Google is an information gathering engine; everybody knows the fact (it’s the definition of a search engine, but Google is a bit more). In the past, US Army had sensitive document leaks on Google. Theoretically terrorists were able to use it and get access to those same documents. Do they do it? No demonstrations of this have been done for the moment. We can think that they did, but I never had any confirmation of this.

But yesterday terrorists used Google to find information on a hostage. They used it to confirm his identity. By confirming his real identity, they saved his live. It seems that we can use Google to destroy things (by gathering information about bomb making or critical infrastructure information) but also to save lives. Is that true? Possibly. It demonstrates the new power of internet as an ease information gathering system that can be used for anything, by anybody, all around the world.