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  • alex

    Jan. 28, 2012 11:43 a.m. alex SuperDork

    Out of curiosity about what Google knows about me, I was poking around in my Dashboard today, and checked in on my web history. Much to my surprise, there's a lot of weird activity in there that's not from me. To be on the safe side, I cleared my cookies and my cache, and changed my Google password to something stupidly difficult.

    And when I went back to look at the weird activity again, there was more. In those seconds.

    So...WTF is going on? Is my account compromised? Do I have a keylogger or other spyware on this (2nd hand from my dad) computer that I'm using while my laptop is out of commission (all Macs)? Or am I experiencing some kind of harmless Google glitch?

    Any insight?

  • alex

    Jan. 28, 2012 12:08 p.m. alex SuperDork

    Interesting: the weird web history appeared only yesterday, after I did a couple web searches on my girlfriend's phone while we were out at lunch. I've checked my (Google) email on her phone previously, and there's a chance I didn't sign out.

    But no weird wed history on her account.

  • GameboyRMH

    Jan. 28, 2012 12:11 p.m. GameboyRMH SuperDork

    Yep sounds like you didn't log out. Keyloggers generally don't work THAT fast

    I recommend disabling Google's Web History feature and any other features you don't use.

  • alex

    Jan. 28, 2012 12:22 p.m. alex SuperDork

    I do intend to turn off web history. But if it were off, I wouldn't know about these weird searches.

  • alex

    Jan. 28, 2012 12:27 p.m. alex SuperDork

    Ohhhh yeah! I forgot I installed Track Me Not on this machine, and I didn't realize what it does is throw out random searches to screw with web history collectors like Google.

    Duh. Never mind.

  • Osterkraut

    Jan. 28, 2012 12:34 p.m. Osterkraut SuperDork

    Don't forget to get Google's 2-step authorization while you're there. It'll make a keylogger pretty much useless for Google's stuff.

  • alex

    Jan. 28, 2012 12:48 p.m. alex SuperDork

    Done. Good call.

  • Luke

    Jan. 28, 2012 7:28 p.m. Luke SuperDork

    Sounds like your Track Me Not serves the same purpose, but you can "opt out" of Google Analytics.

    http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

 
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