the BBC News on the television earlier today. I often try to watch, listen and read a variety of news sources to at least get a different perspective. It certainly helps to keep me less insular and more informed about the world around me.

            Best regards,

            UTW

      • If you live in Britain then this could land you in jail (in the new year). Consensual porn will soon be illegal in Britain.

        Oh, really? Got any links to news sites on this?

        2 years in jail for consensual porn.
        5 year waiting list to get into that jail :-) Oops, now it's 7 ... no 10, ... 20, ... 30 .. ah, just sign the attendance sheet and go back home and wank off, guv'nor.

  • I've been thinking about distributed search for quite some time, and am still wondering why minds smarter than mine haven't implemented it yet.

    Count me in. It's the only non-commercial application of TEH CLUOD I can see spread like wildfire, given it's not overrun by spam first. It would allow for building up a non-destructible, non-commercial infrastructure much like the Internet in the early days. Let's just build our own, and leave the masses alone with their shitty Internet [internetisshit.org].

    You know, of course this must

  • Non-anonymous [non]coward: I guess I journaled this http://slashdot.org/~impengo/journal/219701 [slashdot.org] before I read the stuff written in the comments section. I have adequate 'puter skills, but haven't coded since before object stuff. I regard it as "very cool," but somewhat impenetrable. Regards pengo

    • Your point about "non-agnostic" searches being polluted is the same problem with putting computers in fridges so they can order stuff when you use it up. You buy something, don't like it, and throw it out - and the fridge orders you another one. Rinse, lather, repeat.

      Personalized search requires the same thing as any other personalized commodity - the intervention of a human. Otherwise, it's not personal, it's just a gimmick, an algorithm to be tweaked, and to fail in silly and unexpected ways, while d

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