Data Leakage through Cover Requests
Greetings, An article came to my attention today that suggests that private data is being read by Amazon and Google when patrons use an OPAC that pulls cover images from these services. The article is here: <https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2016/12/how-to-check-if-your-library-is-leaking.html> What is not clear to me is if Koha has this same problem, and if so, if it can be prevented. The blog post outlines a procedure for testing for this issue, but it's beyond my skill level to try it; perhaps someone else has the time and interest. If such evil is the price of having cover images served by third parties, then we can each decide if it's worth it, or if we want to develop a workaround. Regards, / Bruce / Bruce A. Metcalf, Librarian The Augustan Society, Inc.
While that article only covers Amazon and Ex Libris Primo. It is always good to think about things like this when using third party content. However Koha fetches Amazon images in quite a different way, with or without using coce and is not suspectible to this (at least for Amazon) However using coce will protect your uses from paractises like this for all cover image sources. https://github.com/fredericd/coce (Of course open library with its open data cover images doesn't do nasty things like this anyway. Yet another reason open beats proprietary) Chris On 27 December 2016 8:07:02 AM NZDT, "Bruce A. Metcalf" <bruce.metcalf@augustansociety.net> wrote:
Greetings,
An article came to my attention today that suggests that private data is being read by Amazon and Google when patrons use an OPAC that pulls cover images from these services. The article is here:
<https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2016/12/how-to-check-if-your-library-is-leaking.html>
What is not clear to me is if Koha has this same problem, and if so, if
it can be prevented.
The blog post outlines a procedure for testing for this issue, but it's
beyond my skill level to try it; perhaps someone else has the time and interest.
If such evil is the price of having cover images served by third parties, then we can each decide if it's worth it, or if we want to develop a workaround.
Regards, / Bruce / Bruce A. Metcalf, Librarian The Augustan Society, Inc.
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participants (2)
-
Bruce A. Metcalf -
Chris Cormack