Google Says It Mistakenly Collected Wi-Fi Data While Mapping 215
Even if Google says there's nothing to worry about, newviewmedia.com writes, the company "said it would stop collecting Wi-Fi network data from its StreetView cars, after an internal investigation it conducted found it was accidentally collecting data about websites people were visiting over the hotspots.
From the WSJ article: 'It's now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open [i.e. non-password-protected] Wi-Fi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products.'"
Hey, (Score:5, Insightful)
they're not called `open networks` for nothing. Tighten up, or shut up. Oh, and postmen read your postcards too.
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Re:Hey, (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, this is more akin to a drunkenly passed out girl, who passed out on the front lawn, naked, being photographed by the camera's on the street view vehicle.
Re:Hey, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey, (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree. An open network is not an invitation to join it and use it (associate), but an unencrypted network is an invitation for anyone to sniff your traffic passively. This would be like satellite TV providers sending their feeds unencrypted and then complaining that non-subscribers are watching their channels. What do you expect if you're broadcasting your data on the air in the clear into public space?
Granted, sniffing everything is not nice of Google (and probably an unintended screwup), but you really shouldn't expect that people won't do it.
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Interesting)
but an unencrypted network is an invitation for anyone to sniff your traffic passively.
So you are OK if, in a restaurant, other patrons eavesdrop and record your conversations with your SO/close friend? It is ok to do so in a public restaurant, right?
Would you also be OK for your neighbor to eavesdrop and record the noises coming out from your house, e.g. you arguing with your SO, or whatever noise coming out of the master bedroom at night? Even though they may need a sensitive microphone or a big parabolic dish to do so, from across the street to your house?
After all, not talking in codes or installing noise absorbing wall in your house is an invitation for anyone to passively listen to your conversations, right? What do you expect if you are broadcasting your sound waves on the air in the clear out into public space? Right?
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So you are OK if, in a restaurant, other patrons eavesdrop and record your conversations with your SO/close friend? It is ok to do so in a public restaurant, right?
Would you also be OK for your neighbor to eavesdrop and record the noises coming out from your house, e.g. you arguing with your SO, or whatever noise coming out of the master bedroom at night? Even though they may need a sensitive microphone or a big parabolic dish to do so, from across the street to your house?
After all, not talking in codes or
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AFAIK in many countries (such as the UK) it is not necessarily a crime to enter through a unlocked door.
In the case of wi-fi, some people leave theirs deliberately open.
It is also very easy for people to accidentally connect to the wrong network.
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, and your sister was asking for it with that dress she was wearing, right?
Fortunately, most of the world is enlightened enough to realise that such statements are absurd, and just because someone is vulnerable to something unpleasant that does not make it their fault if someone else does that unpleasant thing to them.
FWIW, the actions described would probably be criminal and carry jail time if they occurred in the UK (e.g., under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006).
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Well, firstly, I wasn't talking about the postman reading mail. But in any case, the principle of saying that someone vulnerable to harm is not automatically at fault if someone else then causes that harm is exactly the same, whether we are discussing invasion of privacy, theft from an unlocked car, date rape, or murder with a sniper rifle from 500m. No-one is trying to equate the damage caused by these different offences, but the immorality of the "asking for it" defence is the same in every case.
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Insightful)
Google have repeatedly demonstrated some sketchy regard for privacy of others. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming to implement procedures that allow people to remove street view pictures for example.
I agree that in pushing the envelope that they will come across some interesting social topics like the ones that they found in the first run of street view and the one they are back peddling now. And I do believe in the large amount of good Google have done for open source and data use for the public good, (Google earth and maps for instance).
However Google repeatedly are coy whenever they think about collecting information and get asked for explanations on what they will be doing with it.
In this instance I read a BBC article that indicated that the German government asked to review the data and that's when Google "discovered" this "gaff". It wasn't Google unprompted..
What makes even more sobering reading is Google's own blog which admits they were intending on collecting wi-fi SSID's and MAC addresses.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html [blogspot.com]
For what purpose, I ask, would MAC addresses be collected?
However officially Google now admit to collecting snippets of payload data which is something they expressly ruled out in the original blog. They say this was a mistake...I have my doubts.
Think it through...They are collecting this data
Surely when they started extracting the SSID's and MAC's, they would've noticed the snippets of people emails and websites they also captured...surely the tested the code and the data collected? And then what did they do...Nothing! They didn't exercise any moral judgment and raise the issue of people's privacy on unencrypted networks. They have the platform they could have won some serious brownie points by telling people how to protect themselves. But did nothing. I don't believe they held all this data and didn't know what it was.
