Warning for Googlers

[Nik Peace]

Hello all. I have noticed in this forum that people are often told to "google" something concerning our chosen pasttime. I assume that ya'll, like me, are privacy-minded folks so I feel that I would be remiss if i didn't mention some actual factual info about what Google is doing. When you go to "google" something, the Google engine accesses your browser history and stores this info in an IP address file that updates itself everytime you "google". Ok, this kind of thing isn't that uncommon or a even a secret. Today's New York Times (Monday July 2 Pg C3) reports that Yahoo is using the info it gathers about it's surfers to create "one-to-one display advertisements to be aimed at individual. " In other words, Yahoo is working with companies to personalized adverts based on where you've been on the internet. With me so far? Ok. Here's where it get's both ****ed-up and weird. Google put's all of the info it gathers on us into a huge global database that they are using to track and eventually predict what our tastes and reactions will be. (again, not a secret.) Even worse, tho, is the fact that Google will sell and has sold our info - our IP address, where we've been and what we're doing online, to anyone who will pay. Look, I know that this sounds like some sort of paranoid conspiracy theory. I'm not a "sky is falling" type-dude. I'm saying this because i know that even though we are not doing anything wrong, others may have different opinions. Please don't make it easy on them. Really, I don't care if you believe me, just stop using Google and Yahoo. Use Ask.com instead, K? Or at least check it out for yourself...just don't use Google to do it.

 

[Birdman Burke]

hahah dude after reading that
i still have no idea what u are
really trying to say?? like ppl
are going to watch on the computer
dude hahah wow confuzing just talk
about weed not computers and stuff
ill have a better understanding on that.

take care

peace

 

[Nik Peace]

ok. don't use google. smoke a spliff instead, k? Spliff good Google Baaaad!
Just warning folks, pal.

 

[Birdman Burke]

so searching stuff about weed on google
is bad :doh:dang man i use google for everything
now i got use ask.com i hate ask.com i feel
so viloated right now i think im going to go to
the bathroom.


peace.

 

[Kupunakane]

Yo Nik Peace,
Thanks for the heads up. There are a lot of folks out there that are sadly unaware of the hunt for info on you. I can't begin to tell you how many companies that I have contracted with where a part of the contract promised that no personal info will be sold. Yeah right !!! Happens all the time.
The problem as I see this, is that after a couple dozen check marks, where someone is looking at you, your name starts to register too easily and pretty soon your name just pops into someone's head. I never worried about this sorta thing untill I realized who was doing the looking.
smoke in peace
KingKahuuna

 

[SmokinMom]

I've heard for a long time about spyware and such, so you are right on. They are in fact gathering info on us. So yes, be careful.

I wanna be where your av is right now, Nik. It's beautiful.

 

[Draston]

Are you serious? Do you know how many people search for illegal things on their search engines a day? They are not going to do anything because they would arrest half the United States in 1 day! What about people that look this stuff up for papers in high school and college? Does this exclude them?

 

[Stoney Bud]

When you go to "google" something, the Google engine accesses your browser history and stores this info in an IP address file that updates itself everytime you "google".

I would love to see something that shows this true. I know as an absolute fact that my browser history isn't going anywhere. Not to a single place.

After 30+ years of programming, I feel that I'm qualified to say this.

Whoever, or where ever you got this information from has pulled it right over your eyes. There is no way what you're saying is happening.

Since my browser history has personal information in it and cannot be "downloaded" by anyone, anywhere, legally, I almost wish what you've heard was happening. It would make me a rich man after suing Google.

I'm sorry man, but that's total baloney and you should read up more on the subject instead of trying to scare people.

NO, GOOGLE DOES NOT DOWNLOAD YOUR BROWSER HISTORY.

That's one of the silliest things I've ever heard.

Thanks for your intentions man, but what you've said just isn't true.

Google and all search engines collect data on how many times your IP address goes to places. That's it. No names, no browser histories, no other info unless you tell them something in a survey or questionare. They can't download ANYTHING from your PC unless you specifically give them permission somehow.

It's not that weird yet.

To think that Google would do this and NOT ask.co m is also crazy. If it were legal to do, and google was doing it, then every single Tom, Richard and Harry on the net would also be doing it.

What you've said is PURE HOAX.

If you think for a single second that anyone can actually access stored data on your computer without your permission, you're simply barking up the wrong tree. It isn't happening, has never happened and will never happen.

I hope I was clear enough about it.

According to Google, “In order to provide the service, My Search History saves information about your activity on Google, including your search queries, the results you click on, and the date and time of your searches. Also, as stated in the main Google Privacy Policy, when you use any Google service, we collect additional information including your Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.”

