The other day I decided to search for a web site about one of my all time favorite musicians, Arlo Guthrie. Arlo Guthrie is a folk musician, son of another famous musician Woody Guthrie. When I was a little kid, one of coolest things to do was to listen to his story/song entitled ‘The Motorcycle Song’. So, I found his personal website through a Google search and it was pretty cool, and very positive. Guthrie runs a charity organization and a multi-religious church center where money is raised to help people with illnesses as well as giving less fortunate people a place to pray, meditate or just get off streets.

(RealitySEO.com)

The Google Desktop Search Tool Poses a Security Risk to users of public or networked computers according to a new Information Week article. If you use public computers at work or at libraries, internet cafes, Kinko's or local Mailboxes Etc. store, now you've got to worry that previous users of that public machine, or worse, business owner or employees, have installed Google Desktop Search on that machine to purposely spy on you! (Information Week)

It's possible to retrieve secure pages from Desktop Search memory of machines running program. While it is possible to turn off that function - bad guys using Google Desktop search specifically to spy on you won't be turning it off, eh? So now I've got to find it and turn it off every time I use a public computer.

Although I wrote previously of my love for Google desktop search tool - it appears to have a BIG downside. The slippery slope of good tools being used for illicit purposes could destroy a great piece of software because it is simply too powerful.

The public will be up in arms over Desktop Search and Google may have to withdraw it from public Beta. Though Google seems to have weathered storm over a similar uproar about searchability and thus privacy of their beta G-mail webmail, it could be a bigger storm brewing over Desktop search. We'll watch for comment from privacy advocates on subject.

At this point it is tempting to simply shrug and say, "I hope Google figures out how to stop illicit use of Desktop Search Tool," it's not likely. More likely is that it will become one more headache to network administrators at businesses who have to write scripts to stop installation of Desktop Search. Small business owners must now find a way to stop employees from installing it on public computers at internet cafes, just as they must currently watch for key logging software and other spyware on public computers.

We'll all have to be extremely cautious when using public machines at those small businesses and libraries and we'll have to check for Google Desktop Search icon in system tray of virtually every computer we use to be certain that our use is not monitored.

Protecting private passwords for online banking sessions while in Kinko's and keeping online job searches out of view of our bosses will get even tougher for employees using networked machines at work.