This is yet another example of a "mostly good" company collecting peoples personal data for reasons us mere mortals can't understand.
I think there is a real difference between data that is public to your neighbors and then someone posting that data on a billboard in the the main street. For instance, when I'm on holiday perhaps?
Clearly here is an example of data that is not private, in the public domain but is not intended to be distributed to strangers. That level of privacy is not covered by the current laws but needs to be in my opinion.
I could go on but I recon half the people who started reading have stopped already;-),
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Although some of your points are valid, I think you missed one of the most important issues regarding the entire story: Google were frank about their mess-up.
When we have trouble with privacy with Facebook/MS/Apple/Sony/pick-your-flavor-of-the-month-privacy-issue-culprit you usually have to dig up the info yourself for weeks until you get the company to admit anything was wrong, and then you still have to raise hell to get them to fix the problem (if they can - Sony rootkit fiasco a case in point).
Here Go
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Although some of your points are valid, I think you missed one of the most important issues regarding the entire story: Google were frank about their mess-up.
Not initially - they originally said:
"Networks also send information to other computers that are using the network, called payload data, but Google does not collect or store payload data."
This was wrong and was in response to claims that Google was collecting payload data. The thought this could be in error is ridiculous. First they'd have to accidently collect the data, and then they'd have to accidently not notice even when they went to look for it.
They only (finally) admitted they were collecting payload
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Ganthor Said: "For what purpose, I ask, would MAC addresses be collected? "
Easy. Google Location Services. By tying a WiFi MAC to a GPS Coordinate you can use wifi as a sudo-gps solution. Even for devices with GPS it's faster and probably lower power to simply bark up the WiFi and look up the MAC of the hotspots around and shut it down. GPS takes a while to lock on in the best of circumstances and in dense urban areas Wifi simply rocks for this purpose.
However, as I discovered when I moved my Wireless Route
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The law I'm thinking of [opsi.gov.uk] is actually written rather carefully. It does not criminalise all networking or monitoring broadcasts that would normally be intended for public use. It does criminalise either intentionally obtaining certain types of information or disclosing such information even if it was obtained unintentionally.
I suspect even Google's lawyers would have difficulty arguing that employees of one of the most high-tech companies in the world, driving around in a specially equipped vehicle, with the
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Sorry to reply to my own post, but I should correct myself: the law I cited doesn't allow jail time for that particular offence, only a fine. There are other similar offences (e.g., accessing data on a computer without authorization, under the Computer Misuse Act) that do carry jail time, but without talking to a lawyer I don't know if they would apply here.
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UK Law: ...uses wireless telegraphy apparatus with intent to obtain information as to the contents, sender or addressee of a message ... of which neither he nor a person on whose behalf he is acting is an intended recipient, or
If you read the actual Google blog post [blogspot.com], it's made very clear that getting content was not intentional. They're only after IDs and locations of the wifi spots.
You've clearly never worked at any "of the most high-tech companies in the world", if you think this kind of accident couldn't
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That's nice. At least Google should be the ones who gets those stats and not some sniffer in between.
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You might be stupid for leaving your network open, just as you might be stupid for leaving your house door open, but it's still not okay to use either one of them without permission. I won't have a lot of sympathy for you, but I'm not going to let the intruder off the hook, either.
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Just beacuse you leave your bedroom window open it doesn't give your neighbors the right to walk over and peek in.
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Yeah, but they did it "accidentally". That's like accidentally slipping and putting your dick in someone's vagina: mapping APs and associating the traffic going through them does not occur without intention.
Re:Hey, (Score:5, Insightful)
So I assume you would be OK if Google told you their street view cars also contained sensitive microphones, which just happened to record some dirty jokes you told your friend on the street? And now everyone can get on the street view, see your (blurred) image and click "hear recordings" to hear your dirty joke too, you would be OK with that too? After all, whatever you did in public should be ok to be publicized, right?
Seriously, if you don't think there is something wrong with collecting local and transient data and putting them into a big permanent database correlating with other data, by a private corporation that is best known to profit from large scale datamining, you just haven't thought deeply about the issue.
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Seriously, if you don't think there is something wrong with collecting local and transient data and putting them into a big permanent database correlating with other data, by a private corporation that is best known to profit from large scale datamining, you just haven't thought deeply about the issue.
