NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Access via Google
Date sent: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:10:26 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
> Without my taking sides on this one way or another, I would be
> interested in the readership's opinions on the pros and cons of such
> arrangements from a "neutrality" standpoint, especially in regards
> to getting full access to articles (good) vis-a-vis user confusion and
> possible perceived lack of operational transparency (bad).
In terms of neutrality, the most obvious factor is that of access
extended to or through large or corporate players. Go through Google
or you don't get access. (Go through Google and you get hit by ads on
the way, as well as being added to the database of "who looked at
what.")
There is one additional negative aspect, although neutrality probably
doesn't enter into it. Despite Google's vaunted "don't be evil"
stance, and their somewhat questionable malware early warning system,
we have seen numerous uses of the referrer system to direct users to
malware. In some cases, the advertising or referrer systems have been
used directly to send people to malware sites. In one rather
interesting case, the blackhats defaced a site with a redirection
system of their own. It checked the referrer field in the HTTP
request. If you hit the site directly, you got transferred to the
original site. If you came from Google, you got sent to a defaced
version that fed malware. (A rather sophisticated piece of social
engineering: if you came directly, you were probably familiar with the
site, and would probably notice odd attempt to infect your machine.)
[ I've found Google's malware tagging system to be quite useful.
Imperfect of course -- as all such systems must be -- but still
valuable. It was this system that briefly tagged all links as
"malware" due to human error during a table update sometime back.
But under normal conditions, it's highly effective at preventing
"mindless clickthrough" to malware, since (last time I checked)
the only way to actually get through to a site so tagged by
Google (via Google) is to enter the URL manually or via
copy/paste.
I fail to see how Google can be blamed for what bad players do
in response to Google referrers. The malware folks could
play the same evil games with referrers from Yahoo, NNSquad, or the
Vatican if they so chose.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
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rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@computercrime.org
The LORD says: `These people come near to me with their mouth and
honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
- Isaiah 29:13
http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm
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