Data Engineer In Google Case Is Identified 186
theodp writes "Meet Engineer Doe. A NY Times report has
identified Marius Milner as the software engineer at the center of the uproar over a Google project that used Wi-Fi sniffing Google Street View cars to collect e-mail and other personal data from potentially millions of unsuspecting people. Milner, creator of the wardriving software NetStumbler, referred questions to his lawyer. Google declined to comment. A patent search shows the USPTO awarded Google and Milner a patent in June 2011 for protecting Internet users from 'hackers and other ne'er-do-wells [who] may seek to tap into communications on a network.'"
Idiots (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess it would be beyond expectation for someone to tell anyone complaining their data was "stolen" that they should have been pumping it into the local atmosphere for all to read without any encryption or other basic protection.
Yeah, holding people accountable for their own idiotic actions would make too much sense. Beside, we make far too much money out of idiots who bought cool stuff with no clue how it actually works - me especially, a lot of my tech support clients use Macs.
The big cat in the room. (Score:3, Interesting)
Posting anonymous so this will not haunt me forever through the net (unless you are tracking me already har har).
Has anybody actually been hurt? Because, uh, I'm just asking. I'm all for privacy but I don't see anyone poring over my data in this case. So has anybody been hurt? Where is the victim?
Or are we talking about hurting the feelings of those poor electrons that used to mean something, however fleeting, before being vacuumed up by a hateful engineer?
And you know every atom whose state you have ever modified has certain inalienable rights..
I am pretty damned cynical about big corporations and those who presume to rule them, but there are plenty of white collar criminals in power in America and I have yet to see any at Google.
And for your info I think Sergey's and Larry's excellent space adventure shows me enough where those guys stand. I prefer to support Google and Man's Future In Space. The rest of the establishment, their cops and politicos and bastards who talk out the sides of their mouths, the warhawks and smack sellers, and all the self righteous fucks who turn a blind eye to killing, and the fucktards who find a moral pinnacle somewhere in there, they can all go off and fuck themselves until they die.
As for Milner? Well he is either completely innocent or a geek who has been hypnotized until robotic. Happens every day in America. There are one thousand other cases more worthy of prosecution.
Re:ftfy (Score:4, Interesting)
What kind of twisted world view do you have in which corporate employees are transformed into mindless minions that have to obey every command?
My 'twisted' world view is called 'capitalism'. And yes, if you want to stay employed, you do what the person signing your paycheck tells you to do.
As an employee, you still have moral and legal responsibilities.
Yes, the moral responsibility to keep eating, paying the rent so you can keep a roof over your head, etc. It's very easy to act all indignant that someone would choose to eat food instead of morals; It's a lot harder when you're the one choosing between keeping your job, or losing your car, house, family, etc.
In fact, the way Google works, he probably could have said "no" without consequences.
The evidence does not agree with your 'world view'. Also, although cliche, I have to say "Citation needed." You haven't claimed you work for google, nor provided any citation or information that might suggest Google is somehow above its fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders; Because before this guy got fired, the Board most certainly looked at the issue and determined one man's future was not worth Google getting raked over the coals in a PR disaster. To suggest that they would take the moral high ground on that is preposterous: All businesses react the same way to a perceived threat -- they jettison it and distance themselves from responsibility for it as quickly as possible.
I think what rather happened is that he thought this was an OK thing to do. Good for him! I hope he makes that argument stick, because I think he's right and ...
... And that'll be the last time he gets a job in this industry. What's the first thing a prospective employer does these days? Type your name into a search engine and see what it comes up with. And right there, as the #1 result for the rest of his life, will be "Caused PR disaster." Whether that's true or not is irrelevant; Future employers won't take the risk. Taking the moral high ground is not without its consequences; That is why so few people these days do it.
, in that people may come to realize that we shouldn't have useless and ineffective legal restrictions on recording publicly broadcast data.
I'm sure he'll take great comfort in raising public awareness on this very important issue, while he's asking you if you'd like fries with that.