911review.org  Homepage

 Alex Constantine
Alex Constantine open index
October, 2004: Google acquires CIA-linked company

Google has acquired Keyhole, Inc., which has a database of 3-D spy-in-the-sky images from all over the globe. Their software provides a virtual fly-over and zoom-in with one-foot resolution. Keyhole is supported by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm funded by the CIA, in an effort to "identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge information technologies that serve United States national security interests."

In 2003, Keyhole's CEO John Hanke was quoted in an In-Q-Tel press release: "Keyhole's strategic relationship with In-Q-Tel means that the Intelligence Community can now benefit from the massive scalability and high performance of the Keyhole enterprise solution."

The spooks in Washington now had another hook into Google, Inc. Then in mid-2005, Rob Painter joined Google as Senior Federal Manager. He came straight from In-Q-Tel, where he had been Director of Technology Assessment.

November, 2006: Comment from Robert Steele
from John Battelle's Searchblog

It would be useful to get specifics on who at Google denied this. I am quite positive that Google is taking money and direction from my old colleague Dr. Rick Steinheiser in the Office of Research and Development at CIA, and that Google has done at least one major prototype effort focused on foreign terrorists which produced largely worthless data.

Hopefully Google learned from Bill Clinton that the denial is often more costly than the deed when it completely undermines one's integrity.

CIA is not very sophisticated. In 1986 they knew the 18 functionalities for an all-source analysis workstation (Google for CATALYST and CIA) and they still don't have it. CIA is a kludge of contractor-provided stovepipes, none of which play well together.

I like Google. I think they have enormous potential. I think they are seriously stupid to be playing with CIA, which cannot keep a secret and is more likely to waste time and money than actually produce anything useful.

Best wishes to all, Robert Steele    Posted by: Robert David Steele, November 9, 2006 03:17 PM



Spooks on board at Google

Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google since January 2000, used to work for the National Security Agency and had a top-secret clearance. Google would like to hire more like him. Can you trust Google with a database of all the search terms you've ever used?


========================================


Nielson/NetRatings reported that 25 percent of Google's
cookies were deleted in July 2004,  based on their direct
measurement panel. Do one-fourth of all Googlers know
something about Google's total tracking that you don't?



Your Ad Here

Purpose revealed behind the 2038 expiration date for Google's cookie!

On 2004-02-26 Larry Page told Reuters:
"On the more exciting front, you can imagine your brain being augmented by Google. For example you think about something and your cell phone could whisper the answer into your ear."
At the Search Engine Strategies conference on 2004-03-03, Craig Silverstein said that in the future people will have "search pets":
Silverstein sees search pets as being able to find to the correct answer to these tricky interpretive questions. Will searching as we know it be completely replaced by search pets? "We'll still search for facts," he says, "but in all likelihood the facts will be contained in a brain implant."

... but ... Will these Google brain implants be opt-in, opt-out, or pay-per-thought?
After we get our Google implants, and we happen to think of the word "Jew" for some reason, will we automatically start google-stepping?


We used to try and trick your browser into giving us your Google cookie, assuming that you have one. One-third of those using Internet Explorer were vulnerable to our JavaScript exploit. But that got boring after a year, so now we merely send our server to Google's home page on occasion and pick up a new cookie to show you:
Gookie

Yikes! Too many preservatives: Expires on January 17, 2038

PREF=ID=1ee1349b174cd530
TM=1157559460
LM=1157559460
S=aR-VHdIQD3E7dOv5

The CIA had to stop using a comparatively innocent log-analysis cookie that expired in 10 years, and their document search site isn't even used by many people. Google handles 200 million searches per day, and their cookie expires in 2038. One of Google's leading software engineers, Matt Cutts, had a top-secret clearance and used to work for the National Security Agency. Google doesn't even feel the need to defend their cookie policy; they merely laugh off anyone who inquires about it.

A cult of geeky blogging Google pundits joins in, and ridicules the notion that you'll be using the same computer in 2038. That's not the point. Google's expiration date is a barometer of its insensitivity to privacy issues. When we noticed this in year 2000 (it was the first time we had ever seen such a long-lived cookie), the idea of Google Watch was born. Google's response to other privacy issues since then tells us that we were right.

The purpose of the unique ID is to record your search terms for present or future profiling. Google says that the cookie is needed to set preferences. At the CIA, Google's cookie story would be termed a cover story, because the unique ID is completely superfluous for this function, even when the rest of the cookie is used to do this. In fact, you can set preferences without any sort of cookie at all.


Have you seen this on Google's site?



For years Google has been telling us that
the cookie is necessary if you want to set
user preferences. How can we argue with
Google? We don't have 100 computer
science PhDs on our payroll !


But we did have an old laptop that we loaned to the local zoo.
After only one year, they got back to us with a solution.

On behalf of our local zoo,
we are pleased to present...



