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Australian Police To Investigate Google Over Wi-Fi Scanning
daria42 writes "Those who thought the brouhaha over Google's scanning of Wi-Fi networks by its Street View cars was over (whether you believe it was deliberate or not) are destined to be disappointed. News comes from Australia over the weekend that the Australian government has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police for investigation. The country's Attorney General, Robert McClelland, was quoted saying, 'Obviously I won't pre-empt the outcome of that investigation but they relate in substantial part to possible breaches of the Telecommunications Interception Act, which prevents people accessing electronic information other than for authorized purposes.'"
Google did nothing wrong by accidentally keeping un-secured information. This information was being broadcast over open wi-fi connections past the boundary of private property onto public property. Ignorance of security measures you can take is not an excuse. If I do not replace the brakes to my car regularly because I failed to read the maintenance schedule in the manual, it is not anyone elses fault but my own. Same thing with securing your wi-fi network. By default not securing your wi-fi network means that it is public.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Everyone wants a piece of Google's cash pie.
Rupert Murdoch thinks that Google should pay him for sending business his way, and the governments of the wold want to find some vague wrongdoing to levy a big fine over.
If you have been in a cave for the past few years, what Google is doing is collecting data to improve their Google Maps functionality. They took pictures to add "street view" so that you can see what the place you are trying to find actually looks like. They logged SSIDs so that your wifi device can be used as an alternative to a GPS device for automatically pinpointing your location on a map.
None of what they have done would be illegal for you or I to do on our own. But since they are a big, rich, company and can afford to take more pictures in more places than we as individuals can do on our own it becomes "a matter of privacy".
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
If Microsoft did the same thing, everyone who is saying "big deal" would be all over them like white on rice. In my eyes Google is no different than Microsoft, it's just they have a better PR department and it is working wonders for them right now, until people actually start questioning how and why they do things.
Australian cops have obviously solved all the real crimes... No body gets raped or robbed there anymore. and now they need to police the "virtual" criminals.