Google Broke the Law, Say South Korean Police

bonch writes "South Korean police say Google was in violation of Internet privacy laws when its Street View service archived private information in more than 30 countries, including email and text messages. The country's Cyber Terror Response Center broke the encryption on hard drives raided from Google last August and confirmed that private information had been gathered, violating South Korea's telecommunications laws. Police are seeking the original author of the program, though they say it is likely to be a US citizen. Google said it stopped collecting the information as soon as it realized what was happening. 40 states in the US are demanding access to the information gathered by the mapping service in order to determine what was archived, which Google refused to hand over. 'We have been cooperating with the Korean Communications Commission and the police, and will continue to do so,' said a Google Korea spokesperson."

Comments

I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[rolfwind]

This isn't a defense of Google. It just seems that corporations are never called to task for deplorable behavior unless they forgot to grease the right wheels.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[intellitech]

Although Google is large, and does stand to get some bad publicity from this whole situation, it's not fair to lump them in with the same group of corporations responsible for bribing congressmen over automative safety, health problems related to tobacco, or nuclear power plant contamination.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[lexidation]

Where exactly does the dividing line between "spends millions on lobbying and campaign contributions" and "bribes politicians outright" get drawn? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question. It seems to me there's something broken in the system, something which will never get fixed because it underwrites the ambitions of the people in power.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[pspahn]

who cares about the line, erase the line.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[commodore64_love]

"Corporations shall not donate money to candidates," seems like a simple enough law. And already-existing laws only allow $2000 per person to be donated, in order to avoid undue influence by any one man. So I don't know why this hasn't been fixed, unless it's because the politicians like to keep the current corrupt system.

They should also revoke those laws that forbid any other party from being on the ballot except Republican and Democrat. Now that we have electronic ballots, there's no reason why we can't list 5-to-10 parties on each one, and let the people decide.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[commodore64_love]

The downfall of the Athenian Empire alone proves that pure democracy (as you propose in your letter) is a bad idea.

Pure democracy can also be called "tyranny of the majority" as the minority voice is drowned-out. Or worse: Crushed. Just ask the Americans that were imprisoned during World War 2, simply because the majority decided they did not like the minority who looked different (i.e. asian). The purpose of a Republic is to have a Supreme Law that protects the minority from such abuses, and which no one, ideally, can remove by a simple 51% vote. The Law of Individual Rights reigns supreme even above the government or its representatives, and can not be revoked.

It isn't a perfect system, but it's certainly much better than a Democracy. Socrates was killed with a simply 51% vote. No trial; no lawyers; nothing to protect his right to speak his mind. The Demos killed him because they didn't like him. That's what a democracy gives you.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[commodore64_love]

>>>I suppose you find it easier to just let government corruption continue unabated.

Strawman argument. I never said that, but I'd still rather have the protections given to me by the current Law of the Republic (rights to free speech, trial, privacy, etc) then to have a Democracy where my voice would be drowned-out by a 51% majority of uneducated boobs that would lock me up simply because I'm gay. Or black. Or asian. Or atheist. Or anti-War on Terror. Or whatever.

As for the problems we face today, most would disappear if we followed the 9th and 10th Amendments instead of ignoring them. No more bailouts of AIG, or forced purchasing of hospital insurance I don't want, or war on (some) drugs, or giving "stimulus money" to General Motors, and so on. Congress is forbidden, by the tenth, to do those things.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Jophish]

I have been considering this problem for some time now, if only for British politics. One slight problem is that people are dumb. Senators and MPs act not only as a geographical proxy, but as a mediator for stupidity. Take for example the MMR vaccine scare. After this event, the majority of the public were outright scared of this vaccine. It was the duty of the politicians to educate themselves on this issue, and think about things rationally. In addition, educating oneself on a matter takes time. Most people will not be able to find enough time to learn about these issues. This could be partially solved by a few methods. Firstly, only a randomly selected subset of people could be permitted to vote on each issue. This would give people the opportunity to learn about the topic at hand, and make a rational informed decision. Still, people can be swayed by either effects, and most people are very capable of making bad decisions, even if they know all of the information. This could be solved by having people take a "Voting Exam". In the same way that a person driving a car, is likely to do harm if they are not able to control the vehicle, so could a person voting irrationally do harm. I suppose that the voting exam would consist of testing the subject's critical thinking skills and their ability to comprehend and utilize new information.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner", but I wouldn't say the downfall of any empire was an argument against it. It seems that's just what most societies do - they get big and collapse - and rather than seeing that as a negative I just see it as the natural order of things.

