Googling Security (PDF)

When you use Google's "free" services, you pay, big time. Not in cash: You pay with personal information about yourself. Google's making a fortune on what it knows about you...and you may be shocked just how much Google does know about you. Googling Security is the first book to reveal how Google's vast information stockpiles could be used against you or your business-and what you can do to protect yourself.

Unlike other books on Google "hacking," this book covers all of Google's top applications, not just search. U.S. Military Academy computer security professor Greg Conti reveals the privacy implications of Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk, Google Groups, Google Alerts, Google's new mobile applications, and more. Drawing on his own advanced security research, Conti also shows how Google's databases can be used by others with bad intent, even if Google keeps its promise to "do no evil."

• Uncover the trail of informational "bread crumbs" you leave when you use Google search
• How Gmail could be used to track your personal network of friends, family, and acquaintances
• How Google's map and location tools could disclose the locations of your home, employer, family and friends, travel plans, and intentions
• How Google-based data mining could help the government discover your secrets and identify your most private relationships
• How embedded Google AdSense advertising services could track you around the Web
• How to systematically reduce the personal information you expose or give away

This book is a wake-up call and a "how-to" self-defense manual: an indispensable resource for everyone, from private citizens to security professionals, who relies on Google.

Preface

Chapter 1: Googling

Chapter 2: Information Flows and Leakage

Chapter 3: Footprints, Fingerprints, and Connections

Chapter 4: Search

Chapter 5: Communications

Chapter 6: Mapping, Directions, and Imagery

Chapter 7: Advertising and Embedded Content

Chapter 8: Googlebot

Chapter 9: Countermeasures

Chapter 10: Conclusions and a Look to the Future