In the articles I read (linked in the story), there is only mention of capturing unnecessary data. Where did you hear anything about putting that data into a database and correlating it with other data? If something as innocuous as simply failing to filter out unnecessary captured data causes so much concern, then anything along the lines of what you described would be huge.
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An open window is not called "open" because I invite people to enter my house through it. It's called "open" because that's the adjective that describes it.
To law enforcement agents: I don't really leave wireless webcams in public toilets. They're all wired and I'm sitting in the next cubicle. I'll come out with my hands up now.
Re:Hey, (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a man-in-the-middle attack. They were probably just capturing all WiFi traffic in order to search for hotspots, but forgot to filter it so only beacon frames were stored. A proper set of cards sniffing are much more effective at detecting faint hotspots than just mashing on the "scan" button on one card, which probably discards stray beacons.
It's your fault if you're broadcasting your data all over the airwaves unencrypted where anyone with a passive receiving antenna can pick it up.
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Yes. As in, they collected /all/ wireless traffic with the intention of checking which hotspot it came from and measure its signal strength. I don't think there's any indication that they specifically tried to log emails or that they did any of this for purposes other than locating hotspots.
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Insightful)
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The article indicates that the original software was expressly written with logging capability. They somehow "forgot" to remove it. And nobody noticed. For three years!?!
Yes, they were capturing wireless traffic to look for access points. What they failed to do was take the time to make sure that it was written to filter out the irrelevant information. This really isn't that complicated. If you want to see what kind of data they were logging, put your wireless interface in monitor mode and start capturing traffic with wireshark. If anyone is transmitting anything on the same channel as your wireless interface and within range of being received by your antenna, it will end u
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Insightful)
Entirely believable. No one looks at code if its working OK.
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1) And just like Google, *anyone* can sniff that data, not just your neighbors. They don't have any special powers, they use the same public anyone else can use.
2) It's called a sniffer. Has GP said, it's much more effective at finding APs, exactly because it finds any packets. Storing the payload may or may not be an accident.
3) That quote is largely taken out of context.
4) First, they are actively protecting their data - why aren't you? Not only you're not protecting it, you're broadcasting it to public s
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Insightful)
They were storing the payload for the last 3 years. Three years, and NOBODY noticed? Nobody said "is this even legal in all the places we operate?" Nobody said "Can this come back and bite us on the ass?"
3 years is a long time to "accidentally" be doing something when it's your profession.
How would they notice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are valid questions if anyone knows the data is there.
If, as Google claims, they just reused some code they had lying around, and it stored more data than they were aware of or wanted to use, I can see how no one would have noticed. Their system worked, and an extra 600GB of disk space will hardly raise any alarms at a Google data center.
Re:How would they notice? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Here's how this sort of thing works.
First, you write some code, and then you test it indoors. Then you debug it until you run out of bugs.
Then you bring it outdoors, with the hardware suite in your passenger seat, and drive it around for a bit. Then you debug that until you run out of bugs.
Then you get someone in a remote location to do the same thing. Then you debug that until you run out of bugs.
Then you hire a few cars to drive around for a day or two. Then you debug that until you run out of bugs.
Then y
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If you're collecting data you probably plan to use it. Now if you go to the data set to put it to use you'll see that there is more stuff there than you expected. So how can you say "I didn't know that I had all these snippets of traffic on the network I was sniffing."?
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I find that question to be largely irrelevant. In my opinion, they could have stored it indefinitely. People were broadcasting it to the public space, for me that's no different than doing something in the middle of the street.
If people got their routers from their ISPs and they were setup like that, it's the ISP fault, not Google's; I suggest people should sue them. If they bought the router themselves, it's their fault. I don't buy and use an electric wood saw or some other machinery without reading the m
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Nice theory.
It was intentional from day one, so they made the world aware of it three years down the line...
Because, like, you can never have enough bad publicity.
Remotely plausible?
More like - we messed up. This is what we collected. We're getting rid of it.
Is it tinfoil season?
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Informative)
I've personally been to Google Boston and Mountain View and not only was I not searched or even asked if I had a camera, I was told explicitly at Mountain View that photography was permitted outdoors and to please ask first indoors. I was asked not to take pictures in Boston, but again, not searched or asked for camera.
I was at Mountain View about two years ago and at Boston two months ago.
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I call bullshit.
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3. This is the same company that produced this choice quote: "Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said Internet users shouldn't worry about privacy unless they have something to hide."
