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I actually took screenshots of my buddy list for just this reason. I will eventually put it into a text document. Seeing all my friends’ old screen names brough

I actually took screenshots of my buddy list for just this reason. I will eventually put it into a text document. Seeing all my friends’ old screen names brought back so many memories. Was well worth the ~15 minutes it took me.

erickj 9y ago
upload it to Google Drive for easy OCR to a doc https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692?co=GENIE.Plat...
- mynewtb 9y ago
  Why let Google invade your (and your friend's) privacy just something easily done locally.
  - benburleson 9y ago
    Most people (including myself, an average HN reader) don't actually know how to do this locally.
    - mynewtb 9y ago
      You can search for 'OCR your-os' and will get a multitude of tools that work locally.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      As an average HN reader, that's probably not a big problem. Surely, you're accustomed to researching and learning to use new pieces of software that do the things you'd like?
    - aquadrop 9y ago
      If you're on windows I found that MS OneNote has great built in OCR.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    This is ridiculous FUD, you're not compromising anybody's privacy by letting google drive do an OCR for you. The chance is extremely remote that there would somehow be a leak of the information to malicious parties or the like out of Google. Is this is all over the possibility of their advertising engine seeing keywords and giving you an ad based on it? Even if that's the case then that's not a privacy violation, no human ever can see how that's associated with a specific identity. Do you also avoid sending anything personal through gmail? Using google search at all? It's impractical tinfoil hat territory to act like there's any reason to be concerned about this OCR tool or any other instance of putting your files on Google. To my knowledge there has never been a hack of Google's data or any leak connecting any user's identity to PII.
    - pathseeker 9y ago
      >Even if that's the case then that's not a privacy violation, no human ever can see how that's associated with a specific identity How can no human see the data that Google has? Google is not a magical place where machines cannot be compromised. >To my knowledge there has never been a hack of Google's data or any leak connecting any user's identity to PII. The Snowden leaks say otherwise. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/30/nsa_smiley_face_muscular_spying_on_google_yahoo_speaks_volumes_about_agency.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/30/nsa_smile... >This is ridiculous FUD, you're not compromising anybody's privacy by letting google drive do an OCR for you. So it depends on your threat model. If you care about rogue Google employees or other actors with 0-day exploits, then putting information into the hands of Google is a risk.
      - jimmaswell 9y ago
        OK, that's the NSA, you can assume they know everything already. And in this case, the article mentions Yahoo, which is where the information was in the first place.
        syntheticnature 9y ago
        Indeed! The discussion is about rogue elements getting a Buddy List that was in AOL's hands, and therefore one should assume the TLAs already had it. Google might not have, unless you, or all your contacts, used the AIM/Google talk integration that existed for a bit, in which case they had it. Leaving aside that it's quite likely these connections already leave a Google-based data trail.
  - drewmol 9y ago
    Huh... good question. I guess I would just assume that if they were deleting the data, then that must mean the've already sold it to Google, with some type of exclusively contract that mandates the removal.

erickj 9y ago

upload it to Google Drive for easy OCR to a doc https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692?co=GENIE.Plat...

mynewtb 9y ago
Why let Google invade your (and your friend's) privacy just something easily done locally.
- benburleson 9y ago
  Most people (including myself, an average HN reader) don't actually know how to do this locally.
  - mynewtb 9y ago
    You can search for 'OCR your-os' and will get a multitude of tools that work locally.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    As an average HN reader, that's probably not a big problem. Surely, you're accustomed to researching and learning to use new pieces of software that do the things you'd like?
  - aquadrop 9y ago
    If you're on windows I found that MS OneNote has great built in OCR.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  This is ridiculous FUD, you're not compromising anybody's privacy by letting google drive do an OCR for you. The chance is extremely remote that there would somehow be a leak of the information to malicious parties or the like out of Google. Is this is all over the possibility of their advertising engine seeing keywords and giving you an ad based on it? Even if that's the case then that's not a privacy violation, no human ever can see how that's associated with a specific identity. Do you also avoid sending anything personal through gmail? Using google search at all? It's impractical tinfoil hat territory to act like there's any reason to be concerned about this OCR tool or any other instance of putting your files on Google. To my knowledge there has never been a hack of Google's data or any leak connecting any user's identity to PII.
  - pathseeker 9y ago
    >Even if that's the case then that's not a privacy violation, no human ever can see how that's associated with a specific identity How can no human see the data that Google has? Google is not a magical place where machines cannot be compromised. >To my knowledge there has never been a hack of Google's data or any leak connecting any user's identity to PII. The Snowden leaks say otherwise. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/30/nsa_smiley_face_muscular_spying_on_google_yahoo_speaks_volumes_about_agency.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/30/nsa_smile... >This is ridiculous FUD, you're not compromising anybody's privacy by letting google drive do an OCR for you. So it depends on your threat model. If you care about rogue Google employees or other actors with 0-day exploits, then putting information into the hands of Google is a risk.
    - jimmaswell 9y ago
      OK, that's the NSA, you can assume they know everything already. And in this case, the article mentions Yahoo, which is where the information was in the first place.
      - syntheticnature 9y ago
        Indeed! The discussion is about rogue elements getting a Buddy List that was in AOL's hands, and therefore one should assume the TLAs already had it. Google might not have, unless you, or all your contacts, used the AIM/Google talk integration that existed for a bit, in which case they had it. Leaving aside that it's quite likely these connections already leave a Google-based data trail.
- drewmol 9y ago
  Huh... good question. I guess I would just assume that if they were deleting the data, then that must mean the've already sold it to Google, with some type of exclusively contract that mandates the removal.