No one society has ever had everything sorted out, so after a while some of the people in it will bring it down from the inside saying that what's wrong in that society needs to be fixed, and the society will change or collapse, and those things get fixed but a load of other things will be wrong. And the cycle starts again.

Sometimes you'll look at a society and think they more or less got it right, but there will always have been people who absolutely hated what they saw as wrong with it.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Tom]

Every now and then, they are brought to justice even though they did.

It's not that it used to be any better. Power, influence and money have always managed to put themselves above the law, I doubt you'll find a period in human history where this wasn't so, or where common folks didn't dream of better times when it would not.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[beerbear]

Right now your voice is being drowned-out by a minority with money.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[commodore64_love]

IMHO this all boils down to various Governments wanting to maintain their MONOPOLY on the right to spy. Take the example of Britain where Google got in trouble because their CameraCar caught somebody's wash hanging outside. First off Google did nothing wrong - if you have your undies in view of the front street, then you're just plain stupid. Second you have no right to forbid Google or Me or anybody else from photographing it.

But the UK government decided otherwise, ordered google to erase the undies image, and fined them. Meanwhile that same UK government has cameras installed on every fucking street that are capturing everything from Undies hanging in front yards to... well, fucking.

But that's okay. It's okay for the Government to maintain its Monopoly to spy on us.
Google and other private photographers get slapped down; but the government invades our privacy every day.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Tom]

Where exactly does the dividing line between "spends millions on lobbying and campaign contributions" and "bribes politicians outright" get drawn?

Which line?

Campaign contributions by corporations are legalized bribing, nothing else. It is a clear violation of the basic principles of democracy that entities that have no votes can leverage influence on the political process.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

You started your tirade by discussing "pure democracy" and then:

That's what a democracy gives you.

...trying to play with retorics?

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[CrimsonAvenger]

They should also revoke those laws that forbid any other party from being on the ballot except Republican and Democrat. Now that we have electronic ballots, there's no reason why we can't list 5-to-10 parties on each one, and let the people decide.

Where do we have laws like this?

I've lived in nine different states, and none of them restricted the ballots to Republican and Democrat.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't explicitly restrict the ballots to R and D, but most states have laws making it very difficult for third party politicians to get on the ballot. For instance, they will require an obscene number of signatures for parties that did not get a certain percentage of the vote in the previous election. In Pennsylvania, the courts routinely kick third parties off the ballot for "fraudulent signatures." A few years back Nader got kicked off the ballot and *fined* for a few dozen fraudulent signatures... out of thousands. He had three times the legally required number. It didn't matter that he definitely had the required amount of valid signatures. It didn't matter that his opponent only showed a handful were fraudulent. It didn't matter that there is no way to check that every signature out of thousands is legit. He was kicked off and fined. Not that I'm a fan of Nader, but the court really went out of its way to send a message to third parties: don't even try.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[commodore64_love]

>>>"Voting Exam"

We had these in the US (mostly in the Eastern member states). They lasted about fifty years until the Supreme Court declared them illegal and nulled them.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[commodore64_love]

>>>ballots to Republican and Democrat.

In my state if you are a third party, like Libertarian or Communist or Constitutionalist or Green, you must either win 10% of the previous vote or collect signatures from 5% of the population. Since the standard is set so high, the ballot is effectively banned to anybody but the R and D parties. It's a way for them to maintain their control.

Ironically if the R or D parties don't meet these standards (don't get 10% of the vote, or 5% of signatures), it doesn't matter. They are automatically added.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Hungus]

Socrates was found guilty with a 56% vote (280 to 220) not 51% as you have claimed. Further, his death was his own choice. He was given the option of death or exile and he chose to kill himself.

You really need to start getting your historical facts straight and stop twisting them so.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Harsh, though, I suppose you find it easier to just let government corruption continue unabated.

Good one! When someone objects to one of my ideas I also find it quite useful to trot out some false dichotomy. It works quite well.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Lazareth]

Socrates is a really bad example in this case. Yes, there was a vote. There was also a trial and he did speak his mind. I'm not going to delve into the details of the whole trial and how Socrates acted, but while we, with todays values, may think he was unfairly handled, he very much caused his death sentence himself.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[CrimsonAvenger]

In my state if you are a third party, like Libertarian or Communist or Constitutionalist or Green, you must either win 10% of the previous vote or collect signatures from 5% of the population.

Which state is that? I'd like to know so I can avoid ever moving there.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strawman argument.

