Do you feel safe using Scroogle to hide from Google?
Jan 16th, 2007 by anonymous
Many people, including my self, search using the Google scraper Scroogle to get search-results from Google and Yahoo without letting them know that it is actually me who is doing the search-request. You type your keywords into Scroogle, it passes them on to Google or Yahoo, fetches the results, and presents it in a beautifully clean way. But how much do you actually hide when you are using Scroogle? Nothing and everything.
Google learns nothing about you and your IP, and it can’t set or check a browser-cookie or anything else for that matter, all Google sees is that Scroogle, or someone using Scroogle, is searching for a set of keywords.
So it’s safe to use if you want to avoid being tracked by Google and Yahoo, right? Yes, that’s right.
But imagine that you’re a advesary who want to be able to profile people who want privacy on the Internet. How would you go about doing that? Simple. Create a honeypot which “protects you” from Big Brother and direct the privacy concerned users there.
Scroogle doesn’t set a cookie or attempt to track you in any obvious way, but it does record your IP when you are doing a search. Scroogle claims that they only store it for 48 hours, and perhaps they do. Perhaps they don’t. Lets assume they do delete the logs within 48 hours and that Scroogle is run by good and honest people. That’s an assumption, one you have to make by using any service who scrapes a search-engine in order “to protect you” from Big Brother. It’s not something you can rely on as a fact. So, at the end of the day, you’re still taking a chance.
Scroogle, and services like it, may be good and have value, but they are basically nothing more than services who allow you to shift your blind trust in one service over to another service who could be “good” or “evil”.
The only way you can be sure that search-engines or search-engine scrapers are not tracking you and your search-keywords is by making sure they can’t. Use secure solutions who allow you to browse the Internet anonymously, disallows cookies who are not required to use a service and remove those who are required immediately after logging out of a site - and you’re all set.
Search-engine scrapers are basically one-hop proxies who do a specific task. And one-hop proxies should not be trusted. Not because you think or don’t think that a given one-hop service is tracking you, but because they can. Onion-routing systems like Tor use three hops where no single hop can track you.
Someone could be tracking you when you’re using a search-engine scraper or a traditional one-hop proxy. Why take the chance? Use something like Tor and make sure they can’t.
Good point about search scrapers being nothing more than yet another way of doing the one-hop proxy concept: You’re laying your eggs in one basked, you’re trusting only one provider, regardless of what kind of one-hop proxy system you choose. I love the security Tor gives me, it’s sad that it’s so much slower than browsing normally, but I do think it’s worth using anyway because of the neat security properties it has.
You probably know this already since you promote Tor, but I feel I should point out that any one-hop proxy service leaves you wide open to data minding and traffic analysis attacks.
The adversary doesn’t need to run the one-hop proxy service, the adversary only needs to look at the traffic going to it, and if that data is encrypted, the traffic coming from it. Someone watching Scroogle can see everything it’s users is doing, so the security properties it provides are pretty weak. But as you point out, it does hide them from the search-engine you scrape, and that is at least better than giving your personal data to a search-engine.
I use http://blackboxsearch.com/
It’s like Scroogle, but not.
you know, as long as you are doing nothing wrong you shouldnt be worried to begn with. fact of the matter is, the internet is public domain. its no different than if you go from your house on the street. dont do anything on the internet you wouldnt do in street in front of your house and you will be ok.
in this new world of computers nothing is anonymous. if you want to live under the wire so to speak, do as my father does. renounce computers and all forms of new technology, basically become Ted Kaczynski.
travis,
Have you ever closed the door when going to the bathroom? Was it because you were doing something wrong?
Why would you know about scroogle or be reading about it?
Imagine your driving your car to work and someone is following you and watching you. Even if you are not doing anything wrong it feels weird and creepy.
That is exactly what google is doing.
Considering the ame person who started scroogle also started namebase….that gathers all sorts of info on people…I’d say your right by calling it a “honeypot”.
Exactly being watched over is a very insecure feeling irrespective of what you are doing - good or bad. In case of privacy we can’t trust any service provider. It is not that he might turn evil but one service provider has lot of logs with lot of private information about lot many people then govt or security agencies can put pressure on that service provider and we don’t know how much he can take. Either way its your privacy at risk !
so beware and take your privacy in seriously. I agree Tor is good but its quite slow. I hope it gets faster. If lot many people start using it will become more faster !
Long live tor !!
“Imagine your driving your car to work and someone is following you and watching you. Even if you are not doing anything wrong it feels weird and creepy.”
Imagine driving your car to work, and choosing to cut across your neighbor’s lawn for convenience. Even though you chose that path, is your neighbor responsible to clean up the obvious tracks you left in their lawn?
That’s exactly what you’re doing.
Petend your a peanut&butterjelly sandwich, and someone just poured you a glass of milk, go to bed with no worries.
If a tree fell in the woods, was it an Elm or a Sycamore? Same applies to search engines.