Alright, so either you’re going to love this new “feature” or you’re going to never want to send emails again. Apparently, Google has upgraded their indexing of user attachments inside Gmail that goes beyond the searching of text inside TXT or HTML files, adding Word Docs, Powerpoint, PDF, and other formats to the mix as well. That means if you someone sends you a Word Doc, you no longer have to remember the subject or text of the email — instead you can just search for keywords found inside the Word Doc itself. Awesome? You bet. A little scary? Well, there’s that too. How do you guys feel about Google’s new indexing of your email attachments?
[GoogleOperatingSystem | Lifehacker]
Love it! It took ’em long enough to bring home yet another display of Gmail’s power. Like Outlook, Gmail is an incredible tool when used properly.
If you’re that paranoid about your documents, then encrypt them and you won’t have a problem.
In 5 years encryption will be turned on its head. Quantum computers will decrypt in mere seconds, compared to years today.
Don’t grab your tinfoil hat! It’s a conspiracy!
http://berkeley.intel-research.net/arahimi/helmet/
You just blew my mind…..Like that guy from the Samsung iPhone ad.
LOL, thanks for that link!
I am always for advancement, this sounds more useful than scary.
I’m not shocked. I assumed this was probably happening anyway for ads. At least now we’re getting some functionality out of it. Also, you can encrypt attachments if you must. Takes a little time but it is an option
I just plus oned it
poopsicles? thanks for that visual, chris. just what I needed.
I absolutely love this.
I like it. Of course if you have something in an attachment you don’t want indexed, you’ll need to encrypt it. Let’s be real though, since the attachment is already on Google’s servers they already had access to it. This doesn’t make it any less secure as far as I’m concerned. This is true for every email provider, email is NOT secure, so if you don’t want your attachments to be seen by others, you’ve always had to encrypt.