Update on Zombie Google Documents: Experience still yourself why private or confidential information should not be put on hosted services on the Internet
From a theoretical standpoint it is clear that private or confidential information should not be put on a hosted service on the Internet (if it is not encrypted) because you can never be sure about who can access it and you can never be sure that it ever will be deleted if you would request so.
By just clicking on the link below you can get practical experience that will complement this theoretical understanding:
Please click on this link: http://docs.google.com/File?id=dchrr3kn_5cdc9q3dc
If the link is still working (last tested at the 30th of July) then save the file as jpeg and open it in the viewer of your choice.
Remark: You just opened a part of a private document on Google Docs without having to enter user and password.
The central point that this article wants to make:
The document (that you just downloaded a part of) was not only private, it was also deleted from Google Docs on the 12th of July (18 days ago). The document seems to behave like a Zombie; although it has been deleted it is still somehow alive.
For further details please read on here:
Privacy issue: Google Docs seems to not delete but only hide documents when the trash is emptied
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July 30th, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Issues explained. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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