Comments on: Google Docs Identity Leak Bug Fixed

By: Alina

Alina — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:43:29 +0000

This is inconsistent with the policy inside the doc itself, where even if you’re editing (and not only viewing), your name would appear to others as “anonymous #” (unless you were explicitly invited to view/edit the doc of course).

By: Arvind

Arvind — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:18:13 +0000

Alina,

Editing a doc is an explicit, user-initiated interaction, and so that would seem like the intended behavior rather than a bug. The reason that the earlier behavior was a bug was that you could get someone’s identity without them ever knowing.

By: Alina

Alina — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:16:22 +0000

Unfortunately, it seems like the leak still exists in a slightly different version.
I have noticed that in the docs.google.com page, where one can see her documents list, next to the document date column (which is the “last modified” date actually), there appears the user name of the last editor of the doc.

By: Alina

Alina — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:10:59 +0000

Unfortunately, it seems like the leak still exists in a slightly different version.
I have noticed that on the docs.google.com page, where one can see the list of her documents, next to the document date column (which is the “last modified” date actually), there appears the user name of the last editor of the doc.

By: How Google Docs Leaks Your Identity « 33 Bits of Entropy

How Google Docs Leaks Your Identity « 33 Bits of Entropy — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:38:58 +0000

[...] Update 2. Now fixed. [...]

By: Arvind

Arvind — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:42:22 +0000

That’s my guess as well.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:52:11 +0000

I don’t remember seeing this option when sharing documents before ; am I right in guessing that the private mailing list shares were also vulnerable ?