Twenty-five people, including four railway employees, were injured in an explosion at the city railway station on Sunday, Western Railway sources said.

The explosion occurred on platforms 2/3 at 1.43 am, sources said, adding that the victims sustained minor injuries and only three were undergoing treatment while others were discharged after first aid. The three undergoing treatment — Yogesh Bhagwandas, Subash Tripathi and Fiz Mohammed — however, were not critically injured, they said. The cause of the explosion was being investigated, the railway sources said.

Hey, it seems not everything is right in the world of Google. Especially, its file-sharing feature, with Gartner, Inc., a technology research firm, recommending that enterprises turn off the file-sharing feature in Google’s desktop software. "Organisations using the enterprise edition should immediately disable the feature," says Whit Andrews, a Gartner analyst, in the posting.

"They must also evaluate what they are allowing be indexed, and whether they are comfortable that they can adequately bar the sharing of data with Google’s servers," he said. Google Desktop 3 Beta, launched on February 9, is the latest version of the Internet search firm’s Desktop Search, a free programme that allows indexing and searching of PCs’ hard drives.

What’s the kerfuffle about? "Google Desktop 3 Beta adds a variety of features, including the controversial Search Across Computers feature. In essence, this feature allows PCs running the application to pool certain information and documents — a convenience that brings with it a degree of risk," Mr Andrews said.

"Google’s decision to use a remote server to hold a temporary index is inauspicious, but unique to its strategy. Google will store an index copy of information intended to be shared on its servers for up to 30 days. Google promises that this information will be encrypted and accessible only to a small set of Google employees, who will not peruse it. Nevertheless, Gartner believes that its mere transport outside the enterprise will represent an unacceptable security risk to many enterprises. Also, workers will not always reliably identify documents that must remain outside the category of shared items," he said. Gartner says that on December 19, 2004, Google had acknowledged that researchers had uncovered a security flaw in Google Desktop Search. "Google moved quickly to fix the flaw, but Gartner advises caution in enterprise deployment of this tool. New and innovative software tools typically carry greater risks than benefits for enterprise IT departments. Google’s search tool, and its soon-to-be-introduced competitors, may be suitable for enterprise use in the long term, but have not yet been adequately vetted for security. In the short term, established personal knowledge search products have a more mature security profile," Mr Andrews had said.

TechWeb News quoted a Google spokeswoman as saying that the firm did not disagree with Gartner, but added that an enterprise version of Desktop 3 would be available "in a matter of days".