This has been kind of overblown. The answer was actually "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.", and he was speaking in the context of court orders. It's just a statement of reality: if Google is holding some of your information and the US Government comes along and wants it, they have to hand it over. So if you're worried about that happening, you probably shouldn't upload it to Google (or anyone) in the first place.
Re:Hey, (Score:4, Informative)
That word does not quite mean what you think it means.
An MITM attack is where you actively intercept a point to point connection, negotiating a secure connection with each end-point while pretending to be the other. It is not feasible to do this to a wifi connection because you can't block the real end-points' reception of each other.
This is just passive sniffing. You can do it on any wifi network, open or not, although you can obviously only read unencrypted data.
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And there's a difference between malice and having so many devices it's practically impossible to turn them off all at once.
I use Google a lot but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse (Score:2)
Since they made up an excuse before they were caught they're in the clear on this one.
Re:Excuse (Score:4, Informative)
Since they made up an excuse before they were caught they're in the clear on this one.
No, they didn't, so no, they aren't. This behaviour was revealed when German authorities asked to audit the data the company's Street View cars gathered [bbc.co.uk].
Re:I use Google a lot but... (Score:4, Informative)
Looks like you never used a sniffer (like tcpdump) before...
The accident is leaving off the filter that restricts the traffic you capture...
Try it on a machine you ssh into and you will know what I mean...
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Re:I use Google a lot but... (Score:5, Informative)
AP information is packet data (they're called beacon frames). Looking for beacon frames is a lot more effective at finding APs on the move than using whatever built-in scan feature your card drivers have. They probably had a SNAFU and forgot to filter out data packets in their capturing setup, instead storing everything that hits the antenna (or some engineer didn't realize it would be an issue).
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Google PR Flak: We at Google take you privacy seriously. That's why, after discovering that we had inadvertently collected 600+ GB worth of private citizens' data, we're doing the responsible thing, in this post 9/11 world, and turning the data over to the government for proper disposal.
Yep, nothing to see here. Move along!
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The maps and street-view are understandable because they are for the most part static and do not change, but people move in and out of buildings and change things all the time. It's not rocket science to determine that corporations and branches of Starbuck's will have their wireless networks, so why the unecessary invasion of privacy like sniffing MAC addresses? There are other ways to get the location of public access points and the like without having to sniff private residential networks.
Because it's not for locating public wireless access points. It's about using the location of ANY Wi-Fi network that's broadcasting an SSID (secure or insecure) to assist in geolocation. Google's Street View vans scan for SSIDs and detect signal strength to essentially triangulate the location of every SSID-broadcasting wireless router, and they can use that information with Google Maps Mobile and perhaps other applications to help your device locate you when there's a weak or inexistant GPS signal.
Also, ff
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Suuuuure It Was A Mistake ... (Score:3, Funny)
New portmanteau : Google + Oops! = Goops!
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I think in this case it has already been done: (open wi-fi) + Google + Oops! = Oogle!
Shenannigans! (Score:2)
You don't "accidentally" collect samples of payload data. That's just absurd.
Re:Shenannigans! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah you do. When you say "Hey, let's see what open wi-fi stuff is out there", and tune into those signals, you pick up on some spare traffic...and if you're saving every packet you come across for later processing (like 'what open wi-fi router was this'), then yeah, it's going to get saved like the rest.
Then they looked at the data they'd saved, said "Oh hey we didn't mean to get that stuff". Kind of like if you're logging all data that someone sends when they're connected to your open Telnet port, and you realize later that it saves their username/password along with the rest--it wasn't a conscious decision, you might not have thought about it at all, you might never plan to even look at the logs except in some specific cases, and while a workaround might take some time...you kind of drop a brick when your legal team realizes you have it.
Sounds like my daughter when she was 6 (Score:5, Insightful)
Her: "It was an accident! I didn't mean to do it!"
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You forgot the other appropriate responses:
"What drawings?"
"I didn't do it."
"Pooh Bear did it."
"Davy did it."
"Davy made me do it."
"Davy told me to do it."
and the ever popular,
"I love you, Daddy."
Shaggy defense (Score:2)
I prefer the Shaggy defense myself:
What happened to the walls there? - It wasn't me.
What about your crayons here? - It wasn't me.
And why that ink is on your hands then? - It wasn't me.
What kind of a weak ass defense this? - It wasn't me.
