Google Unofficially Announces GDrive By Leaked Code 342
An anonymous reader writes "Google has unofficially announced the GDrive by source code. In an in-direct way, Google has publicly advertised the new, much-anticipated online storage drive called the GDrive. If you take a look at the source code of some javascript within the Google Pack, you will clearly see the GDrive referenced. The code categorizes the GDrive as an 'Online file backup and storage' device. It also provides the following descriptions; 'GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents' and 'GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device — be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone.'"
Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, somewhere to back up all of my important porn!
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone else at least on notice that Google is looking to know not only all of the sites we visit with google analytics and chrome, all of the videos we watch on google video and correlate this with our gmail/video logins, but also get statistics on data that we store.
Not that they are necessarily going to do anything nefarious with it. But it's a lot of data that, if someone had access to and was inclined to mine, could yield an unnerving amount of information about an individual who heavily uses Google products.
I think I'm gonna change the drop box on my browser to Yahoo! for a while. Need to spread the love.
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Funny)
Eric Schimdt likes porn just like every other guy.
He just happens to archive it in the petabytes instead of gigabytes.
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Funny)
Eric Schimdt likes porn just like every other guy.
He just happens to archive it in the pedabytes instead of gigabytes.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:4, Funny)
With the kind of stuff that's on the internet... One look in the wrong folder would drive you insane faster than a staring contest with Cthulhu.
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Funny)
Pfft, that was the last codeword, it's now referred to as GSpot.
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Funny)
Pfft, that was the last codeword, it's now referred to as GSpot (BETA).
There, fixed that for ya. And don't feel bad if you can't find it - submitter had to dig deep in the code to even know it existed, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I've been looking for GSpot for years. Sadly, I'm beginning to suspect that think they hired too many Duke Nukem Forever developers for it as I can't find it anywhere.
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Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:4, Funny)
It would probably cross the line, but I'd love to see them do a Zeitgeist report on the porn people have in there.
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd only use it for backup, why waste limited backup space on porn? Porn is already well backed up by everyone else.
Perhaps a bit like skydrive as well (Score:2)
Gmailfs (Score:2)
I wonder if this will be as good as gmailfs.
Re:Gmailfs (Score:5, Informative)
Description: Use your GMail account as a filesystem
GmailFS provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail
account as its storage medium. GmailFS is a Python application and
uses the FUSE userland filesystem infrastructure to help provide the
filesystem, and libgmail to communicate with Gmail.
Re:Gmailfs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Like xdrive and idrive before it (Score:4, Funny)
I hate sticky porn
Security (Score:5, Informative)
I know that Google is all about introducing new (usually useful) services which tie into its already existing sites and services, and for that I applaud it. However I hope that it takes privacy, security, and encryption into account for this new online storage service. It's one thing to do a search with Google's engine - trusting Google with personal files is another issue entirely.
Also, here's hoping for a rich desktop client instead of just a Web interface.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's hope it's implemented as FUSE, for portability...
If it's actually exposed as a local filesystem, then it should be trivial to encrypt the files using something like encfs [arg0.net].
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That's why God made egd. I mean google just might have the processing power to break some encryption, but I'm willing to gamble they won't en masse.
Still feels a bit like cheating them, though, given that they'll likely offer it for free and use targetted ads.
Or I just get a bunch of ads for encryption softwares like I do when I receive/send pgp-encrypted gmail.
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As with any other time, if you want something encrypted do it yourself with an opensource product. If you trust someone else with your encryption, you can expect they won't care as much for your privacy as you would.
Google can feel free to mine my pseudo random porn :)
Min
Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
If by "closer to official" you mean "closer to Beta" which for Google means "yeah, it's official, we just cannot claim it's 100% without flaw"
See also: GMail... still in BETA!
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Wired: Will the success of Google Apps mean market share erosion for Microsoft Office?
Schmidt: It may. Or it may be that consumers will push us to solve completely new problems.
In another recent Wired interview with some high-ranking Microsoft guy, said guy acknowledged with a straight face that the cloud was the future and laid out Microsoft's plans for it. Does Microsoft really believe in their own planned obsolescence?
Not as surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Duplicity [nongnu.org], a clever backup tool, has let you use Gmail [nongnu.org] boxes for a storage engine for a while now. I'm sure they are just taking the next logical step. Of course, you can assume that they will probably index your files in some way, even if it isn't made public.
