Researchers at Rice University have discovered what they say is a flaw in the beta version of Google's (Profile, Products, Articles) Desktop Search product that could allow third parties to access users' search result summaries, providing a sneak peek at part of the content of personal files. A description of the flaw, which was discovered by Rice computer sciences professor Dan Wallach and two graduate students, was posted on the university's Computer Security Lab Web site late Sunday. The researchers labelled the glitch as "serious" and said it could allow attackers to read snippets of files embedded in Google's normal Web searches by the local search engine.
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