Rambus - the gonzo dog doodah banned
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Google throws its clipboard in the air
SOFTWARE HOUSE Google has announced an online clipboard for Google Docs, bypassing the system clipboard completely.
For something that sounds relatively mundane, Google's clipboard seems to have required some serious engineering effort to flawlessly copy and paste between Google Docs applications. The data on the clipboard isn't stored locally, but rather it's dumped onto Google's cloud repository and the software retrieves it, including formatting, for use in other Google Docs applications.
Data will be stored in the cloud for up to a month so it means that different sessions, browsers and even computers can be used to access clipboard contents. Data on the clipboard can only be saved or retrieved once you have logged into your Google account.
However it seems that, while focusing on the back-end technology, Google has forgotten to implement some basic functionality. According to the help page, you can't use the clipboard to "copy and paste regular text and images" in Google Docs presentations yet.
Of potentially greatest cause for concern is that contents on the clipboard will remain available for the 30-day period even if you have deleted the document it came from. So emptying the trash might not be enough to cover your tracks. µ
Tags: Google
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"different sessions, browsers and even computers can be used to access clipboard contents"
Right, and if ID theft is involved, then your data on the cloud can fall into the hands of God only knows.
All that risk from a simple copy/paste.
Thanks Google, but I'll pass.
come on - does the author have any insight into whether it's easy or even possible for a javascript page to communicate with the system clipboard? _that_ would make some interesting commentary, rather than snarkily impugning the programmers' knowledge.
But why can't someone create a way to encrypt and decrypt cloud storage on the fly? Store your information encoded and have it automatically decoded as it comes back. So your porn wouldn't be porn unless the key was known, if the key wasn't known it would just be a large file with seemingly random bits thrown in. You could do this will email too, make an email program that associates different email addresses with different keys.
I'm guessing someone has already had this idea, so let's find them and tell them to get off their ass and get this out there.
Not that different to the normal clipboard though, which also doesn't automatically clear if the original document is deleted. Google do provide a way to clear it manually too:
"You can delete all items stored on the server clipboard by clicking the drop-down menu and selecting Clear all items."