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Search Engines and Technological Privacy Solutions | | | But not search engine surveillance. A web search engine requires significant hardware investments--servers to constantly index web pages, store the results, and scan through the abstract web map produced to return relevant search results. Google maintains at least half a million servers dedicated to these tasks. Since noone has figured out an adequate way to do the indexing and searching without a central server, privacy hacks have focused on enabling users to access the indexes created by companies like Google and Yahoo while revealing as little information to the search provider as possible. | |
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< | One approach is to hide true searches amongst a cloud of ghost queries This is the approach attempted by the TrackMeNot Firefox plugin, which periodically sends randomized search-queries to popular search engines like AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN, hoping to obfuscate a user's real searches with background noise. A nice idea in theory, but not so practical if the the random search noise is easy to filter out. Because TrackMeNot? is open-source, concerned search providers can examine its noise-generating algorithms, making it easier to identify features shared by the fake queries they generate. If fake queries can be categorized, seach engines can sort the wheat from the chaff, or fight back by blocking access to users of the plug-in. This is not to say that the approach is entirely without merit; newer versions of the TrackMeNot plugin have implemented increasingly sophisticated techniques geared to making fake queries look more like the real thing. As in the realm of cryptology, understanding the algorithm won't improve the chances of defeating it if the searches it generates are indistinguishable from real user searches in all their characteristics. | >
> | One approach is to hide true searches amongst a cloud of ghost queries This is the approach attempted by the TrackMeNot Firefox plugin, which periodically sends randomized search-queries to popular search engines like AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN, hoping to obfuscate a user's real searches with background noise. A nice idea in theory, but not so practical if the the random search noise is easy to filter out. Because TrackMeNot? is open-source, concerned search providers can examine its noise-generating algorithms, making it easier to identify features shared by the fake queries they generate. If fake queries can be categorized, seach engines can sort the wheat from the chaff, or fight back by blocking access to users of the plug-in. This is not to say that the approach is entirely without merit; newer versions of the TrackMeNot plugin have implemented increasingly sophisticated techniques geared towards making fake queries look more like the real thing. As in the realm of cryptology, understanding the algorithm won't improve the chances of defeating it if the searches it generates are indistinguishable from real user searches. | | | Scroogle exemplifies another common approach, which involves anonymizing search queries by routing them through a portal used by a number of other users. Since the search engine sees all the queries as coming from the proxy, it cannot use the originating computer's IP address as a unique identifier; it cannot categorize a series of searches as the thoughts of any particular person. The problem? One must trust the proxy not to keep its own logs, for one. And even if a trustworthy proxy exists (say, a website based in a country with laws severely limiting data retention), search engines can simply block requests from that proxy, once it is discovered. Unlike the game of whack-a-mole between the content industry and peer-to-peer file sharing services, search engines can block anonymizing proxies like Scroogle faster then new ones can gain popularity, since they do not need any judicial imprimatur to engage in effective self-help. | | | It looks like I was beaten to the punch a bit by Ted's comment. You propose some interesting ideas here, Andrei, but even assuming you can get people to see that there is a problem, I, too, wonder if these are solutions people can accept. In my own paper, I argued that part of the reason people don't do the things you propose because they spurn freedom itself, but I also suspect laziness and technological ineptness are also partly to blame. I'll throw myself to the fire by saying that while I have AdBlock? and TrackMeNot? (because they were easy to install and worked in a framework I already understand), really, the only way I will get a wall wart server (might I also embarassingly contend that this name is, well, sort of distasteful to those of us non-tech people that need to be seduced by it?) is if Justin or Ted a) came to my house with the wallwart b) installed the wallwart and c) agreed to maintain the wallwart for me, forever. In some sense, this is just an example of the spurning of freedom I discuss in my paper; I could certainly learn to use this technology--- there is no reason I need others to do it for me--- but despite my strong feelings about these problems, I have yet to take some of these steps because they seem out of (easy) technological reach. I doubt that making the technology easier or integrating it into familiar contexts will have any effect on the underlying problem of rejecting the burdens of freedom, but it may at least cause people to seriously consider the questions, rather than rejecting them outright on ease or ability grounds.
-- DanaDelger - 20 May 2009 | |
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Dana, I could perhaps have made the point a little bit more clear in paper, but what I'm proposing wouldn't require a wall-wart or anything of the kind. It could be implemented using only software, and the end user would not be required to engage in any configuration or maintenance beyond that involved in setting up AdBlock? , TrackMeNot? or any other Firefox plugin.
It may indeed be the case that people will reject even easy-to-use privacy enabling software in favor of the convenience offered by Google's "value adding" services, of course. I take it that the loss of those services is the burden of freedom Dana refers to. A really successful TrackMeNot? plugin could put a big dent in Google's revenue. If this leads to a choice between search with voluntary surrender of privacy and no search at all (because no company can turn search into a successful business model), then I suspect most will voluntarily surrender their privacy.
But that doesn't have to be the only choice. A tool for indexing and searching for networked content is the kind of public good that government should provide and support using tax revenue, if necessary.
-- AndreiVoinigescu - 21 May 2009 | | | |
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