That's it. No histories from your PC. They simply store what you've used THIER service for by tracking your IP address through the sites you recieved from a search by remembering which ones you clicked on. Nothing spooky about that.

 

[Nik Peace]

1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.


4. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

5. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

6. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

7. Google is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.

8. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.


Believe what you will.

 

[MergeLeft]

Nik Peace, you seem really knowlegable on this, thanks for spelling out what you know! Everybody who blew him off, remember the XFiles motto: TRUST NO ONE- no wait that sounds crazy- instead, google it- no wait again :huh: Instead read the 2 excerpted articles from non-wacko BBC & The CS Monitor below on the dangers of privacy invasion by search engines, followed by the POSITIVE LINKS where you can check out how to protect your privacy online.

BBC: Google has the worst privacy policy of popular net firms, says a report.
Rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data.
The group said Google was leading a "race to the bottom" among net firms many of whom had policies that did little to substantially protect users.
In response Google said the report was mistaken and that it worked hard to keep user data confidential.
Hostile approach
The report by the veteran cyber rights group is the result of six months' research which scrutinised 20 popular net firms to find out how they handle the personal information users gave up when they started using such services.
None of the firms featured in the report got a "privacy friendly" rating.
Yahoo and AOL were said to have "substantial threats" to privacy as were Facebook and Hi5 for the allegedly poor way they dealt with user data.
Microsoft, one place higher in the rankings than these four firms, was described as having "serious lapses" in its privacy policy.
Other net sites, such as BBC.com, eBay and Last.fm were described in the report as "generally privacy aware but in need of improvement".
But Privacy International singled put Google at the bottom of its rankings for what the group called its "numerous deficiencies and hostilities" to privacy.
"We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial," the group said in the report.
Privacy International placed Google at the bottom of its ranking because of the sheer amount of data it gathers about users and their activities; because its privacy policies are incomplete and for its poor record of responding to complaints.
FULL ARTICLE AT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6740075.stm

Christian Science Monitor: Dilemma: When Yahoo in China's not Yahoo
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Wednesday, American companies at the vanguard of the information future are likely to get grilled about practices reminiscent of the 20th century - such as censorship and aiding political repression.
A US House of Representatives panel will look into high-profile cases where Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo worked with China to restrict access to material or reveal the identity of users with dissident postings. Cisco is also implicated... Reporters Without Borders (RWB) charged Yahoo with helping authorities in 2003 to capture Li Zhi, an anticorruption reformer now serving an eight-year prison term. Yahoo says the case is under investigation and declined further comment.
Some in Congress are fuming about the practice. "It's like turning Anne Frank over to the Nazis," says Rep. Christopher Smith (R) of New Jersey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations, one of two subcommittees jointly holding Wednesday's hearings...
FULL ARTICLE AT:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0214/p01s04-usfp.html

PROTECTING YOUR PRIVACY ONLINE:
http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/searchengineprivacytips.html

Center for Democracy and Technology "to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies"
Electronic Frontier Foundation Mitch Kapor, founder [original digital privacy protection organization]
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse [tips on privacy protection on the world wide web]

 

[Rocker420]

You know if i may put my 2 cents in, ill agree with both Draston and Stoney. There are to many people not just in the US but in the world that use Google. And use it for drug or crime related things. So like Draston said, what are they gonna do arrest everyone who looks up "how to grow pot"? Right...Plus Stoney is also right that if this were true do you know how many people would be taking google to court right now? Hell even i would. What you claim they are doing sounds like hacking, wich is illegal. Also. Lets all ust jump on the train and say that its true. You wanna know what to do? Only if you have high speed im sorry, there is a cord going from your computer to your router, there are different types of routers but all should only have 3 cords. If you unplug the one that goes from your computer into the box for lets say a minute. bam, you have a new ip address. And yes, i do know this works. you play enough online games or get kicked off of message boards, you find ways to get back in them.

 

[SmokinMom]

I guess it just all boils down to your personal comfort level.

Do whatever you're cozy with. It's all up to you.

 

[Draston]

You know if i may put my 2 cents in, ill agree with both Draston and Stoney. There are to many people not just in the US but in the world that use Google. And use it for drug or crime related things. So like Draston said, what are they gonna do arrest everyone who looks up "how to grow pot"? Right...Plus Stoney is also right that if this were true do you know how many people would be taking google to court right now? Hell even i would. What you claim they are doing sounds like hacking, wich is illegal. Also. Lets all ust jump on the train and say that its true. You wanna know what to do? Only if you have high speed im sorry, there is a cord going from your computer to your router, there are different types of routers but all should only have 3 cords. If you unplug the one that goes from your computer into the box for lets say a minute. bam, you have a new ip address. And yes, i do know this works. you play enough online games or get kicked off of message boards, you find ways to get back in them.

