May 10

Googling his credit card number

english, geek, pat Add comments

According to the free newspaper “news” of today (Zurich, Switzerland) page 15, the computer-science Professor Kieron O’Hara, which is concerned about the loss of privacy in the internet age, is advising the editor in the interview to “google regularly one’s name, phone number and credit card number”, to see if this information is to be found somewhere on the net. OMG. I am wondering where this crap comes from. Either is this professor as intelligent as my banana tree, or the editor writing this did the interview in Esperanto, which neither of the two are understanding.

Why is it a bad idea to google one’s credit card number? Just in case you don’t know.

  • The connexion to the google server is not encrypted. So anybody evesdropping on the path to it could get the information (e.g. at your local provider or your neighbour that just hacked your weak WEP wireless encryption).
  • There is no guarantee whatsoever about what google is gonna do about the submitted queries. At best it will be stored in one of their database in clear text.
  • At worst it will appear on a big screen inside the reception room in a google office, on the live query list.

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