Flaw in Google Desktop Search exposed personal information

Others will have to explain the computer lingo here... but it seems like this -- since corrected -- flaw could have resulted in the theft of a lot of personal or work-related data. The phrase 'industrial espionage' comes to mind:

from NewScientist:

www.newscientist.com...

"A flaw in Google's desktop search program was revealed on Monday by a team of computer researchers. They showed it could be used to capture valuable personal information from a remote user's computer.
Google Desktop Search (GDS) lets users quickly hunt for files and documents stored on their computer using a web browser. After installation, the program runs in the background - indexing documents, emails, instant messaging conversations and web browser history - so that searches bring up results almost instantly.
Dan Wallach at Rice University in Texas, US, and two students, Seth Nielson and Seth Fogarty, discovered the flaw shortly after the application was released on 14 October 2004. They developed demonstration code to exploit the flaw and steal search results via a web page."


Didn't Google's personal email service have some sort of government connection?


[edit on 21-12-2004 by onlyinmydreams]