Googling Security: How much does Google know about you?
Reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Introduction
When you use Google’s
“free” services, you pay, big time–with personal information about
yourself. Google is making a fortune on what it knows about you…and you may be
shocked by just how much Google does know. Googling Security is the first book to reveal how Google’s vast
information stockpiles could be used against you or your business – and
what you can do to protect yourself.
Unlike other books on Google hacking, this book covers information you disclose when using all of
Google’s top applications, not just what savvy users can retrieve via Google’s
search results. West Point computer science professor Greg Conti reveals the
privacy implications of Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk, Google Groups, Google
Alerts, Google’s new mobile applications, and more. Drawing on his own advanced
security research, Conti shows how Google’s databases can be used by others
with bad intent, even if Google succeeds in its pledge of “don’t be evil.”
- Uncover the trail of
informational “bread crumbs” you leave when you use Google search
- How Gmail could be used to
track your personal network of friends, family, and acquaintances
- How Google’s map and
location tools could disclose the locations of your home, employer, family and
friends, travel plans, and intentions
- How the information
stockpiles of Google and other online companies may be spilled, lost, taken,
shared, or subpoenaed and later used for identity theft or even blackmail
- How the Google AdSense and
DoubleClick advertising services could track you around the Web
- How to systematically
reduce the personal information you expose or give away
This book is a wake-up call and
a “how-to” self-defense manual: an indispensable resource for everyone, from
private citizens to security professionals, who relies on Google.
What I Learned
I've said what Greg Conti
revealed here for years, but maybe folks will listen now that he put it into
print.
I've probably been guilty of all
the ways and means necessary to reveal much about me. I've been online since
the inception of the Internet, so there probably is a pretty thick dossier on
me by now. I have had my identity stolen. I have had my credit rating
besmirched by bad-nasties and I'm pretty sure, due to my writings,
publications, blogs, Social Networking, User Groups, Resumes and Curriculum
Vitae, Way Back sites, online purchases and banking activities online that I'm
probably pretty "transparent" by now. GoogleMaps has my address and
location – and without GPS tracking or RFID chipping. My profiling "breadcrumbs"
probably fills two or three bushel baskets. I am constantly amazed at how many
others of me (first and last name) there are out there. I am no longer "unique".
But you do not have to be
"found out". You may still be able to keep you anonymity. Maybe. Or
you can blindly trust that Google and others will keep the data carefully,
quietly and constantly being built up over time on you, will stay private. But
you need to be paranoid. What you say, what you do and what you write can and
will be used against you. And not necessarily in a court of law. I know it to
be a fact.
Ask any political candidates
(for instance, Sarah Palin's Email) or for job seekers that perhaps loaded
compromising pictures and other information online about themselves. That
information does not go away. It cannot be "repented of", as long as
there is disc and tape storage on this planet and electricity to access it.
The New Yorker cartoon showing two dogs at a screen, with one saying; "On
the Internet, Nobody Know You're a Dog" is no longer true. *
And no, your life should not be
an open book. The angels keep
records of all you do, but why should certain organizations who are open to
stockholders, blackmail, intelligence organizations, etc., also be privy to
such information? Answer – they should not.
I still remember the Robert
Redford movie, "Sneakers", about the dude who has a device that
collects all information about everything and says that everything is little
bits of ones and zeros and the person who controls that, controls everything.
"The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or
energy or money.
It's run by ones and zeroes, little bits of data.
It's all just electrons.
There's a war out there, old friend, a world war.
And it's not about who's got the most bullets.
It's about who controls the information:
...what we see and hear, how we work, what we think.
It's all about the
information."
The NSA had developed the box for domestic surveillance.
The book does have a few links
to some tools for web page monitoring.
And yes, I did google to get the
information for this review. Wouldn’t you?
Conclusion
If you get that little itchy
feeling that someone is watching you, you are right. Learn all you can about
how it is done and then look at the few things (very few) that you can do to
possibly protect yourself from exploitation.
*The above cartoon by
Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The
New Yorker, (Vol. 69 (LXIX) no. 20) only for academic discussion,
evaluation, research and complies with the copyright law of the United States
as defined and stipulated under Title 17 U. S. Code.