Ok sorry I mean, you may be a little mis informed. The reason this whole argument seems like ** to me is because I'm a NETWORKING MAJOR in college right now and I'm a 3rd semester junior .

Home routers take the IP address if you are given one (static) and then make up non internet routable IP (yes there are some) and give them out to the pcs on the network. Usually 192.168.1.something . When you unplug your pc from your router it just renews a non routable IP that doesn't mean jack. No one on the net sees the IP your router gives you. Your router has its own IP address the ISP is seeing and your router is just splicing your connection to all the pcs connected to it. It doesn't matter what you have plugged up to the router, online every PC connected to it has the SAME IP. Only if your router is using DHCP (Dynamic host configuration protocol) which dynamically assigned IPS to clients through the ISP, which will change your IP everytime you unplug your MODEM and plug it back in. Your router will keep giving out the same IP's it was cause it doesn't matter unless you made it give out static ips. Dynamic IP's from an ISP is common place with cable internet but not with DSL. DSL they usually give you a static IP and cable its random. Just a little FYI. Sorry if I seemed to rant on ya or anything.

if you don't believe me then go to start and click run. Then type in command and hit enter. It should bring up a common console. Type in ipconfig and hit enter and it will list your current IP and subnet mask (if you left everything default from factory on the router) your subnet mask should also be 255.255.255.0. You also have 0 network security because you didn't enable it (people can steal your wireless internet), but if you only have a non wireless router then I say don't worry about that. I would enable WEP (wireless encryption protocol) 128bit encryption to encrypt my network.

 

[Stoney Bud]

Wonderful discussion! I love it!

Hey, Nik, it's cool that you warn people to be aware of what they do on the net. I don't let it bother me much man. If the head of the FBI wants to look at my PC, he's welcome to. I don't keep diddly on my net PC. As to Google watching what I do, I couldn't care less. My lawyer is well paid and takes great care of me. Google screws with me and I'll let her have them. She puts such large numbers on things that she does for me, no one EVER takes me all the way to court.

They want to lock me up? Let em. I'm not going to shiver every time I use my PC. I'll do what I want and let em do what they want to try.

Good luck to all of you.

 

[MergeLeft]

lawyer is well paid and takes great care of me. Google screws with me and I'll let her have them.

That's the ticket Stoney- having a great, big, mean SHARK on your side!

 

[Stoney Bud]

That's the ticket Stoney- having a great, big, mean SHARK on your side!

You ought to hear her...

Quite a bit of the time, she scares ME!

 

[Rocker420]

Ok sorry I mean, you may be a little mis informed. The reason this whole argument seems like ** to me is because I'm a NETWORKING MAJOR in college right now and I'm a 3rd semester junior .

Home routers take the IP address if you are given one (static) and then make up non internet routable IP (yes there are some) and give them out to the pcs on the network. Usually 192.168.1.something . When you unplug your pc from your router it just renews a non routable IP that doesn't mean jack. No one on the net sees the IP your router gives you. Your router has its own IP address the ISP is seeing and your router is just splicing your connection to all the pcs connected to it. It doesn't matter what you have plugged up to the router, online every PC connected to it has the SAME IP. Only if your router is using DHCP (Dynamic host configuration protocol) which dynamically assigned IPS to clients through the ISP, which will change your IP everytime you unplug your MODEM and plug it back in. Your router will keep giving out the same IP's it was cause it doesn't matter unless you made it give out static ips. Dynamic IP's from an ISP is common place with cable internet but not with DSL. DSL they usually give you a static IP and cable its random. Just a little FYI. Sorry if I seemed to rant on ya or anything.

if you don't believe me then go to start and click run. Then type in command and hit enter. It should bring up a common console. Type in ipconfig and hit enter and it will list your current IP and subnet mask (if you left everything default from factory on the router) your subnet mask should also be 255.255.255.0. You also have 0 network security because you didn't enable it (people can steal your wireless internet), but if you only have a non wireless router then I say don't worry about that. I would enable WEP (wireless encryption protocol) 128bit encryption to encrypt my network.

