For those who use Google Maps, that tiny blue dot symbolizes your location in relation to Google’s digital blueprint of your surrounding environment. As the dot moves from location to location like a slow version of the checkered line from an Indiana Jones time-lapsed cut scene, it really puts things in perspective. So much information is stored within that tiny dot. Personal and work emails, photos, passwords, text messages, music, browsing history, location-based content, banking information, and the list goes on. With that said, almost everything that makes you who you are – in a digital sense – is stored in that tiny blue dot. Like in 1990, when Voyager 1 after 13 years in space and 3.7 billion miles from Earth reduced everything anyone has ever known to a Pale Blue Dot – ignoring Apollo astronauts. Google is now digitizing a similar perspective.
Yesterday, a new version of Google Maps was launched, which now enables navigation in some airports and major malls. It’s also not limited to merely a blueprint. Within the app you can locate bathrooms, ATMs, stores, and travel between multiple levels. All of this provides important information to users, while more than likely providing important analytical data to companies. For now the update is only available to Google Maps users with the Android platform in the U.S., but Google is working on mapping indoor environments in Tokyo’s underground subway network and retail shopping centers as well. It’s all very exciting, and at times can seem like magic, but like all doomsayers, I ask: “what are the risks?”
The reason I mention this, is that more of what makes us who we are is getting compacted into that tiny blue dot. The modern world is obsessed with consolidation and infatuated with convenience. Now this attitude provides true benefits to the end user, but those benefits can also expand to criminals longing to exploit the relatively easy access to this information.
There is no true security solution for the mobile space, and as Bit9 has mentioned in our recent Android report, serious vulnerabilities exist within Android’s update ecosystem. Unlike Windows, which also has several manufacturers utilizing their product, Windows itself is centrally managed. Android’s open platform creates an environment fueling innovation, while also crippling their capability to resolve security loopholes. Manufacturers are responsible for updates and only Android’s Nexus products provide a centrally managed OS solution.
With more compressed into one place, be mindful of the risks and be aware of new solutions. Click here for our report on these risks.
