Slashdot Mirror
FTC Ends Probe of Google StreetView Privacy Breach
GovTechGuy writes "The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wrote to Google on Wednesday to end its probe into a major privacy breach in which the company collected and stored private user information, such as passwords and entire e-mails, without even realizing it after the search giant promised to improve its privacy practices."
I'm sure that Eric Schmidt being Barrack Obama's "informal" technology advisor had nothing to do with it.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
like any privacy breaches are investigated by any government agency.
privacy is dead - get over it.
All your Privacy is belong to Canada and the EU.
Not in America, sadly.
No rights for you!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Gee, we got caught; better do it differently next time. (After all, there's no penalty).
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
i have yet to see any corporation with a major internet presence or market segment come close to following or guaranteeing their privacy policies with complete certitude. Companies from AT&T to Facebook to Chase never see a punishment for these leaks, or rather if Google does it would be an exception to the longstanding rule of american internet commerce.
outrage does nothing. Users should take this revelation as an opportunity to improve their general knowledge of internet security.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Is this promise legally binding? What kind of 'improvement' can the average person expect? What if a person who wants to collect similar information just shows up in front of people's home and the offices of [insert big corporation name here] and tries the same thing. Is the Law the same? Me thinks FTC Director needs to be made accountable.
Gee, we got caught; better do it differently next time.
Well, the fact is, Google discovered the abnormal storage themselves. And reported it immediately.
Storing that data was not their intention, only making a map of SSIDs.
It's not like they where planning to keep this data and profit by re-selling it to marketeers (FaceBook, I'm looking at you !)
I stay with my belief :
- The clueless users who don't secure their network are the problem.
- Even if Google did got punished, this won't suddenly make the clueless users less vulnerable to anyone with bad intentions.
- And, if the next recording guy is a bad guy, it's very unlikely that he'll report himself. He'll just run away unnoticed with the data, and try to sell it.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
without even realizing it
Google sniffing out all this stuff by accident? ! **sneeze** bullshit !
Would it be an accident, it'd even be scarier. It'd mean that the search giant don't know what they're doing.
StreetView snapped a pic of the FTC chairman standing outside of a strip club, smoking reefer and kicking a puppy.
Probe ended.
I think it's important to compare like cases if you don't want to be marked a troll.
How on earth did Google get all of this information? Surely they must have done something underhanded, untoward and illegal! They sent a group of 50 engineers to break any site that they came in contact with..... err no. Is it really that they happened to stumble upon wide open networks and happened to log some of the data being publicly broadcast by people who have no idea that they are broadcasting sensitive private data in the clear? But, instead of telling these people, giving them a clue that they are being ignorant and dangerous, we shoot the messenger for telling them, allowing bad people to take full advantage of their stupidity. This in turn helps two groups: 1 the federal government in spying on people. You don't have to have a court order if all you need is a receiver. It also helps people wanting to commit crimes. Google gets beaten upon for telling people "Hey dummy, you are broadcasting private data in the clear!". People respond: "You have no business in my data, delete all your records immediately!" Googles reply "You betcha". Bad guy comes along, cleans idiot out, idiot facing bankruptcy: "Google did this, they let people know that I was an idiot".
I can't believe their Street View team managed to get that van onto a private beach! So awesome! Google will stop at nothing to collect data!
I want to get the pricing on purchasing the geographicly broken down list of WiFi routers in the US. Now that this information is available, I am sure it is for sale.
So then we can see if Belkin, DLink or Netgear has a bigger presence in Tampa, FL.
Why would anyone want this data? Well, it might come in handy if you have found a backdoor into DLink routers. Or, if you are associated with a retailer that is about to offer a big discount on Netgear routers only to find out that they aren't very popular in your particular part of the world.
I guess the next question should be what else Google might have for sale now?
Well I for one am glad this is over and Google understands what it did is wrong and nobody will try something like this again.
I'm glad this issue got some public attention, and everyone learned a valuable lesson (which should already have been obvious): reading other people's wi-fi is wrong.
Now I can go back to setting my router to no encryption and be safe in the knowledge that nobody will read the passwords and bank details I will inevitably send in the clear.
Mod Point. That was brilliantly argued and said, friend. If I happen to get mod points soon, I'll come back and mod you up.
How do you know what Google was planning to do?
Well, you know, the fact that they didn't get caught trying to sell the data, but spontaneously announced it as soon as they noticed it. That might be a sign that selling wasn't their main target. I mean, normally I would expect a little bit more discretion from someone trying to sell shady data.
But it would discourage other more malicious parties from accessing networks for nefarious purposes, such as selling it to marketeers.
Explain how ? The whole story caught up wind because Google openly admitted it as soon as they found the bug in their data-collecting setup. Had they kept the thing silent, nobody would have noticed. (Or at least not until much later)
No intrusion at all happens during such recording. It's not detectable and done from a distance. (It's not like stealing data from a server, where you have to breaking into it first, and leaving traces of the exploit/rooting). If done from within a normal looking car instead of a freakin' google-car, nobody will notice.
The malicious party will simply record the data and leave the street unnoticed. Eventually, much later, we might realize that it did happen if we stumble on the data in the wild (if the source of the data is still recognizable after processing).
No way to catch the criminals and punish them. So no way from discouraging them to do it : You only get punished if you get caught, and it's hard to get caught in such circumstances (you just listen passively to data, and you're not even physically in the direct vicinity but instead in a street nearby).
Google we're talking about. They should receive some kind of punishment for "accidentally" collecting that data in the first place. That's a mistake that shouldn't be made and should be publicly discouraged due to the dangers for abuse.
Google made a few mistake :
- They wrote buggy code which recorded more data than it should. (They only were after the SSIDs, after all)
- They underestimated the amount of idiot users making stupid thing like sending critical data in the clear.
But they did not invade privacy, the same way you don't invade privacy if you over hear something shouted loud in the middle of a street.
The data wasn't technically private: it was thrown at anyone standing around. Google's cars happened to be on its trajectory at the right time.
Blaming clueless users isn't a valid response, because leaving your door unlocked doesn't mean it's okay for a stranger to enter your house.
It's not okay for a stranger to enter your house without your permission if you leave it open BUT if you make something like that, you shouldn't blame anyone else but yourself if bad things happens to you. Most insurance companies will laugh at you if you complain of being burgled while leaving your door open (and in fact some will even require an alarm system).
And the unlocked door is a bad metaphor, because it requires someone to go and try to see if the door is unlocked, and eventually enter the room - action that you have to decide to do, not things you can do by accident.
Whereas open WiFi is more closely related to a megaphone : You just blast data around for anyone to hear. Anyone could passively intercept them, without any required action - no need to open a door, the secret is audible from the street.
If you discuss with your neighbor across the street, each standing on his lawn and using a megaphone to shout answers, you wouldn't in your right mind discuss sensitive data using such a setup, because anyone could hear even if by incident.
Well, s
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Someone who publishes a web page does it for the sole purpose of broadcasting its content.
Someone who is using a router at home without encryption is probably someone who doesn't know about encryption, does not the implications of not having it on (face it, which manual says on the open box ENCRYPT OR ELSE YOUR BANKING INFO IS AVAILABLE TO ANYONE), or could not make it work. Early routers did not make this a very straightforward process among the countless menu options there exist.
And all those users who left open connection may have understood that other people could connect to their router and share the connection, but I am certain they did not understand that their own communication can be easily intercepted, including passwords and banking info.
You are flaming, right?
Really don't understand what the poster's sexual orientation has to do with anything, or how or points address that.....