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37 States Join Investigation of Google Street View
bonch writes "Attorneys General from 37 states have joined the probe into Google's Street View data collection. The investigation seeks more information behind Google's software testing and data archiving practices after it was discovered that their Street View vans scanned private WLANs and recorded users' MAC addresses. Attorney general Richard Blumenthal said, 'Google's responses continue to generate more questions than they answer. Now the question is how it may have used — and secured — all this private information.'"
*sigh*
That was some really nice street view mapping, location discovery, and concept of 'out in the public' we had there once :/
Seriously, who thinks this info is private? We're talking about payload data from unsecured wifi. For that matter we're talking about payload fragments.
Obviously, Google shouldn't have collected this. Obviously, Google shouldn't disclose this information to anyone, including governments.
The data should be destroyed and everyone should move on.
Google didn't collect anything that someone with a wifi card and some easily obtained software couldn't obtain.
Simply put, if you're concerned about privacy secure your wifi because without some encryption you really don't have any privacy.
First off they're scanning public information. This is unencrypted, and broadcast across the airwaves for anyone with a WiFi device to pick up. Secondly they are using this for their location service. By recording the location of the hotspot with the identity they can roughly guess someone's location without the need for GPS. If people want privacy then they should turn off their WiFi or at the very least stop broadcasting the name of the network openly.
As far as Washington goes - just yet another example of idiots in power with no grasp of I.T. and without the wisdom to consult with someone who does.
Am I the only one who thinks this is overblown? For all the actually invasive data-mining that happens on a daily basis on the web and in real life, are we really concerned that Google captures a few seconds of broadcast, unencrypted network traffic? Is this a more important issue than the online and physical database breaches we see all time from other companies (and governments) -- many of those go entirely unnoticed, and even big stories from that category only get a day or two of news coverage, but people have been whining about this Google thing for weeks.
Even if you assume that Google really wanted to capture this data for some nefarious purpose, exactly what are people worried about? It's not at all clear to me that capturing a random 3 seconds of traffic from someone's open WiFi provides Google with any particularly useful or terribly private information. Ignoring the fact that anyone in the neighborhood could be doing continuous captures of the same AP, or that half of these WiFi networks are connected to broadcast-based uplinks (like cable modems), I just don't understand why this -- even if the intent is evil -- ranks high among the other privacy concerns in modern life.
EXTRA! Politicians from 37 states find easy way to make it look like they are doing something useful while ignoring war in Iraq, war on drugs, out of control budgets, ...
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
We should look at the positive side of this. Since the states have so little to do now that they can waste time and money on bullshit like this, that must mean that the economy is fixed, everyone has jobs, there is no poverty or hunger, and crime and violence is a thing of the past.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
37 states that see the possibility of extorting some type of payout.
Don't think anybody without some type of motive would care about this, Google on their own discovered an oversight, corrected it, and publicly disclosed their error without using the data and is willing to destroy it if they weren't likely to get sued for destruction of evidence.
Perhaps these states want the data to use themselves.
How dare they collect private information like MAC addresses! Those carefully shielded numbers are there for an important purpose: to be kept safe from prying eyes, hidden behind a shield of apparently unlocked wireless networks.
Asses.
WRT network content: If you decide that a regular house isn't good enough for you so you buy a fully glass house, then don't hang up any curtains, what the heck did you expect to happen? "Oh look, this big bad corporation took photographs of my completely glass house! They don't have any intent to do anything with it. We must sue them before they do that!" Why do you people think that your computer warns you every time you connect to an unsecured network that everyone can see all of your bits! The reason they could photograph you naked in public is because YOU WERE NAKED IN PUBLIC. Normally I have some sympathy for non-tech users getting things wrong, but this one is just long-running and stupid.
As a side note, it seems a little odd that people are freaking out that Google might have their e-mails, the websites they visited, etc. That's like complaining that General Petraeus might have improperly bought a slingshot at a fair. Google pretty much knows the gender of your next child. If they saw you remotely streaming Wrestlemania IV, Amazon probably already told them what you rated it and that you keep re-reading Twilight on your Kindle. While I'm uncomfortable with individual corporations having so much data about people, they've already got it. I'm just expecting the day that I get an e-mail from Google saying that they've automatically updated my calendar with the date I made over Google voice, they called the repairman about the noise in the car, and I have six months until an undiscovered cancer kills me. Sniffing my wireless network won't give them anything they're probably not already collecting from this Chrome browser. Of course, my wireless network isn't completely naked because I actually read the 20 point font easy setup card that came with the damned thing.
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