Sometimes my usually baseless paranoia is substantiated by the cold, hard facts of living life in a world where there's an increasing ability for everybody to have their nose in everyone else's business at the click of a button. Today is one of those days, or more accurately February 9th was one of those days, when the EFF reported a feature Google recently added to their Google Desktop software. The Search across computers function," when in use, creates copies of all the Word Documents, PDFs, etc., on the user's hard drive. The article, with the distinctly Damoclean title "Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation, begins:
San Francisco - Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.
I've not futzed around with Google Desktop, but it sounds to me like enabling this function would allow people to browse around in all the private, super secret text based documents that I keep on my computer the same way they would browse my ITunes library (no doubt with the intention of basking in the glow of my superlative taste in music, in the latter case.)
That freaks me out, and so I'm not planning on using Google Desktop's scary new feature any time soon. But my personal qualm with using the Google Desktop's "Search Across Computers" function only really gets to the scary tip of the scary iceberg (which, incidentally, floats in a sea of scary.)
It's not just that people can look at these files, it's that they're being copied. What are the implications of that? Well, they are two-fold - the personal:
"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don't configure Google Desktop very carefully—and most people won't—Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index.
And, if the notion of that embarrasing, sophomoric love poetry you wrote 10 years ago that's been hanging around, long forgotten, on your tired old hard drive becoming a matter of public record freaks you out - take heart, that doesn't even touch what's coming in terms of freakoutworthiness.
The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it. Other litigants—your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whoever—could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."
That's right folks, Google could very well be offering up a no-warrant-necessary way for the government to check out the first ten or twenty pages of that new novel you've been writing, if not more personal things.
Concerned about government snoopery? This technological development may very well have George Orwell bursting forth from his grave fist-first and extending the bird.
