Sometimes, people freak out. Paranoya. Panic. OMG, everything is compromised!
That’s what Googling Security – How Much Does Google Know About You is.
Let’s read the back-cover, shall we?
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.
Wow, you didn’t see this one coming did you? This post is all about analyzing the bullshit this book is about. If anything, please, please, please don’t read or take a word from it.
Alright, first of all, let’s make something clear. You don’t pay with your personal information when you use Google’s products. Your information is securely stored inside your Google account. They don’t sell your information, they encrypt it so that even Google employees can’t see it. The ONLY way to see that information is with your account ID and Password, which is also encrypted in a way that makes it non-retrievable by humans.
Most of that panicky stuff is attributed to the information mining Google does when you click on ads and navigate Google Ads-enabled websites like my blog. What is this information? It’s simply a cookie that tracks where you clicked and if you bought something so that the ads the advertiser pays for are justified. That’s fair, not privacy infringement. Besides, this is an entirely automated process that uses your IP address to track you. Your IP is just a temporary number that changes every 6 hours (varies by ISP) and it reveals absolutely no information about you. The only way it could is if your ISP were to give that information, which they are forbidden to do by the law.
Additionally, many think that because Google Maps remembers where you searched if your logged in, necessarily it’s compromised. Ok, no, this information is strictly stored inside your profile, which is not accessible to others or any humans or hackers, and is used in conjunction with the app to help you search more efficiently. It’s again an entirely automated process with no humans involved. Nobody knows what you searched for, only you do.
Some people might also think it’s freaky that they see advertisements that have to do with their own country on a website that has nothing to do with their country. “How did Google Ads know? OMG. Are they spying on me??”. Oh come on, if they were, it’d be long since they were put out of business. Google simply obtains this information from your IP, which reveals which ISP you use, and incidentally, which country, because your ISP had to buy those IP addresses to use them. That’s how the Internet works people.
Truthfully, it’s true. What this book says is entirely true. But this book is only a WARNING about how information COULD leak. Sorry for the caps, but the detail is important. Up to date, Google never leaked such information. Besides, if Google was to really release your information for any purpose whatsoever, they would loose their entire business because privacy is something they have to prove to make money on actual paying business solutions. It’s the end for Google if some report goes out that officially proves Google sold your information, so that company better has to watch their ass, which is why you shouldn’t worry. Those guys are driven by money, and if they sell your information, it means no more money, so they never will!
The same goes for Microsoft and any other corporation in which you entrust information today. In any cases, blocking cookies and doing as they say in the book in three quarters of the way to not using the Internet. I mean, hey, if you’re so concerned about your privacy, don’t use emails at all and make it so that nobody can communicate with you in the modern age. Kill your business by not being online, at least you’ll have total privacy. You may also think of hosting your own email solution. Where are you going to host it, on a hosting provider? Hosting providers can actually legally look in your data (it’s in most SLAs so they can prevent you from distributing illegal stuff), so it’s even worse. Host it yourself and run the risk of being easily hacked. Google has its own servers and super secure data centers nobody can tamper with, and they have security professionals hired full-time to ensure a breach never occurs. If anything Gmail isn’t, is insecure. Gmail is probably one of the most secure email solution in the world.
I used the following phrase to convince my mother to use Gmail:
- Well, you trust your bank with your money don’t you?
