Category: Computers, Internet & Technology

More On What Google (and Probably A Lot of Others) Know

From John Battelle’s Searchblog:

1) “Given a list of search terms, can Google produce a list of people who searched for that term, identified by IP address and/or Google cookie value?”

2) “Given an IP address or Google cookie value, can Google produce a list of the terms searched by the user of that IP address or cookie value?”

I put these to Google. To its credit, it rapidly replied that the answer in both cases is “yes.”

My next thing I have to have (aka toy)

At The Mossberg Solution, Turning Your Cellphone Into Your Home Phone:

As more and more households continue to trade in their landlines for cellphones with better calling plans and free long distance, the inconvenience of toting a single cellphone around the house gets more annoying.

So, this week we took a look at two products that aim to solve that problem by tying your cellphone into your wired home phone setup. They allow you to use your home phones, including extensions in every room, to place and receive calls through your cellphone and your cellphone calling plan.

The evil empire

As I’ve written, NewMexiKen cancelled all cable television from Comcast. Saturday they finally got around to actually putting filters on my connection so that I would have internet, but not TV. Since then, every time I put any kind of demand on the service (loading multiple pages, pages with lots of images, etc.), the modem reboots — and I wait.

I called. They’ll be out Wednesday to check the line.

And, of course, I’m paying an additional $15 a month for internet because I don’t have TV.

Update: See later entry.

How to Foil Search Engine Snoops

In light of federal subpoenas for Google search information (and the fact that Yahoo! and MSN complied with similar subpoenas), Wired News explains:

How does a search engine tie a search to a user?
If you have never logged in to search engine’s site, or a partner service like Google’s Gmail offering, the company probably doesn’t know your name. But it connects your searches through a cookie, which has a unique identifying number. Using its cookies, Google will remember all searches from your browser. It might also link searches by a user’s IP address.

How long do cookies last?
It varies. Yahoo sets a cookie that expires in June 2006. A new cookie from Google expires in 2036.

What if you sign in to a service?
If you sign in on Google’s personalized homepage or Yahoo’s homepage, the companies can then correlate your search history with any other information, such as your name, that you give them.

Why should anyone worry about the government requesting search logs or bother to disguise their search history?
Some people simply don’t like the idea of their search history being tied to their personal lives. Others don’t know what the information could be used for, but worry that the search companies could find surprising uses for that data that may invade privacy in the future.

For example, if you use Google’s Gmail and web optimizing software, the company could correlate everyone you’ve e-mailed, all the websites you’ve visited after a search and even all the words you misspell in queries.

What’s the first thing people should do who worry about their search history?
Cookie management helps. Those who want to avoid a permanent record should delete their cookies at least once a week. Other options might be to obliterate certain cookies when a browser is closed and avoid logging in to other services, such as web mail, offered by a search engine.

There’s more. Follow the link.

Key quote: “If you are doing any search you wouldn’t print on a T-shirt….”

Update on iTunes

Last week NewMexiKen posted that I was holding off on installing the update to iTunes (6.0.2) because it installed software that collected information about the music you were listening to without informing you. They’ve changed it, so that now you are given a choice:

The iTunes MiniStore allows you to discover new music and videos right from your iTunes Library. As you select items in your Library, information about that item is sent to Apple and the MiniStore will send you related songs or videos. Apple does not keep any information related to the contents of your music Library.

Would you like to turn on the MiniStore now?

Best line of the day, so far

“When I started designing websites, if the guy on the plane next to me asked what I did, I had to say something like “digital marketing” if I wanted to avoid the uncomprehending stare.

“A few years later, if I told the passenger beside me I was a web designer, he or she would regard me with a reverence typically reserved for Stanley-Cup-winning Nobel Laureate rock stars.”

Jeffrey Zeldman at A List Apart. He goes on to add: “Then the bubble burst, and the same answer to the same question provoked looks of pity and barely concealed disgust.”

For what it’s worth

… you might want to reconsider any purchase from D-Link that involves a rebate. NewMexiKen purchased a D-Link bluetooth adapter in late September and sent in the required rebate paperwork within a few days. For three months the online status report has said, “A check request for $10.00 is being processed.” So they had what they needed.