Great for Rapidshare users, I guess (Score:3, Interesting)
I can see this becoming a popular filesharing tool; I can see myself and some online friends sharing a google account for the sake of making a free high-speed
Misplaced priorities? (Score:4, Informative)
I know this is not officially released by Google but I would rather have Google get Gmail out of beta. My school would like to move to Gmail but the "beta" label is a show stopper on this front. What do you think?
Re:Misplaced priorities? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
My water-damaged discarded 333MHz file server has a better uptime than Google SLA provides.
They only offer at most 95% per month, MINUS pre-scheduled downtimes, and non-scheduled downtimes that are "exempt". Honestly, 90% uptime per month real. The key is that these numbers are not real, because of the possible exemptions and everything, so a real SLA is unknown.
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K'. And how does that negate GP's point?
Re:Misplaced priorities? (Score:5, Informative)
They only offer at most 95% per month, MINUS pre-scheduled downtimes, and non-scheduled downtimes that are "exempt". Honestly, 90% uptime per month real. The key is that these numbers are not real, because of the possible exemptions and everything, so a real SLA is unknown.
You could not be more wrong:
Enterprise-class service â" Google Apps includes a 99.9% uptime SLA.* Phone support is available for critical issues.
*The 99.9% uptime SLA for Google Apps is offered to organizations using Google Apps Premier Edition, as described in the Google Apps Premier Edition Terms of Service
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/messaging.html [google.com]
Sure it is only 3 nines but that is way better than the 90% you said
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You clearly didn't follow the asterisk in the page that you quoted to the actual SLA.
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html [google.com]
This is not a normal SLA. "Downtime" is measured as a function of error rate for ALL users, not just you. If one customer is out of service, it's not downtime.
Downtime is also measured in blocks of ten minutes. If you are without email for 9 minutes 30 seconds, then your inbox loads, then it goes down for a further 9 minutes, there was no downtime.
With terms like that, Goo
Re:Misplaced priorities? (Score:5, Insightful)
Storage Poll (Score:2)
You would save your work on:
* 8" floppy drives
* Removable Winchesters
* Good old spinning rust
* SSD, like my MBA
* GDrive: slow, but cosmic
* Cowboy Neal's Sneakers
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Where's the "post to an FTP site and let the world mirror it" option? Linus will feel left out!
making up new words (Score:5, Funny)
"in-direct"?
that word is im-possible.
hold on, i have to tie my shoe-lace, be-cause i keep tripping over all the hy-phens.
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grammar-nazi's
Well played, sir!
Saturated (Score:3, Insightful)
This market place is already saturated with companies like box.net, dropbox, mozy, amazon s3, xdrive, pocketque and many others. What is interesting about GDrive, other then it'll search through my data to mine advertising opportunities?
Better be a massive amount of free online storage. What is the online storage to privacy exchange rate anyway?
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Not to mention that some of those are set up so they can't access your data themselves, period. Unless it's encrypted and the encryption key never leaves my computer I wouldn't trust any such service.
Re:Saturated (Score:4, Interesting)
From what I've read, you'll be able to map it like another drive on your computer, just drag and drop files. Unlike a slow web interface with other products, you can very quickly access your files. There will be tons of storage, and it will be completely free with no nags to upgrade to a premium service.
Otherwise, exactly like this should have been handled by everyone else from day 1.
Borgle? (Score:2)
Show of hands... how many slashdotters use Google for multiple services?
Next question; why do you trust them so much? What makes them so radically different from Microsoft or Apple?
Once they become the Borgle, do you really think they'll do no evil with the vast amount of data you are giving them? Remember, this means not just your actual data, but also all the implications they can draw from your data habits.
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About 10 years
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Google isn't a new company. They've been around a while and have a positive track record. They're fairly transparent. Microsoft and Apple have had fairly negative track records for ages.
Please explain to me your assumption that Google will change against all reason their company strategy to emulate their competitors that they constantly try to differentiate themselves from?
Never debug comments (Score:4, Insightful)
Only debug code.
I'd guess the code must be commented out since the service in question doesn't exist. So if this code were to try to connect to it, it would hang. Right?
So it's non-executing code. Which means that maybe it's a leftover from some meeting where they thought they would offer this service but changed their minds since then.
How many times have you been fooled by reading outdated comments?
Believe it when it launches. Inferring Google's direction from reading code comments is clever, but perhaps a bit too clever.
