Google Hackers Find Secret Information

[Emancipator]

» "Googlehackers" find secret information. A shock-horror report claims that Google is somehow complicit in the fact that search-savvy users have unconvered a military document listing suspected Taliban and al Qaeda members, people's medical records, bank account numbers, students' grades, and the docking locations of 804 U.S. Navy ships, submarines and destroyers. It's more the fault of web masters incorrectly posting sensitive data, like this government subcontractor who posted the names, birthdays and daily whereabouts of hundreds of New York children. In reality, the amount of sensitive information carelessly left around is amazing. Try the random personal picture finder, or a search on resume.doc, expenses.xls, or similarly titled documents on Kazaa. No use in blaming Google if you post inappropriate pictures of yourself on the web, or leave your bank account details in Kazaa's shared directory.

http://www.dmxzone.com/forum/default.asp?NewsId=6253

Was emailed to me thought you might enjoy it people.

[thebuisnessman]

Wow thats big news to me! I cant believe that happened to google!

[Emancipator]

It was a good read for me, got it this morning, thought i would share it with you all.

[JuggoPop]

Originally Posted by Emancipator

http://www.dmxzone.com/forum/default.asp?NewsId=6253
Was emailed to me thought you might enjoy it people.

"No Topics Found..."

[Jazzee]

http://www.dmxzone.com/ShowDetail.asp?NewsId=6253

[sim]

they could of at least showed us the document =)

[I, Brian]

It's not people hacking Google - as much as hackers surfing Google for stupid use of information.

I've heard of this issue before, actually, with regards to seeking out passwords. Apparently some webmasters were leaving a record of their own site passwords on the pages they were still constructing. The mind boggles.

Really, it's all about people being stupid with information. IF you don;t want someone to find something, don't put it on the internet.

[samer]

this is old news - there was an article called : "google, a hackers best friend" that explained that technic

[schmeg007]

My frien dike to search google for "cell phone" and derivatives of it and send them all text messages...

You can find pretty much anything on googlel so people had better start being a little more careful with what they put on the web .

[bobking]

>IF you don;t want someone to find something, don't put it on the internet. <

Kind of like saying if you don't want to have your stuff stolen, don't buy anything.

I believe the right to privacy should be a basic human right and that right could be lost to technology. The internet will be a mass communication tool unlike anything that has ever come before it and those basic human rights should apply regardless of how few people truly understand the power of the technology being employed.

If, as humans, we all take the attitude that if we don't want something found then don't put it on the internet, then we have given up our human rights without hope of ever getting them back.

The internet should afford humans the same rights to privacy as telephones, the postal service or the rights to choose between consenting adults. There are steps that can be taken and those steps, when taken, should be respected and protected by government.

[dave conz]

It's easy to do. A while ago I employed a guy to help develop a website. It was important that the site wasn't made public until a certain date. The home page said "Under Construction" and the site pages should never have been found. I didn't use robots.txt to exclude search engines because I was scared of putting them off, and besides, how could they find the pages in the site with no links?

Halfway through development the site started getting traffic and people were filling out the contact form. I discovered my hired help had posted a message in a forum asking for help and included a clickable link to the page in question. The next thing Google was all over the site and it began showing up in SERPS. The client was extremely annoyed.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by bobking

>IF you don;t want someone to find something, don't put it on the internet. <

Kind of like saying if you don't want to have your stuff stolen, don't buy anything.

No, it's sort of like saying not to just leave it all lying around the streets once you've bought it.

Privacy is an issue that individuals have to take responsible for themselves as well as anyone else.

[JuggoPop]

I would say it's actully in between both of those statements.

if you don't have a house or a place to keep stuff safe, don't buy anything...
if you do have a house, make sure you at least check all the doors to see if they are locked before heading to bed.

[SVB]

Bottom line is, noone should put confidential information on the internet. After reading this, I found the "secret information" within minutes of looking. I also found a list of Irish prison guard names and addresses which were stolen by the IRA. All this information isnt for the public, but can be found easily thorough google.

[bobking]

I agree that privacy is an issue people should take responsibility for, BUT,

ever talk dirty to your girlfriend on the phone?
ever discuss a business opportunity by email?
ever videotape yourself doing something private?
ever complain about a group or orgaznization to a friend in a letter?
ever buy something to do something you didn't care for anyone else knowing about you doing?

Right now there are things being done such as spidering emails, placing cookies and sharing the information gathered from those cookies without consent. Pages that are obviously secured being spidered and indexed. Private chats and forums and on and on. Some seem to think that if they can have a computer find it and get it, it's ok to do so and rights and laws don't count.

Leaving something laying around on the street would indicate your lack of caring about the well being of that thing or who was responsible for that well being. I still don't think it's right for someone to take it if it doesn't belong to them without permission but the leaving it part at least makes it likely that you didn't care or acted irresponsibly.

But buying something from a secure page would indicate something a little different. Posting something on a private forum, doing something on a password protected page, those kind of things more than indicate an expectation of privacy, yet those things are being taken and presented to the public without permissions and with little, if any, regard to either legality or even etiquette. Those things are being taken by a third party for the sole benefit of that third party and that goes against the entire concept of the right to privacy. That kind of thing is why there are constitutions in the first place.

If we accept the attitude that if we don't want our personal details made public without our permission, then don't say it, then what freedom has the technology brought to us? How have our lives improved if we can't use this powerful new medium to communicate more freely with people all over the world?

If we can't speak openly, we can't dissent. If we can't dissent, we have no choice but to accept our place in society as it is handed to us by others. That is not freedom and that is too important to let slip away from us.

I agree that we should all except responsibility for our own privacy, but I also say we should demand the same acceptance of responsbility from others.

I would never complain about what we have said here showing up in a search or being handed over to someone just because they asked. This is a public forum owned privately by individuals. BUT, spidering my secure order pages scares the hell out of me. How smart does a programmer have to be to tell a spider if it starts with https, that it probalby has information, other than just credit card numbers, that is sensitive and is no ones business but the owner of that page?