More on Wallach and Google

The Chron has a front page story today on the efforts of Rice prof Dan Wallach and two of his grad students in identifying a security hole in the new Google Desktop Search application (since patched). Not much new info from the NYT story I noted yesterday, but there is one thing of interest to note:

Wallach said Google's Desktop Search is the only local search engine that was vulnerable to this type of attack. Last week, Microsoft launched its test version of a desktop search engine as part of its MSN Toolbar Suite. Microsoft's version does not attempt to seamlessly integrate PC searches with those of the Internet.

For sure, that's just a matter of time. The revamped Technology Review magazine has a cover story on the coming search engine standards war between Google and Microsoft, and how Google can avoid becoming the next Netscape. Check it out.

UPDATE: The Google Blog acknowledges Wallach's contribution.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 21, 2004 to Technology, science, and math | TrackBack