FCC Wants To Fine Google $25K For WiFi Investigation 145
An anonymous reader writes "It's good and bad news for Google. The FCC has ruled that Google did nothing wrong when it accidentally collected WiFi data with its Street View cars: '[The FCC] concluded that there was no precedent for the commissions' enforcement of the law in connection with WiFi networks. The FCC also noted that, according to the available evidence, Google only collected data from unencrypted WiFi networks, not encrypted ones, and that it never accessed or used the data.' However, they want to fine the company $25,000 because it 'deliberately impeded and delayed the investigation.'"
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how can you impede something that you are innocent of ?
Isn't that the equivalent of saying - "I did not do it" and continuing to protest such ?
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You can delay the proceedings by not providing information in a timely manner.
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You can delay the proceedings by not providing information in a timely manner.
The FCC can also get a subpoena instead of asking Google to voluntarily throw an employee under the bus.
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how can you impede something that you are innocent of ?
Isn't that the equivalent of saying - "I did not do it" and continuing to protest such ?
No, because the delay was separate from their declaration of innocence. They impeded the government's investigation by not providing the court subpoenaed information relevant to the investigation in a timely manner. When investigations go on longer than necessary it increases the workload for the investigators and their assistants and results in increased the costs to the taxpayer.
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When investigations go on longer than necessary it increases the workload for the investigators and their assistants and results in increased the costs to the taxpayer.
It seems they requested information that took Google a few months to produce. Google did not provide emails that the FCC requested or identify the engineer who authorized the data collection
It doesn't seem that apparent that Google was attempting to delay the investigation. If the FCC requests a company produce all e-mails that meet a certain criteria, that can be a huge burden for IT that may inherently take many man hours, and they have to be certain that what is produced is complete, before sending anything -- or be at risk of being accused of attempting to conceal or failing to comply with the order to produce.
As for reporting on 'which engineer authorized the data collection'; that may be a rather complicated matter as well -- the various entities involved need to complete their finger pointing and internal investigations and review of internal records to figure out who actually did what.
That would be even more complicated if no engineer specifically authorized the data collection, but hey...
A 2 or 3 month delay begins to sound quite plausible, and not unreasonable. It could very well be innocent ineptitude, poor management, or inefficiency in doing the work to satisfy unusual requests, to draw matters out further, it's not necessary to conclude malice.
Without specific evidence of intentional delay, there's no basis for a fine.
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only if exactly one engineer invoked his 5th ammendment rights. If more than one does, they don't.
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It doesn't work like that...
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> Let me tell you what would happen after this or just before really.
No, I think, rather, considering the "enormous" fine that the FCC thinks this deserves, that any judge overreacting like that would end up being referred to a psychiatrist, who might very well prescribe for him --- guess what? --- the same stuff you appear to have forgotten to take this morning.
Yes, you have a point that the interaction between government, the court system, and big business is somewhat dysfunctional. You, however, veer
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You cannot be guilty (or innocent) of an investigation. You might be innocent of the charge but that is not the question. Did they impede an official investigation?
What would happen if someone saw the police taking pictures and measuring stuff (an investiagtion) and went over and delibarately got in their way because they are an idiot?
They would be liable to be arrested even though they had nothing to do with what was being investigated. They were impeding an official investigation.
Why should Google be
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In fact, I would enjoy seeing a corporation take a case like this to the Supreme Court and say, "I am legally a person and so the blah blah blah law shouldn't apply to me because it is a violation of my Nth amendment rights as a person.
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In fact, I would enjoy seeing a corporation take a case like this to the Supreme Court and say, "I am legally a person and so the blah blah blah law shouldn't apply to me because it is a violation of my Nth amendment rights as a person.
Great...another opportunity for the Supreme Court to FURTHER expand on the insanity of the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision. Like my mom says: "We need that like a hole in the head."
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Well, you do need a few holes in the head for breathing and eating and such.
And who would know better than LandDolphin?
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In fact, I would enjoy seeing a corporation take a case like this to the Supreme Court and say, "I am legally a person and so the blah blah blah law shouldn't apply to me because it is a violation of my Nth amendment rights as a person.
Great...another opportunity for the Supreme Court to FURTHER expand on the insanity of the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision. Like my mom says: "We need that like a hole in the head."
Without context, I don't know how to interpret that quote. Does your mom suffer from intercranial bleeding? Because in that case, a hole in the head might save her life.
