4 ms·
Safe from what? Safe from misuse by Google? I think that's a risk you take with any third party provider. Being one of many millions of users does provide some
by jsz0 17y ago
Safe from what?
Safe from misuse by Google? I think that's a risk you take with any third party provider. Being one of many millions of users does provide some security through obscurity in that respect. Chances are most of us are just not special enough to be legitimate targets.
Safe from misuse by bad guys outside of Google via security problems? I'm pretty confident Google has some of the best engineers out there. You also have a strength in numbers thing going for you with Google. Lots of people are looking at it. Google is very high profile -- if they did have a leak you'd at least know about it. I can't say the same about some random provider. They could have half wit engineers who cover up data leaks. You might never know. Even bad providers can have sterling record if they choose not to report problems or simply have a run of good luck until someone copy & pastes the wrong command and every bit gets leaked.
Safe from being an anonymous fraction of a statistic when Google aggregates its data? I'd be more worried about my ISP spying on me.
Overall I think it's good to be aware of the risks but realistically there isn't a whole lot you can do about it no matter which provider you're using. If you were to separate all your different accounts to different providers you might at least spread the risk out. If you choose to run your own server(s) you quickly become the weakest link in the security chain. Even if you're a pro it probably won't be your full time job to administrate your servers so that already puts you at a disadvantage.
- tome 17y agoWhat worries me about Google is not that it has my data, but that it has a massive cross section of my data: * search records * e-mail * calendaring * documents * which youtube videos I've watched etc. I'm sure it's much more than proportionally easier to abuse this information the wider the spread of it they have.
- jodrellblank 17y agoYou wish that's all they have on you - they also own doubleclick, and Google ads, two of the largest web advert providers in the world tracking you as you go to www.unrelated.example.org, and Google Analytics, one of the most popular web tracking extensions also tracking you as you go to www.anysite.example.org. Also any site that pulls graphs in from Google's public graphing API, or a sidebar from blogger or picasa. The bought DejaNews, so anything you post(ed) to Usenet is in their grasp, and they spider the entire web so if they can pull a probable forum name from your existing data then they can try linking them together. If you've ever used Google Maps to find directions, then the most likely place to find directions is from/to your home and from/to your workplace, so they can get highly probable locations for you. (Used it from an iPhone with GPS?). Shop with Google Checkout? Browse with Google Toolbar? Use any of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products ?
- tome 17y agoWow, very good examples! So what can be done to anonymise access to these services? Tor of course is one idea, or a different proxy server. Anything else, or other considerations?
- dflock 17y agoOk, serious question: what's the worst that could happen? Some internet entity (could be Google, could be someone else) knows everything about me - all my personal details, everything I've ever done on the internet that wasn't encrypted. What's the worst case scenario for me, realistically?
- sammyo 17y agoSerious answer. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ Ok look, I'm really not trying to make a nut-case argument, but cost of information allows aggregation of badness as well as goodness. Google is an extreme example but the level of information in the hands of a malicious government or other self-interested entity should not be relegated to 'could never happen here'. I've little problem the the current Google, but 10-30 years from now will other forces in the world have access? But the issue is less google than the massive changes tech is making to the world.
- tome 17y agoIdentity theft (since they have all your details), blackmail of some kind (perhaps someone malicious at Google has discovered you're having an affair)?
- bjelkeman-again 17y agoSimilar discussion from a couple of days ago (a couple of comments down from the top): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693293 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693293
- jodrellblank 17y agoSafe from what? I can't answer that yet, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to ignore it. We are talking about the world's leading search company. There's no such thing as security through obscurity for them - they find needles in haystacks for a living. We're also talking long term - none of this stuff is going to be deleted, it's only ever going to grow in their collective. What if you do become someone famous or important in twenty years? Safe from misuse by Google? I think that's a risk you take with any third party provider But it's more of a risk from Google for several reasons - 1) they have so much of it, and 2) they're so good at searching and correlating, and 3) they're so big their data is a major drooling point for .gov legislation or hacker interests. Chances are most of us are just not special enough to be legitimate targets. Agreed. But if anyone can automate something they-think-is-benign-but-I-disagree on everyone's data all at once, Google can.
- jules 17y agoThe problem with Google is that they have all the data in one place. If you use multiple services they all know a lot less about you. This makes it a lot harder for a government or a person in the company to combine the information into a full picture. I agree that the ISP is a huge problem too.