Your Ad Here

How to set Google preferences -
and still disable Google's cookie!

We don't know how long this will work, or if it works for the Google country domains, but it's worth a try because it's so easy. Perform these nine steps in this order:

UPDATE 2004-11-11: Fifteen months after we posted this procedure, Google sabotaged it. Here's a new hack you can use. Edit your current Google bookmark by inserting the four characters q=+& immediately after the question mark in the URL. This places a space in the search box, and leading spaces are ignored when Google searches. It also sidesteps Google's sabotage because the box is no longer empty. Note the new addition to number 6 below, which accomplishes the same thing.

    1.  Enable cookies if they are turned off.

    2.  Go to http://www.google.com/

    3.  Click on "Preferences" on the right side of the search box.

    4.  Set your preferences and click "Save Preferences." You're back to the search box.

    5.  Click on "Advanced Search" on the right side of the search box.

    6.  Do not fill out anything, but just click on "Google Search."
         Update: Place a single space in the main search box and click on "Google Search."

    7.  Bookmark this new search page.

    8.  Disable your cookies for Google.
      Explorer 6.0    Tools — Internet Options — Privacy — Edit (near the bottom) — type in google.com — Block — OK — OK
      Firefox 1.0    Tools — Options — Privacy — Stored cookies — highlight your google.com cookie — check Don't allow... box at bottom — Remove cookie — OK — OK  
      Opera 7.51    Tools — Cookies — highlight your google.com cookie — Delete — New — type in google.com — check Apply... — uncheck 3 Accept... — OK — Close
      Netscape 7.1    Tools — Cookie Manager — Manage Stored Cookies — highlight your google.com cookie — check Don't allow... box at bottom — Remove cookie — Close

    9.  Test your cookie block:    Exit and reload your browser — go to www.google.com — click Preferences on the right side of the search box — Google should tell you that your cookies seem to be disabled
Now when you use your new bookmark for Google searches, your preferences are passed to Google in the URL, without a cookie. And with cookies disabled, Google won't be able to associate your search terms with the unique ID number that they use in their cookie. This is so wonderful that we think Google will patch this workaround sooner rather than later. If they do, it will prove for once and for all that the real reason Google uses cookies is to track you, and not to set preferences. But you knew that already, didn't you?


You can block Google's cookie, but how sticky is your IP address?  Check it here.  If it stays the same for several days, you should know that Google can also call up a history of search terms by IP address, even without your cookie ID.  Searching Google from work, or from a broadband connection at home, could betray you.  One solution is to use Scroogle for your sensitive Google searches.

Why we hate Google's cookie  

http://www.google-watch.org/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================

Search Google without sending personal info to them

OR, use the 9/11 Beta Search Engine
Search several sites for reference material, articles and tips on how to refine your search


From the Electronic Frontier Foundation's analysis of the Patriot Act
"Be careful what you put in that Google search.  The government may now spy on web surfing of innocent Americans, including terms entered into search engines, by merely telling a judge anywhere in the U.S. that the spying could lead to information that is 'relevant' to an ongoing criminal investigation. The person spied on does not have to be the target of the investigation. This application must be granted and the government is not obligated to report to the court or tell the person spied upon what it has done."

Google's Chief Is Googled, to the Company's Displeasure

by Saul Hansell
The New York Times, August 8, 2005, page C1

Google says its mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." But it does not appear to take kindly to those who use its search engine to organize and publish information about its own executives.

CNETNews.com, a technology news Web site, said last week that Google had told it that the company would not answer any questions from CNET's reporters until July 2006. The move came after CNET published an article last month that discussed how the Google search engine can uncover personal information and that raised questions about what information Google collects about its users.

The article, by Elinor Mills, a CNET staff writer, gave several examples of information about Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, that could be gleaned from the search engine. These included that his shares in the company were worth $1.5 billion, that he lived in Atherton, Calif., that he was the host of a $10,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Al Gore's presidential campaign and that he was a pilot.

After the article appeared, David Krane, Google's director of public relations, called CNET editors to complain, said Jai Singh, the editor in chief of CNETNews.com. "They were unhappy about the fact we used Schmidt's private information in our story," Mr. Singh said. "Our view is what we published was all public information, and we actually used their own product to find it."

He said Mr. Krane called back to say that Google would not speak to any reporter from CNET for a year.

In an instant-message interview, Mr. Krane said, "You can put us down for a 'no comment.' "

When asked if Google had any objection to the reprinting of the information about Mr. Schmidt in this article, Mr. Krane replied that it did not.

Mr. Singh, who has worked in technology news for more than two decades, said he could not recall a similar situation. "Sometimes a company is ticked off and won't talk to a reporter for a bit," he said, "but I've never seen a company not talk to a whole news organization."

© 2005, The New York Times Company



Google and the CIA

911review.org

Alex Constantine
Alex Constantine open index

911review.org  Homepage

Your Ad Here