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Without context, I don't know how to interpret that quote. Does your mom suffer from intercranial bleeding? Because in that case, a hole in the head might save her life.
So many talented doctors here on Slashdot.... <grin>
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The FCC can fine people and corporations for using obscene language over the air, which technically violates the First Amendment.
I think it may boil down to, "All your airwaves are belong to us."
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Actually, I think this is a violation of Google's 5th amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.
They aren't asking Google to testify in court, so no, it's not self-incrimination, it's production of records. Also, Google is being charged with violations of regulations, which is more of a "civil" matter. The managers aren't at risk of going to jail over this; this isn't like a wire fraud allegation.
If you keep a personal diary, and in it you describe your crimes; the contents of your diary can be u
Citizens United did *not* say corps are people (Score:3)
... if you think about the Citizen's United ruling, the Supreme Court has already said that corporations are people and enjoy 1st amendment rights ...
The Citizens United ruling did not say that corporations are people. That was how an opponent of the decision characterized the ruling. In other words it was highly successful political spin.
IIRC what the Supreme Court actually said was that people, whether as individuals or as part of a group (activist organization, trade union, corporation, etc) have first amendment rights. They also said that a corporation that owns newspapers and TV stations does not enjoy any extra privileges compared to other corp
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If they're legally a person can we legally execute them when convicted of murder? The whole corporation since when a person dies all the cells that contributed die except where organs are harvested. What a bonanza for the organ donation business.
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Only if they're in one of the 34 states that execute people. And most corporate deaths are negligent homicide, which I don't think is a capitaol offense in any state.
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Lets let the jury decide what degree. I think we should get that voted on right away.
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Perhaps, but it's probably not worth defending if it's only to save $25k
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If corporations didn't have rights, does that mean the government would be free to send the police in and search their premises at will? How about seize all their belongings and the contents of their bank accounts whenever they felt like it? Could corporations be subjected to trial without jury or representation in a kangaroo court?
Corporations having rights means that the people who comprise that corporation don't lose their rights because of how they choose to associate.
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An individual doesn't have the right to refuse a court ordered sopena either.
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Well, yes, but. What did google do to "impede" the investigation??? What I recall is that google resisted handing over other people's information to a federal agency that was claiming that collecting that information was a privacy breach--in other words, google was trying to mitigate the damage, if any, done to people, based on the theory that if it really was a privacy breach to collect the information, it would be more of a privacy breach to disseminate it. I seem to recall google offering to answer lots of questions about the type of info, but only resisting turning it over en masse.
Let's face it: "hey collecting that data was a huge privacy breach, now hand it over to us" is really not a reasonable stance ;-)
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Oh great, now I'm getting modded up after I remember that it was the German authorities, not the FCC, who were simultaneously describing the data as private and demanding that it all be handed over. The issue with the FCC may be entirely different.
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Kudos to Google for dragging their feet.
All the feds ever wanted was to use the wifi "hack" as an excuse for a data grab without the inconvenience of a search warrant.
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Kudos to Google for dragging their feet.
All the feds ever wanted was to use the wifi "hack" as an excuse for a data grab without the inconvenience of a search warrant.
Maybe you can help me: is the tinfoil hat more effective with the shiny side in or out?
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Depends on whether you are more afraid of telepathy or hypnosis.
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Given that the FCC's budget is somewhere around $350 million, levying fines of $0.025 million doesn't seem like a plausible funding strategy. That's just noise to both the FCC and Google's budgets. Imo it's more likely that it's just a symbolic fine.
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It seems like the sort of fine that would get on the record that Google was being uncooperative. In the future, the FCC can use this to convince judges of larger fines or stronger enforcement provisions to convince Google to live up to its data release requirements.
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Or it will encourage Google to be more cooperative next time, so there won't need to be a fine.
Once, when I was about ten, my mom gave me a light smack on the behind for staying out till midnight without letting her know where I was or what I was doing. Clearly, by your logic, she was just setting me up for arbitrary unjustified beatings later.
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Sometimes the post really is all about you.
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Well, to be honest, it wasn't the spanking itself that was so memorable; it was the fact that she felt she had to dress up in a skin-tight black leather catsuit with high heels to administer it. Similar to the way that OP felt he had to dress up this relatively trivial fine with dirty robes, a tinfoil hat, and a sandwich board proclaiming "REPENT NOW! The End Is Near!"