Skyhook competitor (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that Google has all that StreetView WiFi data, maybe they can put together a free WiFi geo-location service alternative to Skyhook:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless [wikipedia.org]
With regards to privacy, Skyhook has already let the cat out of the bag.
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When I said free, I mean purely advertisement supported, since nothing Google does is really free.
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Now that Google has all that StreetView WiFi data, maybe they can put together a free WiFi geo-location service
Like this? [mozilla.com]
Riiiiiiiight. (Score:2)
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Actually, it takes LESS code. They probably wrote a sloppy bit of code to grab a few seconds of packets, then filtered out SSIDs later. Probably just a Perl script hooking into libpcap and dumping to a file.
The company said it would dispose of the data .. (Score:2)
The fun of "in any Google products" part is once data is collected it can be 'packaged' for 'testing' 'internally' and end up as some external snapshot prototype bundle.
The maps with WiFi data could have been floating around different 'partners' from the point of creation until the "dispose" date.
Just because Google pulls the plug only after been exposed does not really give any comfort.
How does real world physical Wi Fi mapping bec
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Well, if they packaged it and whatnot, as in removed personally identifiable information and formed bare demographics, go ahead and sell it. I'm as upset as anyone else when it comes to companies selling personal info, but there needs to be some leeway - if a company says (and can prove) that the information they're gathering is to sell but only when personal information is wiped, I don't care. Form a base demographic, it is how business is run, but you can do it while discarding personally identifiable inf
Everyone Apologizes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Steve Jobs said: "We didn't mean to only give the artist $.01 and keep $.70 for us on iTunes."
Haliburton mentioned: "Oil spills? We had no idea this could happen."
To trust a company with anything is just stupid. Lock up your doors (or WAPs) people and expect the worst from anyone, you won't be disappointed.
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What are the legal ramifications for the people? (Score:4, Interesting)
If the government subpoenas Google to see the nature of the data they 'accidentally' collected, can they hunt through the data for evidence of illegal activities by the individual users and then go after them? This seems like it would be a great way for The Man to have access to private data by circumventing unreasonable search protections. After all, they just happened to notice this data while checking to see what data Google had been stea, er, storing.
Re:What are the legal ramifications for the people (Score:2)
Google is a top US telco like entity connected around the world with wide pipes back to US gov friendly tap points.
Google can only be harmed by internal leaks eg a Room 641A story.
Google is just too networked to fail and still has that welcomed feel in most pasts of the digital world.
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Not legally.
It's like an addiction with a twist... (Score:2, Insightful)
...on one hand we all love to use Google, let's face it - it's the no#1 search engine, finds more data for you than you could ever dream of coming up with on your own or any other engine, shows you the way on your navigator - heck...even shows you where to get hot coffee on a rainy day, free mail service, supports open-source initiatives all over, man - that's like free drugs, you WILL get addicted, and there's really no way out.
Google and the government have ONE thing in common though, power. And knowledge
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no one in their right mind can make that big of an engineering mistake
Like the kind that cause a bridge to collapse [wikipedia.org], or a space shuttle to blow up shortly after launch [wikipedia.org]?
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They could've headed this all off by disclosing it openly in the first place, instead of claiming 'accidental' data collection.
Yes they COULD, but imagine if you were the government, and you were told to finally disclose to the world that we've been discussing and negotiating with Aliens for over 50 years now, and we're about to tell YOU that - the world would go MAD in an INSTANT, so - what you do, is to reveal as little as possible, in small bite-sized chunks, and of course - everything available to anyone who wants to know...no secrets here...but they just would not plaster BIG BANNERS all over the place saying - hey look, we've
Kismet Does This Automatically (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if they were using "off the shelf" open source tools to collect this information.
By default Kismet will log the pcap file, gps log, alerts, and network log in XML and plaintext.
http://www.kismetwireless.net/documentation.shtml
It is entirely possible that they were using off the shelf open source tools and this log type was simply not turned off in the configuration file.
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Google was mapping cities and the data flow would have been non trivial.
Someone signed for this.
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If this were the case, the data captured would likely be of little to no use by anybody. Kismet constantly hops channels and whatever data is being sent in the clear on a specific channel for a fraction of a second will be dumped to a pcap file. At most you may expose the mac addresses of machines connected to the AP's network and little fragments of communication, but only for small fractions of a second.
Open, not open source. (Score:2)
IANAL, but having an "open" network does not mean that everyone is legally free to use it. It just means that it isn't protected. Unless the owner of that network specifically says that it is freely "open to the public for use", I would assume that such packet sniffing would fall under standard wiretapping laws.
