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I think Google has some responsibility here. Credit card numbers can be validated with a simple checksum[1]. I don't see why Google can't detect them in their i

I think Google has some responsibility here. Credit card numbers can be validated with a simple checksum[1]. I don't see why Google can't detect them in their index and obscure them. It's not like they haven't gone to that kind of privacy effort for faces and license plate numbers in Street View. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm

snprbob86 16y ago
And what happens when there is a false positive? I think Google has every right to claim carrier protections (or whatever the law is) and just turn a blind eye to this problem.
- paulsmith 16y ago
  I suspect that a combination of the Luhn checksum and contextual information would give you a fairly high confidence level of it being a valid credit card number, and not some other innocent string of digits. They could clearly mark the stricken text as having been done to potentially protect privacy and provide a contact mechanism to un-obscure false positives. I think the harm of a few false positives -- remember, we're talking about obscuring a 16-digit string that has a particular valid checksum, not a very common occurrence -- is greatly outweighed by the harm of having someone's financial identity stolen from a Google search.
- apgwoz 16y ago
  I'm hard pressed to think of a 16 digit number that I'd want to search for, but I suppose there could be one. Barcodes, ISBNs, etc. But, for the summaries of search results, I see no reason why scrubbing the numbers would be a bad thing. I can't imagine complaining about seeing XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in a result summary instead of 5424 0000 0000 0015
yellowbkpk 16y ago
They only hid faces and license plate numbers after a huge uproar from the public. I imagine they would do the same sort of "cleansing" of their results if a similar uproar occurred. Until then, why do it?

snprbob86 16y ago

And what happens when there is a false positive? I think Google has every right to claim carrier protections (or whatever the law is) and just turn a blind eye to this problem.

paulsmith 16y ago
I suspect that a combination of the Luhn checksum and contextual information would give you a fairly high confidence level of it being a valid credit card number, and not some other innocent string of digits. They could clearly mark the stricken text as having been done to potentially protect privacy and provide a contact mechanism to un-obscure false positives. I think the harm of a few false positives -- remember, we're talking about obscuring a 16-digit string that has a particular valid checksum, not a very common occurrence -- is greatly outweighed by the harm of having someone's financial identity stolen from a Google search.
apgwoz 16y ago
I'm hard pressed to think of a 16 digit number that I'd want to search for, but I suppose there could be one. Barcodes, ISBNs, etc. But, for the summaries of search results, I see no reason why scrubbing the numbers would be a bad thing. I can't imagine complaining about seeing XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in a result summary instead of 5424 0000 0000 0015

yellowbkpk 16y ago

They only hid faces and license plate numbers after a huge uproar from the public. I imagine they would do the same sort of "cleansing" of their results if a similar uproar occurred. Until then, why do it?