Well thank you Draston for correcting me, and no i dont feel like you were ranting, you were teaching. You see im really actually not all that computer smart. i know alittle web design, and i can play so mean games. So apparently i forget the difference between a modem and a router. A friend of mine actually told me about that little trick, now that i know in full detail i think to wonder if he knew lol. And how would i know if someone was stealing my internet? i didnt know that could happen.

 

[Nik Peace]

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
"Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post-9/11 World"

Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 450 stations in North America. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite television (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); as a "podcast," and on the internet.
The program is hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.


AMY GOODMAN: Maureen Webb, human rights attorney and author, is our guest. Her book, Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post-9/11 World. “Global Surveillance of Electronic Communications Records and Financial Transactions." You talk about UK e-Borders initiative, German trawling, flawed facts, dirty information and guilt by Google. Start with the last.

MAUREEN WEBB: Guilt by Google, that’s not copyrighted. You know, these data-mining programs, what you have to understand is that they’re not sifting through masses of information to find known terrorists or people who are suspected of terrorism on reasonable grounds. What they're doing is they’re sifting through all this information they’re collecting about us all to predict who might be a terrorist. This is predictive technology. And it’s interesting. It comes from the private sector.

I was in Chicago recently speaking, and the person who chaired the event was a CEO of a business intelligence company. And he told the audience just how far businesses have gone down this road of collecting every piece of information they can get about their customers and then data mining it and handling it through different technologies. And he spoke about an article that was published in the Harvard Business Review recently, which basically says that you’re nowhere as a business unless you’re doing this stuff. And this has been imported by the government into the war on terror. It’s predictive analysis.

AMY GOODMAN: And what’s the problem with this?

MAUREEN WEBB: Well, it’s very frightening, because, of course, when you’re looking at prediction, at preemption, you’re not really concerned with accuracy, so that all of the normal protections that we have about our virtual identities, about our personal information, are thrown out of the window. If you’re flagged by a data-mining program, you’ll never know what information has been used against you, you’ll never be able to correct or contextualize it, you won’t even know the criteria by which you’re being judged, because they are also secret.

So, for example, there’s a program that was just revealed about a month ago called the Automated Targeting System Program. And nobody knew that it was operating. In fact, two other programs that were similar to it had been killed by Congress. And this program collects information about people crossing the border, all modes of transportation. It stores it for forty years, and it assigns risk scores to individuals. And a risk score is a statistical rating of how closely your personal information matches the criteria, the secret criteria, that are supposed to protect terrorist activity. And there’s no way you can change your risk score, apparently. You can appeal and say, “Well, I’m not the Jane Doe that you’re thinking of,” and if they believe you, they can note it down, but apparently because you can never change the information, you can never change your risk score.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m looking at your section on shutting down independent media, where you write, “The current risk assessment climate has led to international cooperation in shutting down independent media outlets. In October 2004, two computer servers were seized by the FBI from the England office of the Texas-based internet company Rackspace. The servers were hosting the websites of independent media centers. The seizure was reportedly made under a UK-US mutual assistance treaty of 1996, but on the request of Swiss and Italian police.”

MAUREEN WEBB: Yes, yes. And that’s just one illustration of how closely security agencies are cooperating around the world today. And, for instance, the United States has signed an agreement whereby it has access to all of Europol's information about EU citizens. So some very sensitive information about EU citizens --

AMY GOODMAN: Europol?

MAUREEN WEBB: Europol, the European police. .



also...


Jailed Chinese Activist Sues Yahoo In Human Rights Case.
A jailed Chinese activist has sued the Internet company Yahoo for aiding and abetting human rights violations committed by the Chinese government. The activist, Wang Xiaoning, was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for emailing electronic journals advocating democratic reform. The Chinese government's case against him was aided by information provided by Yahoo. Last year Amnesty International accused Yahoo, Microsoft and Google of being complicit in efforts by the Chinese government to silence government critics.

 

[Nik Peace]

Yahoo went a step further last year by turning over electronic records to the Chinese government that helped convict and jail a dissident journalist named Shi Tao. The Chinese government has sentenced Tao to ten years in jail because he had posted online the copy of a government order barring Chinese media from marking the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

 

[Draston]

Well thank you Draston for correcting me, and no i dont feel like you were ranting, you were teaching. You see im really actually not all that computer smart. i know alittle web design, and i can play so mean games. So apparently i forget the difference between a modem and a router. A friend of mine actually told me about that little trick, now that i know in full detail i think to wonder if he knew lol. And how would i know if someone was stealing my internet? i didnt know that could happen.

Yup I had a friend that was in an apartment complex and bought a nice antenna for his desktop and just stole everyones internet instead of paying for it. It's horrible how much of it is done in housing complexes.