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Spot on. That's a "respect my authority" fine, suggested by some midlevel bureaucrat who was offended by Google's ridiculous failure to instantly comply with their every whim (aka impeding investigation) . Let it be known to all, we 're not going to tolerate that kinds uppittyness from the rabble! Fine them, just because we can.
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As long as the person doesn't attempt to hack into your computer network (which brakes another set of laws), they should be able to use the SSID data however they want. Afterall, you can hide the SSID (which d
Strengthen FCC (Score:2)
Could also be part of a push to strengthen the FCC, by pointing out to Congress that they need larger sanctions. I.e. they could be doing this to prep for congressional testimony for the next time there's a Communications Act amendment.
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"Hey, our budget could very well get cut soon. Let's fine people for things!" That's what I suspect the FCC's reasoning is. They just wont admit it.
That makes no sense. $25k is nothing to either Google OR the FCC and wouldn't impress any legislator responsible for approving FCC budgets. The fines probably go into some general government pool that wouldn't affect their resources.
What makes more sense is the FCC did this to give other corporations the message that they need to come clean about what they've done and not drag their feet providing subpoenaed information.
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Jeez, when I want to get to work a little faster, I'm risking a fine that's equivalent to several hours of pay, and I only get paid 2000 hours a year... Google gives federal investigators a hard time and they only propose to fine them about 3 seconds [yahoo.com] of gross profit?
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Jeez, when I want to get to work a little faster, I'm risking a fine that's equivalent to several hours of pay, and I only get paid 2000 hours a year... Google gives federal investigators a hard time and they only propose to fine them about
I think you're missing that there is no connection between fine amounts and your rate of pay. Fines are a shot across the bow; "shape up, or else".
You too as an individual can give federal investigators a hard time and only get a $25,000 fine, if you're lucky enough to
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But then what's the point of being rich if it doesn't mean that you're above the law?
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To be fair, when you're rushing to work because you're not disciplined enough to leave on time, you're endangering the lives of everyone on the highway. That's a little more important than how fast the FCC gets its requested data.
You're not just risking a fine, you're risking your life, and everyone else's. Slow the fuck down, boy.
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To be fair, I haven't had a "risking my life and everyone else's" ticket in decades, and just two B.S. revenue collection speed fines in the last 15 years... no collisions for longer, no collisions with injury ever. Actually, most of those "risking my life" roadside lectures from way back didn't involve a ticket or a fine, I guess the paperwork is hell.
The concern for Google dragging their feet is not about FCC being bored while waiting for the requested data, the concern is whether or not they are trying
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Given that all fines and fees collected bu the US Government go into a common fund (subsequently spent by Congress), and not by the agency collecting them... As the person above said, with regards to their budget, I doubt this is a motive.
But, as with the budget, don't let facts stand in your way.
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This is a relative slap on the wrist. This is more of a "You made us have to put in extra work on this issue by you playing PR games. Here is how much that time you cost us." than a true fine.
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"Hey, our budget could very well get cut soon. Let's fine people for things!" That's what I suspect the FCC's reasoning is. They just wont admit it.
Really? $25,000? do you have any idea how little $25,000 is in the realm of government budgets? It's less than if you drop a penny down the sewer grate.
Whatever the reason is, it's certainly not because of (perceived or real) budget cutting.
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How has Chrome been a failure? I'm genuinely interested not trying to troll. I thought it did what it was meant to, collect even more usable data on search criteria by user and deploy new web technologies as fast as possible. I know it's probably telling Google everything they need to know about me to sell me anything but I still use it for some reason.
I still think the lack of a 64 bit version of flash when I got my first 64 bit computer was what made me swap from Firefox. Chrome's built in flash support w
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That's 1/10th the cost of a software engineer for one year, going by the usual rule that half the cost of an employee is salary.
Doubtlessly the 1/2 figure is an overestimate of convenience for employee cost, or gross generalization, probably used to justify paying an unfairly low salary.
Most of the additional employee costs are imposed by the government, and around 10%, but SS taxes are capped at a certain salary level. Others are fixed costs that are not proportionally related to salary.
For example...
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Employee SS taxes and insurance, vary with salary, other costs are fixed besides salary
and insurance benefits; there are only some gross distinctions, such as managers might get a more expensive workspace, more powerful computer, more monitors than the engineers, etc.
It is hard to imagine the logic behind giving the best software development tools to the people who, if they're doing their jobs right, don't actually do any software development.
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Of course the employee's computer is an employee cost. No employee, no computer.