Re: (Score:2)
Several people have been reporting on GDrive rumors, fairly specific ones, for months.
It just so happens that Google code also references a product whose name and description match those rumors.
The title of this article says the announcement is "Unofficial" not "Officially Confirmed".
That seems like a fair assessment to me.
gdrive.com (Score:4, Interesting)
Taken right now by a web design firm. Curious how long they stay there for.
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So, someone has chrome.com too, no guarantee Google will even be interested.
Whoever owns gdrive.com would be wise to offer a backup service though :)
Re:gdrive.com (Score:4, Informative)
Gmail doesn't use Gmail.com.
It doesnt?
Weird. Did you perhaps mean gmail doesn't exclusively use gmail.com?
Re:gdrive.com (Score:5, Insightful)
Then how do you suppose that email sent to user@gmail.com gets to the Google account? Someone just kindly forwards it?
Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that sucks for Google [gdrive.com].
GMail File Shell extension (Score:3, Informative)
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GDrive slogan! (Score:2, Funny)
GDrive! A hard-disk governments and corporate businesses can finally google on!
Ads and Encryption (Score:3, Interesting)
How will they make money with this service? Will they charge a subscription fee or will it be supported via ads like most of their services? If it's going to be ad-supported, that probably means encrypted files will not be permitted [Ever try to send a fully encrypted RAR file through GMail? You can't.], which doesn't sit too well with me.
thanks but no thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Given Google's "all your data are belong to us" attitude, I'd rather stick to my own self-engineered remote storage solution.
Pricing (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's hoping that GDrive can address the biggest problem with online backup services today: price. For backing up large amounts of data (10s or 100s of GB), it is vastly cheaper to buy 2-3 additional hard drives and make your own backups than it is to use any online service.
For example, to back up 1 TB of data, buy two external TB drives from Newegg, copy your files to the drives, and store one offsite. Total cost: $200.
To backup to Amazon's S3 service, transfer all the data once, and store it for a year. $100 for the transfer plus (12 months * $150/month) for storage = $1900 for the year.
I'm sure there are good reasons for the cost discrepancy. I know the $200 cost doesn't include time, electricity, or the possible need to replace drives. But still, I think there has to be a way that clever engineers can bring the costs down for online storage. The fact that most of the data on a backup system doesn't need to be loaded at the same time should open up possibilities for cost savings. I'd be willing to accept a little delay in accessing my backups if it would allow for a much cheaper service.
Privacy Concerns? (Score:3, Informative)
If you want a couple gigabytes of online storage for free that's got a multi-platform client for regular syncing, you can already have it:
https://spideroak.com/ [spideroak.com]
At least these guys encrypt your data instead of processing and farming it for marketing data and advertising cues. Ugh. What part of our lives aren't we going to hand over to google?
Re:Sounds Good. (Score:5, Informative)
Give them my data? Not bloody likely. Poke around with some free storage for non-critical applications? Sure, sounds fun.
Re:Sounds Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
My MP3 collection and some digital photos I don't wnat to lose isn't like some secret, private data I'm terrified they will analyze.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have any reason to suggest that Google is handing over data to the RIAA when Google has historically fought to protect the privacy of its users?
Furthermore, even if the RIAA saw my massive MP3 collection, I do have CDs to justify most of it, and I'm not distributing copies to other people. They don't have anything on me.
Re:Sounds Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any reason to suggest that Google is handing over data to the RIAA when Google has historically fought to protect the privacy of its users?
I have no reason to suspect Google would not do precisely that, if ordered to by the courts (after the inevitable, expensive appeals are finally exhausted). Much as I like cyberpunk sci-fi, I don't see Google declaring itself an extraterritorial sovereign entity no longer subject to national laws any time soon...
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Unreasonable search and seizure. It is in the Constitution. Given that I don't distribute, and haven't even broken the law, and that Google hasn't shown any willingness to work with the RIAA, even if the RIAA wanted to go after me for no apparent reason, they'd need probable cause with sufficient evidence that I broke the law, which I didn't.
Again, I'm not worried.
If you used your Gdrive and gave the entire world access, and used that to distribute, and the RIAA got wind of it, and have evidence to subpeo
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They should be watched, that's for sure.
Q: Why is GDrive any different from any other online storage service?
A: It's pretty much the same, but integrated with Google's other services too!
Q: Hey, isn't that Microsoft's line?
A: Nothing to see here! Move along!
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Will it be encrypted?