Today I finally called the 800 number. After getting my information, some poor, bored, young-sounding woman said, “Seeing as how it has been so long, I can expedite that check for you and you should be getting it in 7-to-10 business days.”

Not that $10 is any big deal, but it is my $10, and I’m thinking I had to ask or it might never have come.

(Don’t mind me. My back hurts and I just want to rant. I’d just as soon be eaten by an eagle today.)

Tuning in

NewMexiKen hasn’t installed the latest version of iTunes yet, though it’s available.

The reason I’ll wait is that this new version, 6.0.2, comes with what some are calling spyware and adware. Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing has more:

Apple’s latest iTunes update, which, by default, switches on the “MiniStore,” an advertising/recommendation section that uses your current song-selection to recommend other songs that you can buy from Apple. In order to accomplish this, it must transmit your listening habits to Apple.

The problem is that Apple doesn’t inform you when you update your iTunes that you’re also turning on a system that transmits your private information to Apple and third-party partners. There’s no indication (apart from the recommendations) that this is going on, nor is there any information about what Apple will do with that information.

Apple has posted an article on How to show or hide the MiniStore in iTunes:

You can show or hide the MiniStore by choosing Show MiniStore or Hide MiniStore in the Edit menu or by clicking the “Show or Hide the MiniStore” button …

iTunes sends data about the song selected in your library to the iTunes Music Store to provide relevant recommendations. When the MiniStore is hidden, this data is not sent to the iTunes Music Store.

Still, Apple should have been more up front about this and made the option a choice to be made on installation. NewMexiKen isn’t paranoid on this privacy stuff. You can’t surf the web all day in fear. What I don’t like is Apple acting like Microsoft. One hopes that if enough of us wait to install the mini-store Apple will get the message.

By the way, in case you’ve wondered, you don’t need an iPod to use iTunes on your Mac or PC.

Letter to Apple Support

From: jason@kottke.org
Subject: Powerbook support
Date: January 10, 2006 4:55:31 PM ET
To: Apple Tech Support

Hello,

I purchased a new Powerbook three weeks ago. It was working fine until a few hours ago when you announced the new Intel-powered MacBook Pro at MacWorld and I started to cry. “Four to fives times faster,” I sobbed, “a built-in iSight, and a brighter, wider screen.”

My display, while not as bright or large as the new MacBook Pro display, illuminated my wet cheeks and red, swollen eyes as my tears rained down on the backlit keyboard. An acrid smell rose up from inside the smooth metal machine as my salty tears joined with the electronics, joyfully releasing the electrons from their assigned silicon pathways to freely arc into forbidden areas of the computer and elsewhere, including, somewhat painfully, my hands.

Is this covered under my warranty and if so, can you send me a new MacBook Pro as a replacement, please? Thank you for your time,

–jason

Happened to NewMexiKen with my iPod.

Download of the Day

Via Lifehacker, the Google Pack Screensaver without the Google Logo.

The Google Pack screensaver, which displays photos from your digital picture collection, is a really neat bauble. Even though Windows can do a screensaver that rotates photos in a particular folder, the Google Pack screensaver is better because you can specify which subfolders of photos to display or not (uncheck “office” or “naughty” and include “holidays” and “family”) and also lets you choose between effects (collage, wipe, cross-fade) which you can’t do in XP.

However, the Google Screensaver includes the Google logo in the top right. Amit’s version does not.

Google Zeitgeist

Top Google Searches in 2005:

1. Janet Jackson
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. tsunami
4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter

The Google Zeitgeist provides other interesting analysis:

It turns out that looking at the aggregation of billions of search queries people type into Google reveals something about our curiosity, our thirst for news, and perhaps even our desires. Considering all that has occurred in 2005, we thought it would be interesting to study just a few of the significant events, and names that make this a memorable year. (We’ll leave it to the historians to determine which ones are lasting and which ephemeral.) We hope you enjoy this selective view of our collective year.