Slashdot Mirror
Google Admits To Collecting Emails and Passwords
wiredmikey writes "Alan Eustace, Google's Senior VP of Engineering & Research, just put up an interesting blog post on how Google will be creating stronger privacy controls. Right at the end is an interesting admission: that after Streetview WiFi Payload data was analyzed by regulators, their investigations revealed that some incredibly private information was harvested in some cases. Eustace noted that 'It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords.'"
Google policy is inadequate to protect your data. Encrypt your wifi. That is all.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This is entirely different what the summary and the title implies, which is deliberately seeking out email or password data.
While it might not be ethical to capture full packet dumps, they probably did it to triangulate wifi access points better. This is a problem of privacy, but not of outright evil.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Google did not drive around for the purpose of harvesting passwords from unsecured WiFi connections. It inadvertently recorded some data that was broadcast and somewhere buried in it were some e-mail addresses and passwords.
If someone stands at their front door with bullhorn shouting out their social security numbers, salaries, sexual orientation and other private details, it isn't the responsibility of passers-by to cover their ears.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Ok hang on a second. Let's slow down with the inflammatory headlines here, okay? The Google Street View cars picked up partial hashes of data from unsecured routers. And as far as Google "admitting" to collecting the data, that was something they announced last May. So put down your rape whistle, kdawson, there's nothing sinister going on here.
Google didn't abuse their position as Google to collect this data. Were they skimming emails, search terms, etc for passwords, that would be an abuse. However, they were driving around in a car with a wireless router, something I could do with about as much efficiency. The people whose data they collected didn't entrust it to Google to keep private; they were simply broadcasting data.
Certainly, Google has a responsibility to not collect, store, and use this data, but they didn't do that. They accidentally copied/pasted the wrong code segment, and ended up logging more than they intended to. Furthermore, once they discovered their mistake, they disclosed this information, and begin working with local governments to correct their mistake. I believe that they acted admirably in this situation; many other companies simply wouldn't have disclosed this information in order to protect their image.