"Every 30 minutes, Google Chrome downloads a list of 32-bit url hashes of urls thought to be dangerous (malware or phishing). That is a download of data from google.com, not to google.com. As you surf around the web, if you happen to hit a url whose hash is in the dangerous list, the 32-bit hash is sent to Google and Google replies with a full 256-bit hash of the dangerous url in question. Not only does this happen very rarely, but Google Chrome doesn’t send a url to Google, it sends a url hash, so Google doesn’t learn the url from this exchange. By the way, this is essentially the same protocol that Firefox 3 uses to protect its users from malware/phishing urls as well." - Mike Gray via Bookmarklet
"Actually, if I know beat writers -- and the Doc has known a few, and pretended to be one his own self in college -- I'd say their fantasies are more like scoring a decent spread of barbecue in a press box overlooking a rainy beach volleyball match." - Mike Gray via Bookmarklet