Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 10:32 AM, David Gerard wrote:
[snip]
The first idea that springs to my mind is logging
referers for article
pages, if the referer is an article page on the same Wikipedia or
[[Special:Search]].
1. Is this technically feasible given our logging structure?
Sure.
2. Is there a privacy gotcha I'm ignoring?
[snip]
The only leak I can think of is:
Step 1. I accidentally paste confidential information into the go box
(you've never done this?)
Step 2. I end up at non-existent article [[random confidential information]]
Step 3. I browse back to the article about me.
Probably best resolved resolved by not reporting infrequent referrers.
(Filtering by existing articles is computationally expensive)
You'd need to actually follow a link to the article about you, not just
using the browser back button. Maybe if you choose the first link on the
sidebar, it can get logged on the Main_Page referer's.
It's more likely to happen if you actually follow a result link on the
random confidential information results. So, if I paste, 'Pay $100000 to
Gregory Maxwell for help hiding Osama bin Laden' and think, "they have
an article about Greg! What will they tell?" And follow a link to
[[Gregory Maxwell]], sure, that would get logged and we would find out.
Not a privacy risk as big as publishing the searchs, but still a concern.
PS: Expect the NSA to come at both our homes after ECHELON intercepts
this email.