Other costs include the square footage rented for the extra employee, extra phone, Internet and other telecom costs ,extra taxes the employer pays based on payroll but not for the individual, the employer's share of insurance premiums, the increased likelihood of paying unemployment with the larger staff, the time the rest of the staff spends dealing with that new employee (n * n-1), and even more the bean counters can find.
In f
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Other costs include the square footage rented for the extra employee, extra phone, Internet and other telecom costs
It is extremely unlikely that your business rents extra footage in order to add an employee. Often businesses own a building with a fixed square footage that does not change. At most they'll buy a new desk and chair, when the total number of employees increases. The requirement to use additional workspace is not necessarily related to having more employees. The business may require more spa
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Most businesses do not own their offices. Most businesses grow (and sometimes shrink), and aren't in the property management business, so renting is better for them. The size of the office over time indeed is proportional to the number of employees.
If you have a $600 computer which isn't being used, it's a waste. If you give it to another new hire later, that's a $600 asset. Meanwhile these $600 assets have to be discarded every 2-3 years, and replaced.
You're also wrong about the air conditioning. Each empl
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You don't pay $5 an hour to people who use $600 computers.
So uh... if I as say a storage engineer manage a $200k storage array, does that mean I cost $1m ? Obviously if there were no storage admins, there would be no SAN.
You're right. You pay $5 an hour to people who use $10,000 computers that are good for at least 12 years, and the computers they use are called "Point of Sale Terminals or Cash registers". It's only the $50/hour people using the general purpose $600 computers that are mostly wo
GOP FTW! (Score:1)
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it is the precedent of the thing, not the amount. If you are simply charged with a crime, then have to foot the bill for the investigation even when found not guilty. Sounds like an awesome way to extort or intimidate someone, especially smaller companies that might not be able to foot a lengthy investigation bill.
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It's kind of the bureacracy-and-corp version of being arrested on charges of "resisting arrest".
fine? (Score:1)
Google's excuse is a bit weak... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google's excuse is a bit weak... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually a quite understandable mistake: "Gee, sending these cars around is expensive. We just want MAC info for geolocation, but what if we screw something up? If we have to revisit an area I'll get yelled at...best to just log everything and filter it out later"
Re:Google's excuse is a bit weak... (Score:5, Informative)
Even better than that, traffic logging is on by default in Kismet, the software they were using. It's more like they forgot to switch the option off.
Horsesh!t (Score:2)
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I've been wondering how Google Maps knows my home location when I'm on a wifi-only device, like a tablet.
I don't log in to Google on the device, and I've never given it my home address. My ISP has very coarse netblock allocations.
So I suspected the Street View cars might have something to do with it... but my question isn't answered here. And, aren't MAC addresses link layer-only?
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How on earth does a "mistake" enable a StreetView Car to suddenly collect detailed Wifi hotspot data? Wouldn't the car need to be purposely equipped with software and antennas capable of this, and also explicitly configured to do so?
The car was already equipped with software and antennas, apparently for building a database of open Wifi hotspots. This was not the problem. It was the accidental collection of payload, in particular, unencrypted payload, which was the mistake (and the problem.)
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They did equip the cars with software and antennas to collect hotspot data. It was supposed to only collect basic data such as mac addresses and ssids (helpful for statistics and assisted geolocating), but it was mistakenly configured to also collect traffic from sniffing in promiscuous mode. I believe that it being an accident is perfectably reasonable.
And I personally believe it shouldn't be wrong to do. Sure, it was data they couldn't use, but it /was/ broadcasted on public air waves.
Also, no one would h
Re:Google's excuse is a bit weak... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wifi sniffing is what you have to do to get Mac Addresses and SSID's for Geolocation, as well as any sort of WiFi related work these days (Thanks, Dumb Bastards who turn off SSID broadcast!). At core, that's all Google was collecting, a basic WiFi sniff. I have to do it all the time if I want to figure out what jerk is invisibly camping the section of spectrum I'm using. And in classic Google fashion, they probably figured they could sort through and filter out the data they needed back at Google Central, rather than doing it in-car.
Honestly, the most shocking thing is the public's ignorance of the technology they use every day.
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Google made the mistake of doing The Right Thing - building the map completely on the company's dime, and publicly announcing what exactly they were doing. Then when they found they had collected wifi payload data as well, they reported themselves to the public [tmcnet.com] .
Basically what's happ
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You mean Google got in trouble for taking stuff from inside my house because they had to pick my deliberately locked front door?
