[TriLUG] Re: Search Engine question

[Lance A. Brown]

Eric H Christensen wrote:
> Ummmm...  I'll have to agree that this is an urban legend.  I think they
> have better things to do than to try to hack into the millions of
> computers that are out there, try to figure out which ones have
> microphones and which ones have web cams, then figure out how to grab
> the data, then figure out which ones they can actually hear something
> useful on, then have someone actually listen to each one to try to hear
> what is going on.

This is not an urban legend.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/03/google_eavesdropping_software/

Google is working on technology that will monitor your computers
microphone and listen to the ambient audio in the room, process it for
useful information and use that to help tune Good Desktop and/or your
use of Good search better.

I would hope that you would have to choose to install this software as
opposed to Google hacking into your computer to do it covertly.

--[Lance]

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