Are Your Secrets Safe With Google?

[peter_d]

Another big brother article, but this one has a great way with words.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2688404.ece

She does her best to deflect the wealth issue by wearing flats, a studiously plain grey-black dress, and a $50 plastic watch – a combination that shrieks: “I know you know I’m a zillionaire, but please treat me as just one of the girls.”

The young, fast-talking blonde is the firm’s poster girl. It’s her job to sell Google’s vision of a connected future. “We’ve only achieved 2% of what we can do,” she smiles. “The world of search will get much, much bigger.”

[tzd]

I doubt it... for a scary, well written story, read: http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-..._control_1.php

[tzd]

I doubt it... for a scary, well written story, read: http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-..._control_1.php

[2mymall]

Thanks Peter for the article. It gets scarier as you read all four (4) pages. I gave up after reading the second (2) page.

Google’s overall goal is to have a record of every e-mail we have ever written, every contact whose details we have recorded, every file we have created, every picture we have taken and saved, every appointment we have made, every website we have visited, every search query we have typed into its home page, every ad we have clicked on, and everything we have bought online. It wants to know and record where we have been and, thanks to our search history of airlines, car-hire firms and MapQuest, where we are going in the future and when.

[tzd]

The radar online story is even more scary.

[BWDir]

well written story thanks for posting it

[tzd]

yeah, after reading it your like, aaaah! i dont want my cool gmail account anymore!!!

[rhianna]

I always wondered about the implications of the webmaster/affiliate using Google's Analytics while also engaging in Adwords/PPC.

If the webmaster's statistics are being sent directly to Google, doesn't Google have an edge in the Adwords pricing game?

[roger_d]

Never rely on one company for everything

[nhebb]

On a related matter, there was a survey done by a British market research group about office suite software. Despite all the hype that Google is poised to steal market share away from MS, the penetration rate is very, very low.

Aside from the lack of features, I think the nuttiest thing any company could do is standardize on Google Docs. Who would possibly want all their confidential information open to Google to peruse? All you need to do is read their mission statement.

[Selif]

Originally Posted by tzd

yeah, after reading it your like, aaaah! i dont want my cool gmail account anymore!!!

a gmail account is fine to use... so long as all messages are PGP encrypted so that 'G' can't read them. I'd *never* trust 'G' or any other web based email to carry non-encrypted email

[tzd]

...and how to do you pgp encrypt google mail?

[Selif]

Originally Posted by tzd

...and how to do you pgp encrypt google mail?

Easy enough. you type the message in the text entry box, then select all and copy it to the clipboard, then use the pgp (or gpgshell) item in the systray to encrypt the clipboard contents, then clear the text entry and paste the encrypted content in and send the message.

It'd end up looking like the example below:

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) - GPGshell v3.52

hQEMA3V+YnyE1GYEAQf/TJiBuatQpYDQOAp0OHlkjx28ZC73wT39IV4aprFRWd1K
OjnKFweLVQG2mYJLyBGUy4GUqj99sXifO/5jJof88++8dQ1ieOAYq5SwjAcADukB
fMWiZRsePCxIGx4L7aPbpzKOVFEmSe6/uOc0BS6wc0qdarROGYAC+kiUd7EoTxex
9cyCEznIjfVXXJW4YPsSqgcn/5G1Uo6UoXBS5T+zERaiwsmQFEkJy1TQf6hwjuvG
vb8Qe8mT6+2zZbLm/M5UBbUjbgSu9DrVnDi9DBsvAYb9S62MeNZ8BPRyOsPSoCF1
QQdKOZuVpZ+axyh8VbZ2YjiYpvKgIOsCO0eLvQLIMNLARwF62T kyRHuOoZI15AyD
tMkORLyQqeP5DmMY3vDCtLbmxX5fhVGbe/ZkWqGE5dceM/tKqiI3u0CIYcUZ04mQ
XYZYtCpSO4/N/vGCX7u/lHBJhBeJ1IcwdS3ioqmx8AHpKEZrWyDa1QuP8YmV9T8M
c1M96rYTb7UZ3eFi8CjtYygH3hPDPSvO49BDxQWySoMNQfJH39 qjF69aDJLb1i2+
GGnn56zvyd+etgwuiqiqxJt+HmtvUp/WwSw4r1rpq/jFrEIxgbYPgUDDFGb6+khE
LpNsuTYKeQFDtBLU3CxZRbv9pUtYlEITkUKiuRHVE53mTLqGPq v48uNoPVKeZnUc
V8zaU8/jSl9g
=EBCS
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

[lutchi]

gosh, I better read this one too.

[MajorTom]

Did anybody read the story about the Chinese journalist who is pro-democracy and the Chinese government used Yahoo's cooperation to send the poor guy to jail for 10 years ?

If you search Google for "Yahoo Works With Chinese Government" you'll find a bunch of articles. You can also look for "free Shi Tao" for Amnesty's site about getting the poor guy released.

A lot of webmasters and bloggers are boycotting Yahoo because of this. I quit playing my fantasy football at Yahoo and quit using Yahoo mail.

[sleepyhead]

thats great info, thanks pete

[Dollar]

Originally Posted by Selif

Easy enough. you type the message in the text entry box, then select all and copy it to the clipboard, then use the pgp (or gpgshell) item in the systray to encrypt the clipboard contents, then clear the text entry and paste the encrypted content in and send the message.

It'd end up looking like the example below:

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) - GPGshell v3.52

hQEMA3V+YnyE1GYEAQf/TJiBuatQpYDQOAp0OHlkjx28ZC73wT39IV4aprFRWd1K
OjnKFweLVQG2mYJLyBGUy4GUqj99sXifO/5jJof88++8dQ1ieOAYq5SwjAcADukB
fMWiZRsePCxIGx4L7aPbpzKOVFEmSe6/uOc0BS6wc0qdarROGYAC+kiUd7EoTxex
9cyCEznIjfVXXJW4YPsSqgcn/5G1Uo6UoXBS5T+zERaiwsmQFEkJy1TQf6hwjuvG
vb8Qe8mT6+2zZbLm/M5UBbUjbgSu9DrVnDi9DBsvAYb9S62MeNZ8BPRyOsPSoCF1
QQdKOZuVpZ+axyh8VbZ2YjiYpvKgIOsCO0eLvQLIMNLARwF62T kyRHuOoZI15AyD
tMkORLyQqeP5DmMY3vDCtLbmxX5fhVGbe/ZkWqGE5dceM/tKqiI3u0CIYcUZ04mQ
XYZYtCpSO4/N/vGCX7u/lHBJhBeJ1IcwdS3ioqmx8AHpKEZrWyDa1QuP8YmV9T8M
c1M96rYTb7UZ3eFi8CjtYygH3hPDPSvO49BDxQWySoMNQfJH39 qjF69aDJLb1i2+
GGnn56zvyd+etgwuiqiqxJt+HmtvUp/WwSw4r1rpq/jFrEIxgbYPgUDDFGb6+khE
LpNsuTYKeQFDtBLU3CxZRbv9pUtYlEITkUKiuRHVE53mTLqGPq v48uNoPVKeZnUc
V8zaU8/jSl9g
=EBCS
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Yup then the reader has to have your public key and then copy that into a txt file and right click it and put Decrypt with your KEy.... Most people won't go threw with however. The main reason is GNUPG is hard to understand for non-computer savvy users...Most people wn't even touch a DOS box anymorel...lol but they do have win32API but still its a bit complicated for non savvy people.