Category: Menacing Monopoly

The folks at Twitter, Inc. are learning this the hard way:

The reason why 300+ confidential documents were stolen from Twitter’s Google Apps account was actually because of Google’s totally insecure login process.

Don’t believe me? Just try login at docs.twitter.com as… say “ev” like in Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder (”biz” would be another alternative). Of course, unless you really know the password or use some sort of an automated password tool, you won’t get in.

So Google is secure, right?

Wrong! For Sophos security analyst Chet Wisniewski, the problem is actually as simple as the vulnerability is huge: Google will not throw you out after, let’s say 25 attempts guessing Ev’s password.

Actually, Google doesn’t even seem to impose any limits on fraudulous attempts – I couldn’t get this confirmed by Google who will not talk openly about its security process.

Worse, because of Google’s lack of security, Twitter’s co-founder wouldn’t even know that someone has tried to breach into his account. “Even my Linux machine will warn me when my wife tries unsuccessfully to login,” jokes Wisniewski.

The whole thing is worth a read. It's also got screenshots, incidentally, which illustrate the perils of relying on Google Apps. Not only might Google harvest your data for its own purposes, but it won't be properly protected from hacking attempts.

Eric Schmidt is saying goodbye to Apple:

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Google chief executive Eric Schmidt resigned Monday from the board of Apple due to potential conflicts of interest as the two tech giants increasingly become rivals.

“Eric has been an excellent board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said a statement from Apple chief executive Steve Jobs.

Schmidt, who had been a member of the board since August 2006, could not function effectively with Google entering more of Apple's core businesses, such as the smart phone and personal computer operating system markets, said Jobs.

This move should have happened weeks, perhaps even months, ago. It's about time Apple bid farewell to Schmidt. The Monster of Mountain View is or will soon be competing against most of Apple's products (the iPhone? Android. Mac? Chrome. Safari? Chrome).

Don't be surprised if at some point Google tries to launch GoogleTunes and partners with some lowly digital music manufacturer to create a would-be iPod rival. Google is gaming to compete with everybody in the hope that it will be able to own the digital experience for at least a hefty percentage of consumers. The whole world is probably out of reach, though it can be done… ask John D. Rockefeller.

Too bad, so sad:

In recent weeks, Apple turned down two applications that Google had submitted for review in hopes that they would be added to the company’s App Store, highlighting the increasingly complex relationship between the two companies.

Google said in a blog post last week that Apple had rejected an application called Google Latitude that would have allowed users to broadcast their location and see where their friends were.

“We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users,” the company said. It added that Apple had asked it to build a mobile-friendly Web version of the service instead, to “avoid confusion” with the standard map application on the iPhone, which also uses Google map data.

On Tuesday, a Google spokeswoman, Sara Jew-Lim, said that several weeks ago Apple rejected an application that would bring Google Voice service to the iPhone. Ms. Jew-Lim declined to elaborate.

Actually, this whole episode is indicting of proprietary software and secrecy in general. Apple looks bad for trying to protect its exclusive setup with AT&T. And as for Google, how ingenious of them to come up with a product that lets them collect all of your telephone numbers and be in charge of routing all your calls. What’s next? Google SnailMail? Have correspondence sent to Mountain View and Google will scan it and serve it up to you with ads? (This is not such a far fetched concept by the way, there are startups out there that do this: Earth Class Mail and PaperlessMail .) Maybe Google will buy one of them).

Good to see there are folks out there browbeating the Monster of Mountain View about its complete lack of privacy safeguards:

Google's effort to put entire books online creates serious privacy concerns, civil liberties groups warned today.

The Mountain View company's repository of data about its users' reading habits could become a “one-stop shop for government and civil litigant fishing expeditions into the private life of Americans,” the groups wrote in a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

“Google book search is like someone following you down the aisle at the library, writing down every book you pick up and every book you sit down to read,” Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director with the ACLU of Northern California, one of the organizations pressuring Google, said in an interview.

ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation and UC Berkeley's Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic voiced their worries as Google tries to expand the number of books available through its service. Proposed settlements with book publishers and two universities – subject to court approval – would allow it to make millions of more books available.

As usual, Google is trying to claim it takes privacy seriously. At least, that's what employees of the company are saying, without offering any specifics. (Translation: It's a bunch of hot air).

The watchdogs are asking Google to do the following:

• Respond only to properly issued search warrants and court orders. Users should be alerted if their information is sought.
• Retain user book search data for longer than 30 days (Google currently anonymizes cookies after 18 months and IP addresses after 9 months). Nor should it tie any book information it collects to behavior on other of the company's services without consent.
• Create a clear privacy policy for books and publish data annually about the demands it receives for book information.

If history is any indication, these requests will probably be ignored or shelved.

It's not just the private sector that Google would like to monetize. It's the public sector too:

A Los Angeles councilman and the head of a police group are questioning the city's plan to move government e-mail and other records onto Google's hosted Web service Google Apps.

“Anytime you go to a Web-based system, that puts you just a little further out than you were before,” LA City Councilman Tony Cardenas told The Associated Press. “Drug cartels would pay any sum of money to be aware of our progress on investigations.”

Paul Weber, president of the LA Police Protective League, also said he is worried about the safety of sensitive police investigation records if they are moved to Google Apps.

Considering that data stored on Google's servers has been accessed by unauthorized users before, that's not a unreasonable concern. It happened earlier this year, and it happened again this month:

[Weber's] worries came just one day after the online-messaging service Twitter acknowledged hackers were able to access confidential information stored with Google, which has been promoting greater use of “cloud computing” – storing data online rather than on individual computers under a company's or government agency's direct control.