If so I expect encryption will soon be outlawed, yes it's ok for Amazon to do it but as soon as Google does it new legislation is needed.
Re:what happens if google folds (Score:5, Insightful)
Have a backup. Just like with any storage.
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Re:what happens if google folds (Score:5, Insightful)
No, at no time whatsoever will you ever have access to the files you store on gdrive. In fact, gdrive is really just a counter attached to /dev/null
Will it have backup abilities? WTF? You either uploaded a file to it, thus implying you had access to it, enabling you to back it up. Or you can download the file from it, thus implying you have access to it, enabling you to back it up.
Re:what happens if google folds (Score:5, Insightful)
agreed, but this will most likely be connected to some *cough cloud* form on online computing. will it have backup abilities ?
No, backups are your job.
Just don't delete the stuff you upload.
You need to have the files on your computer First before you can store them on gdrive anyway. They are already there.
The act of spending no energy, and doing nothing, in that case gives you your backup.
The act of spending energy, time, resources, and thought on deleting your copies afterwards, is not just a waste but will put you in a bad situation when something happens to gdrive (or where ever you stored the copy at)
And if you DON'T have the files already on your computer, then you dont need to be worrying about uploading them to anywhere :}
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Backup, I thought those where extinct?
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
TrueCrypt is an excellent solution, its only drawback is that you have to specify fixed-size containers. Because the GDrive won't be NTFS, you can't use TC's sparse file option. There are some ways of making containers that can expand to fill up whatever quota Google gives a person:
If on Linux, you could use EncFS.
OS X can use EncFS + FUSE, or one can use the Disk Image tool and create a sparse bundle image which is in actuality a directory with 8MB files (called bands) under it. When something is change
How do they make money from this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure this is very useful, but whats in it for Google?
Re:How do they make money from this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Yes they can!
Re:How do they make money from this? (Score:4, Funny)
> If I mount it with encfs, what information do they have about me?
Your favourite password phase as well?
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don't think big trusted names can't fold. and if it happens, how will you get this data?
You get that data by opening the files on one of your PCs or backup media.
Why is it a lot of people seem to have the mindset of "once you move data from place A to place B, you should get rid of the data in place A" ???
If it is important to you, encrypt it up, and store it EVERYWHERE. All your home PCs, offsite HDs, friends houses, USB keys, as well as Gdrive, and every other online storage service you can get (or can afford.)
Re:what happens if google folds (Score:4, Insightful)
don't think big trusted names can't fold. and if it happens, how will you get this data? i would advise extreme caution on what you use this for.
Is there any form of data storage that doesn't beg for advice like this?
- Hard drives fail.
- CDRs deteroriate.
- USB may not be around forever.
I mean, I appreciate the suggestion and all, but it's like there's a story about being able to purchase a flying car and me advising that you get insurance for it.
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Enough with the evil Google routine (Score:5, Informative)
How did you get modded informative?
When Bush was talking about wanting search data for all US citizens, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL handed it over without even really being asked. Google refused, and said they would not hand over any search data unless they were forced to do so by a court of law. Google has also since decided to anonymize their logs sooner and increase their privacy policies.
The only time Google has handed data over to a government agency was one case in Brazil, when they were forced to do so by a court, and even then, they didn't do it immediately when they were first ordered to do so. And that case was when Google had evidence on a child porn ring who distributed child porn via Orkut.
So please, explain to me how can you justify statements with no basis on fact?
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I don't know if that is google's motive or not; but it should be remembered that protecting user privacy and reserving data for paying customers look pretty similar; but differ in important respects.
Re:Enough with the evil Google routine (Score:5, Insightful)
The only time Google has handed data over to a government agency...
I think you mean "the only time we know about...". Under the PATRIOT act it's entirely possible that Google has handed over lots of data to the US government but has been instructed that they're not allowed to tell anyone about it.
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It would become public knowledge the moment that information was used as evidence in a trial, which it never has.
Google's data on people would be pretty incriminating, but their entire business model would also be destroyed if no one trusted them with private data.
Google's advertising model is based upon targeted advertising. Without users, and specifically without information on their users, Google is nothing.
Google would have a very good argument against handing over data.
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Actually they do. Anyone can take a matter to court and argue that a law impedes their Constitutional rights. In fact, it has already been ruled unconstitutional.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/38113prs20081215.html [aclu.org]
I knew the second anyone with a decent lawyer tried to fight one, they'd win their case.
