Offline Search?

[Thomas Charron]

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Ben Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 11:51 AM, Thomas Charron <twaffle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  I think Brian underestimated the actual power of the Google Desktop
>> widgets.
>  I think the key requirement Brian has given is the ability for the
> offline index to be portable and cross platform (as long as you define
> "cross platform" as "runs on i386 MS Windows, i386 Linux, and Mac OS
> X").  He wants to stick the index on a removable drive and carry it
> around with him, and run it on whatever host computer is available.

  Possible with some tweaking.  But the google desktop app would
require the device be plugged in at the time of login I suspect, so
the data files where present.  However, this MAY not be a problem.
Google Desktop search synchronizes with multiple machines via the
google servers themselves.  I'm unsure, however, if offline mode also
has other machines search data cached locally.

>  The security analyst in me is compelled to point out that this (and
> all other "portable apps") would be a gigantic malware compromise
> vector.  Writable media, which you carry around from PC to PC --
> including your own -- and run software from.  Yikes.  Might as well
> just offer to rent out your PC to botnet operators; at least you'd get
> some compensation that way.

  I don't believe he's talking about toting the app itself around,
just the data files.  In reality, this is no different then what most
people do with standard USB drives.  I personally use my iPod for this
sort of thing all the time.  While it's theoretically possible to use
a removable drive to spread malware, generally network attacks are
exponentially more effective.

-- 
-- Thomas