Handbook of Information Security, Volume 1, Key Concepts, Infrastructure, Standards, and Protocols

Search Engines: Security, Privacy, and Ethical Issues

Raymond Wisman, Indiana University Southeast

Introduction

Why Search

Risk

Internet Fundamentals

Search Engine Fundamentals

Searcher

Privacy

Privacy and Security

Fraud

Search Engine

Indexing

Retrieval

Web Site

Web Site Discovery

What Search Engines Search

What Search Engines Ignore

Measuring Success and Tracking Visits

Self-Search

Search Ethics

Conclusion

Glossary

Cross References

References

Further Reading

INTRODUCTION

Serious discussion of security for any system must confront two central issues: what is at risk and defenses that can reduce risk. Understanding the value of a thing to an attacker is necessary to understanding the risk. Risk never can be eliminated but, when the degree of risk is understood, risk can be managed by a balanced defense against attacks. The key is to prevent a ruinous failure, often by providing multiple layers of defense and risk management. Willie Sutton, though wrongly attributed the quote on robbing banks “Because that's where the money is” understood the reason to attack a bank (Sutton and Linn, 1976). Banks knowingly create risk by accumulating large amounts of cash in one location both for customer convenience and to manage risk economically through several defensive layers such as safes, guards, and the legal threat of incarceration. Despite these defenses, robbers still launch successful attacks, but banks still remain open and operate at a profit. Banks and bank robbers will be with us ...