Listen ahole ... I turned off SSID broadcasting in addition to using WPA
Then no, they didn't take anything inside your house, because you used WPA. They only collected unencrypted traffic.
for exactly the same reason I lock both the non-deadbolt lock and the deadbolt lock on my front door.
Poor analogy. Turning off SSID broadcasting is analogous to prying the little numbers off your letterbox. It's not a security measure.
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Heavens to Betsy! You mean Google got in trouble for taking stuff from inside my house because they had to pick my deliberately locked front door?
Listen ahole ... I turned off SSID broadcasting
and yet, you are still broadcasting (your word, not mine) everything Google needs to know, and then some.
Google's use of sniffing to bypass my explicit security action
There was no such use. Google's use of a radio receiver and a logger to receive the information you were broadcasting should not be illegal. Using that information to connect to your network or sharing that information with someone for the purpose of their logging into your network should be, and is. But since they didn't do that, they didn't do anything wrong, and you're just whining about people pickin
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Keep in mind what else was on the disk:
(1) High-resolution panoramic photos, taken every 10 feet or so.
(2) Truncated Wifi packets collected along the same path.
Given the size of #1, which can fill up hard disks every drive, it's pretty easy to miss a few MB from #2.
When you operate fleets of 10s of thousands of machines, 1T of data is like a 100KB file on your personal computer. Would you go investigate every time your disk usage is 0.01% higher than expected?
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I'm sorry but if you stand in your front yelling into your cell phone, and I'm driving by and hear a bit of your yelling, is that eavesdropping?
same goes for leaving your wifi open and broadcasting with enough strength to be visible on the public road!
I fail to see why wardriving should be any more illegal than driving down the road with my windows open.
Will probably pay the fine (Score:3)
It's likely to be less costly than an appeal, and they can finally put it behind them.
Makes sense... maybe (Score:3)
This is just a face saving move by the FCC. (Score:3)
impossible burden (Score:1)
Google will have a hard time paying this exorbitant fine.
Good for google. (Score:2)
Good for google
All the feds wanted was to use the wifi incident as an excuse to get the data in question for themselves.
Translation (Score:1)
Translation:
Google has so much cash we can fine them for anything and they will pay it.
Old data by now (Score:2)
Given how often people in my area seem to change their WiFi setups, I can't imagine that old information being particularly useful.
Now call me naive, but aren't Google still collecting WiFi details with every Android phone?
Someone recently told me that Android phones with GPS enabled will scan and report SSIDs and signal strengths of local WiFi networks so that non-GPS Android devices can be located through triangulation.
Turnabout is fair play? (Score:2)
I wish I could fine the government for impeding and delaying all sorts of things that annoy me. DMV line moving too slowly? Bam! Fine those sloth-like paper pushers.
The REAL story... (Score:3)
I know no one read the story or the other articles with more details but here's the facts:
The FCC found that Google's actions weren't illegal, nor were they intentional.
The FCC found that after Google became aware of the problem they took extensive measures to not only notify about the breach, but to protect the information.
The FCC found that as a result Google did nothing illegal and there was no case to be brought to the courts.
The FCC obtained NO court order or subpoena's for the information they asked Google for.
Google refused to provide information which they didn't feel was relevant to the investigation. This information included the names of the employees involved and what would have essentially amounted to the entire email server for Google.
As this was NOT a subpoena they were under NO obligation to voluntarily supply information.
The FCC is creating a charge of impeding the investigation when they found NO evidence of illegal behavior. This is no different than being charged for resisting arrest and that being the ONLY charge.
This is one of the biggest problems we have with government right now. The FCC is FAR beyond their authority here. Not only that, they can't charge someone for impeding the investigation for refusing to comply with a voluntary request. Had they needed the information they could have gone to court and got a subpoena, that they didn't is prima facia evidence that they didn't think they could get the subpoena in the first place. We're at a place where people are being fined for exercising their rights and thats WRONG.
I support sensible regulation and I don't think the FCC has enough regulatory power in some areas but this is the type of stuff that makes me want to see the government's powers gutted. Maybe that's what we need at this point, gut the system and start over. At a minimum at this point I'd like to see investigative powers greatly restricted, and most importantly of all, that certain charges (resisting arrest, impeding the investigation, etc) aren't valid if there is no other charge.
take action (Score:1)
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what power abuse? the owners of these wifi points were shouting into the street without using code words, whats wrong with listening while driving by?
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erm... even the summary says there's nothing wrong with that.