Someone's got to say it (Score:2)
Google is the new Apple which was the new Microsoft.
In other words, you can't really trust any big corporation. Enjoy the good stuff they may produce but keep one hand on your wallet (or your personal data).
And we promise from the bottom of our hearts... (Score:3)
That we'll never, ever, EVER do it again until the next time.
I've done the same thing. (Score:2)
When I was in highschool I would write down anyone password I saw someone type into the computer. It was completely by accident though, I didn't mean to carry my notepad and pen with me where ever I went.
NO matter how you turn this it is bad (Score:2)
Google accidently collected this private data and are incompetent and should NEVER be trusted with any sort of data EVER
I can't see any other way to look at this that doesn't make google bad.
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Re:Meanwhile Skyhook makes no statement (Score:4, Interesting)
What evidence do you have that Google was, other than Google's own statement?
If Google made no statement, would you assume they were not capturing payload, like you assume Skyhook isn't?
Double standard, dude.
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What evidence do you have that Google was, other than Google's own statement?
Why is more evidence necessary?
If Google made no statement
but they did
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Re:Google is great and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, Google posted this message without being forced to by any government. Most companies would keep this kind of thing quiet, or lie about it, especially if privacy advocates got wind of it. Google, within a few days of finding out about the issue, posts an APOLOGY for doing something that MIGHT have possibly damaged a few people, IF the information they collected had been leaked.
Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, Google screwed up, and as soon as they were aware of the mistake, took steps to rectify it and then went public about the mistake. If we get evidence that Google is lying about this, that's another story, but has there been any such evidence yet? I'm all for raking corporations over the coals when they make mistakes and don't own up, but how often do you see a giant corporation blurting out "mea culpa" like this?
Also:
As much as I like Google I hope they get the book thrown at them over this. To claim that they have accidently been collecting this data for three years is just silly.
It's not remotely silly. A week ago I discovered a DB table at my (multinational media conglomerate) company that had been silently logging data for -- wait for it -- three years. It wasn't any personal info, or data we needed, but everyone had forgotten about it. The idea of Google making a similar mistake is not "silly" at all.
Re:Google is great and all... (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything, this gives me more respect for Google, since they did not have to reveal this information (they could have indefinitely stonewalled...there's no external evidence that they kept this data). They're willing to admit when they do something wrong. That scores points in my book. Kudos to Google.
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- A company accidentally collects data that careless users broadcast to anyone who is listening.
- The data is largely worthless anyway due to the circumstances. (car was in range for almost no time, users would have had to be transmitting at exactly the right time)
- The company doesn't realize they actually have this data, and doesn't do anything with it.
- Once they actually find out they have this data, instead of trying to hide it or make excuses, they voluntarily come fo
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- A company accidentally collects data that careless users broadcast to anyone who is listening.
Two people have a quiet, private conversation in an empty street. They have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A car with a sensitive microphone drives by and records several seconds of the conversation, without participants' knowledge.
- The data is largely worthless anyway due to the circumstances.
Google wouldn't deploy a system for collecting worthless data on thousands of StreetView cars over three ye
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Wish I had mod points to mod you up.
I read TFA, but it is very light on details. Did Google said they are going to DELETE those data now? I couldn't quite find that in TFA, it only quoted Google will "learn all the lessons we can from our mistake".
Did they consider their "mistake" being collecting the data in the first place, or does "mistake" mean the PR nightmare after they were found out doing that? Learning their lesson could either mean stop collecting so much data, or it could mean not letting othe
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That assumes that thousands of Google coders, workers and managers are idiots. Far more likely is that Google, being in data mining business, were perfectly aware of every aspect of this collection. It costs money to run StreetView cars, so they packed the cars with everything they could think of, and collected everything that they could.
You're assuming that "thousands of Google coders, workers and managers" are auditing the parameters passed to tcpdump in some script or at least looking over the raw capture files rather than the output data.
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The only internal investigations Google is doing is to find out how they where exposed.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/please-explain-why-google-wants-your-wifi-data-20100513-uyyh.html [smh.com.au]
As for "require govt. intervention" they did not seem to know in Germany, UK, Australia ect.
"Given it was unrelated to Street View, that is accessible to any WiFi-enabled device and that other companies already collect it, we did not think it
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The difference with Google's response is that they had the honesty to respond. They could've just quietly brushed this under the mat.
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The other half enjoy animated Powell Point press presentations.