The Monster of Mountain View is trying its best to soothe away legitimate fears by calmly claiming its service is secure:

“We agree that security is a very important consideration for any organization considering cloud computing, and we've been working very closely with the City of Los Angeles to address any questions and concerns government officials or citizens might have,” the statement said. “Security is at the core of how we design Google Apps, and as the City of Los Angeles' evaluation report notes, the proposed cloud computing system is an improvement over the level of security currently in place. It also provides other benefits of cloud computing — such as increased innovation at reduced cost — which are driving the city's request for a cloud solution to suit its IT needs.”

No mention of any commitment to user privacy… well, that's not a surprise. Google doesn't even pretend to care about privacy until directly confronted about its lack of safeguards. Then they try to claim they do care. Except they don't. They can't care about user privacy. It would undermine and restrict their business model…. their ability to make gobs of cash.

Surprise, surprise:

Challenging Microsoft's grip on PCs, Internet search giant Google said late Tuesday night that it intends create its own computer operating system.

Google said the OS is initially aimed at netbooks — small, cheap and incredibly popular sub-notebooks — and would be an “open source” project built with and by many developers.

Google is currently meeting with hardware manufacturers to [sic] aprise them of its plans, and hopes to have it on computers by the second half of 2010.

Google has denied for years any interest in taking on Microsoft or Apple with its own operating system, but Tuesday took a new direction.

New direction, what a joke. Google's goal all along has been to get into a position where they can wield complete control over the entire computing industry. They want power – greater power than even Microsoft has ever had. They want the time users spend in front of their screen to be spent using Google products, whether they're searching for something on Google, buying something through Google Checkout, publishing their thoughts through Blogger, looking up a local business on Google Maps, sharing their location with Google Latitude, publishing eons of information to Google Docs & Spreadsheets, reading and replying to messages in Gmail, playing with Google Earth, networking on Orkut, watching videos on YouTube, and surfing the Web with Google Chrome.

Now that Chrome is being turned into an operating system, Google will have the potential to monitor everything its users do with built in phone home features. Imagine all those screens… individual portals through which the giant, secretive corporation that is Google can watch with a never-blinking eye, capturing oodles of information and monetizing it for profit.

That is Google's business plan: to know everything there possibly is to know and use that information to make money. Lots of money. And if people get hurt in the process, so what? Profit is more important than anything else.

1984, here we come!

Excellent:

A gaggle of residents in the affluent hamlet formed a human chain to turn away a car shooting images for Google Street View, the popular service that allows Internet users to see high-quality photos of houses and streets around the world.

Broughton's tiny victory for people power is the latest sign of concern about the U.S. Internet juggernaut's collection of vast amounts of data, from satellite photos on Google Earth to the searches performed by Internet users and the shopping habits of e-mail users.

“I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” villager Paul Jacobs told The Times of London newspaper. “My immediate reaction was anger: How dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent?”

Jacobs quickly rounded up his neighbors, who blocked the road and forced the car to retreat.

Just goes to show that real time grassroots organizing is possible. Great to see somebody stand up to Google Big Brother.

Lovely:

Setting up a Google Custom Domain, and publishing your blog to a non-BlogSpot URL, is an exciting prospect for many bloggers. Part of the excitement, after using the “Buy A Domain For Your Blog” wizard, includes receipt of an email from Google Apps, giving instructions on logging in to Google Apps, and giving us access to the DNS Manager wizard for the domain registrar (eNom or GoDaddy). And providing positive proof that he / she is now the owner of the domain.

Recently, we've been seeing reports from unhappy bloggers who report

I have only received the mail of confirmation of the purchase and of spending the $10 USD, but nothing else.

This discovery is made generally when the blogger reports a problem with the domain, and when advised to correct it using the Domain DNS wizard, replies that he has no access to the DNS wizard, and in some cases, no access to Google Apps either. In other cases, the blogger may have access to Google Apps, and an account / password to the registrar's DNS Manager, but the DNS Manager access doesn't work.

If people knew better, they wouldn't set up a Google custom domain AT ALL. Avoid Google at all costs – set up shop with the pros at WordPress.com orTypePad. And don't even think of turning to GoDaddy or one of their resellers/subsidiaries for domain names. Try Hover instead.

Welcome to Leave Google Behind.

One soggy day in March, this website was created by concerned consumers who couldn't stop wondering why more people aren't watchdogging and criticizing the activities of the giant online search behemoth that is Google, Inc.

The objective of this site to help people who have decided they want to live a Google-free life online. That may sound funny, but it's actually a pretty serious decision. Google is so dominant and so omnipresent that purposely avoiding it can actually be a very difficult task. And finding alternatives to Google products with the same featureset that Google offers is sometimes difficult. However, it's a challenge this site has willingly embraced. The front page of LGB contains dozens of links to other companies and services that compete with Google in almost every product category. Many of these alternatives are actually better than what Google offers, and not just in the privacy department.

Besides providing a directory of alternatives, LGB will also keep an occasional eye on Google, posting additional articles of interest and must read posts from other Google critics here on this blog. LGB will also aim to add more tutorials for users who want to block/screen out Google and keep its grubby virtual hands off of their desktops, laptops, netbooks, and phones.

LGB invites visitors to submit tips and legit links of interest using the Contact link above.