What are the folks at Google smokin'?

I guess that Cheech and Chong have moved into the Googleplex

http://news.com.com/Google+admits+Desktop+security+risk/2100-1002_3-6041338.html?tag=nefd.top

Businesses have been warned by research company Gartner that the latest Google Desktop Beta has an "unacceptable security risk," and Google agrees.

On Feb. 9, Google unveiled Google Desktop 3, a free, downloadable program that includes an option to let users search across multiple computers for files. To do that, the application automatically stores copies of files, for up to a month, on Google servers. From there, copies are transferred to the user's other computers for archiving. The data is encrypted in transmission and while stored on Google servers.

The risk to enterprises, according to Gartner, lies in how this shared information is pooled by Google. The data is transferred to a remote server, where it is stored and can then be shared between users for up to 30 days.

This feature needs to be pulled from the Google Desktop immediately.  It is an unaceptable security risk.  Stating that the users need to not turn the feature on is not acceptable.  End users do not have the technical knowledge to understand the ramifications of something like this. 

Google, pull this feature.

2 Comments

  • It seems like a strange approach when you could make the google desktop interact with the google desktop on a annother machine.



    I disagree with the assertion "End users do not have the technical knowledge to understand the ramifications of something like this."

    The ramifications seem clear, all searchable material may end up on google's servers where is it beyond your control.

    This is a lot easier to understand than the networking details that will let you search the files and folders of annother machine without exposing that machine to the internet.







  • I don't think that end users understand that their material would end up on a google server outside of their firewall. This could easily include intellectual property and trade secrets.

Comments have been disabled for this content.