Secondly, you assume that Google would immediately cave in to the government in a case they'd win, and in doing so, risk the entire profit model of the company? That makes zero sense.
In the two times
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How did you get modded informative?
When Bush was talking about wanting search data for all US citizens, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL handed it over without even really being asked. Google refused, and said they would not hand over any search data unless they were forced to do so by a court of law. Google has also since decided to anonymize their logs sooner and increase their privacy policies.
The only time Google has handed data over to a government agency was one case in Brazil, when they were forced to do so by a court, and even then, they didn't do it immediately when they were first ordered to do so. And that case was when Google had evidence on a child porn ring who distributed child porn via Orkut.
So please, explain to me how can you justify statements with no basis on fact?
Hey, make up a story with no basis in fact and get modded informative. Good deal! If you knew people who run things at Google you might have a different opinion. And hey, with their recent reduction in log retention time (after repeated warnings to do so by the EU), they're only holding data for what, twice as long as Yahoo?
Here's how you use gdrive, if you want to use it: encrypt.
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A point to ponder is that Google is a changing organization working in a changing legal and political environment. Who knows what will Google become or how will the US and the world change in 20 years? Maybe information you entrusted to them today would become vulnerable at the future.
Consider th
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Just use truecrypt or some other encryption. (Score:2)
The feds aren't going to be able to decrypt all that stuff. And they certainly don't care to.
It's simple, encrypt all your files BEFORE you back them up on GDrive. Encrypt all your porn with AES256 or Serpent.
Use the longest most random passphrase you possibly can come up with, or better yet don't use a passphrase at all.
By the time the feds crack your encryption scheme, you'll be dead anyway. And unless you are a terrorist, they aren't going to torture you to get you to hand over the keys.
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And unless they think you are a terrorist, they aren't going to torture you to get you to hand over the keys.
FTFY.
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...and it's all online, so that when the government decides to datamine your life, Google will just send it over without bothering you.
I hate to be the one to point this out, but shame on you for sending data you don't want the govt to see unencrypted over the internet! It's time for you to retake your geek test to see if you should keep your geek card :P
I could see that as a valid complaint for 'regular joe six-pack' types who don't know about encryption, or realize that when you put data out in front of the public, that *gasp* the public can see it!
(Ok, a bit bitter there, but I just had an unsecured WiFi argument with someone who had
Re:Yeah, Right. (Score:5, Informative)
I work for Google. In a project closely related to "GDrive". And I know for an absolute fact that you, sir, are full of shit. Google is the one company that has stood up to our government's "requests for information" and said, "Show me the subpoena." Hell, that's one of the big reasons I work at Google. As for your privacy, the only entities that can see the actual content of your files are 1) you, 2) the ads analysis program, 2) Google developers/system maintenance staff who sign a blood oath that they will not violate user trust, and 3) government agencies that provide a lawful warrant or subpoena for the data. The moment that list fails to be complete, a significant fraction of all Google employees will leave in disgust.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Astroturfers don't clearly identify sources of possible bias. I'm biased cause I work at Google and I like working at Google. I'll tell you that because I'm honest about my biases.
I'm also well-informed, and though I can't tell you very much of what I know, I will tell you that Google tries* to do the right thing, including act as an advocate for user privacy.
* "tries" is a very carefully chosen word here.
Re:Yeah, Right. (Score:4, Insightful)
https has been vulnerable to MITM attack, and is vulnerable to bogus keys (that look valid), but is currently pretty safe from attack when using a sane browser. Lots of people (inside and outside the company) keep very close watch on google.com's SSL keys, so without someone poisoning your DNS (and close to just your DNS)...
If you're enabling SSL on your connection to google, your data is as safe as we can make it. The government possibly has access to the raw bits on the wire between our datacenters, but still doesn't have access to your data (inferring the argument behind this assertion is left as an exercise to the reader).
The easiest way for the government to get to your data without you knowing it is to rootkit your machine. The lowest-cost weakness isn't on the google end of things.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The assumption of liability would cover bankruptcy very quickly. Also, the fallout wouldn't "keep me from working in the industry" but it would put a damper on getting work via most of my current professional network.
I'm concerned enough about user privacy that I don't need scary contracts to do the right thing. Even so, when I read that contract, it looks like they tried really hard to make it clear that they're really serious about putting the user first and adding some incentives for Google employees t
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http://pages.google.com/ [google.com]