Actually it was a false dichotomy. Still not a legitimate argument, of course.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[drinkypoo]

The downfall of the Athenian Empire alone proves that pure democracy (as you propose in your letter) is a bad idea.

Uh, no. Athens was a republic or oligarchy depending on who you talked to, NOT a pure democracy. In order to have a vote you had to be a white male landowner. Giving the vote to the ostensibly most enlightenedly self-interested people didn't work there any more than it's working now (where only the corporations truly have a vote, especially Big Media, who decides which candidates the public will take seriously.)

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[iserlohn]

The lady that sued Google was in Japan, it was probably because the UK press reported on that you remembered it wrongly.

The whole thing with streetview privacy violation thing is media hype. If you're doing things which can be seen in public, you have a very slight chance that somebody will be capturing it on camera. This something everybody have to accept when being in public view. There's a reason why people don't have sex in their front lawns. If you're transmitting data in the clear on unlicensed frequencies, then there is a slight chance that somebody will come around with airsnort and capture your frames. This is something everybody that is using unencrypted WIFI has to accept.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[cbreak]

Sounds like Banana Republicistan

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a defense of Google. It just seems that corporations are never called to task for deplorable behavior unless they forgot to grease the right wheels.

This isn't a defense of Google. It just seems that we see a lot of these types of bullshit political stories. The South Koreans are not in a position to rule on whether or not Google is in violation of the law in other countries.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Right now your voice is being drowned-out by a minority with money.

I'm genuinely curious how you think the problem of the 'minority with money' having a large voice would be fixed in a pure democracy. Honestly, you don't think it would be trivial to buy votes? Heck, that's what goes on today for both parties today. Thank goodness for the electoral college limiting this corruption: http://discovermagazine.com/2004/sep/math-against-tyranny

BTW, 'minority with money' sounds to me like you could mean the top 49% wealthiest citizens. Did you know that only about 53% of Americans even pay the federal income tax?

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

cite?

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[TheRaven64]

There was an article before the last election about NYU students willingness to sell their votes. 20% said they'd sell it for an iPod Touch ($300). In the last few elections, 20% is much bigger than the winning margin. 66% said they'd sell it in exchange for having their tuition fees paid (around $160,000). These numbers are pretty high - US Presidential candidates spend around $5-6 for each vote that they get, and the candidate that spent the most has won for quite a long time.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Google camera is at round about 2.5 meters above ground, most people aren't quite that size. Also, photographing something is not the same as photographing something and then publishing it. Publishing photographs of someone's undies that you had to climb up a chair to make isn't exactly a "human right".

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Cwix]

Cool, you want me to vote for Canadiate A? Give me 300 dollars.

*Walks into voting booth, and marks Candidate Bs name.*

Alright I voted for him, wheres my money?

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[butalearner]

Right now your voice is being drowned-out by a minority with money.

I don't know, I don't think the godless, gay, black Asian pacifist community is very politically active to begin with.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[nospam007]

Every smartphone with a WIFI finder is guilty of the same crime.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK GOOGLE

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is there is whole spectrum of ways I could spend money to get your vote. Bribery is just the simplest. Hiring guys with guns can work. As can threatening to close the factory in town or promising to open a new one. Hiring advertising agencies is probably the cheapest and doing all of the above the surest.

A rich person is a powerful person no matter what form of government you choose. That's just a fact of life. Sorry.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Banana Republicistan

Try Socializing..... uh... I mean that is..... what we have to do is..... redistribute the wealth in Democrat-dominated Maryland. (Approximately 70% of the seats are held by the D's.) Maryland is a pretty nice state, so long as you avoid slum areas.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a very colorful person, I gather!

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[ColdWetDog]

Democracy is not perfect but it is the best thing we have, don't go around crying for the tyranny of the majority.

We don't have a 'democracy' in the US. Never have. Wasn't designed as one, won't function as one. We're supposed to have a representative Republic whose powers are consciously hobbled by power sharing among three branches of government.

The concepts of checks and balances is central to the appropriate function of the US Federal government. It works better or worse at times, isn't perfect at all, is always frustrating and has the ability to devolve into one of several less savory governmental forms (kleptocracy, a 'true' democracy, a fascist state and others) if not attended to carefully.

But it is by no means a 'democracy'.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[catmistake]

The Demos killed him because they didn't like him

To be fair, Socrates spent most of his life drunk, having intercrotial "sex" with young boys, and publically humiliating anyone that could overlook his grotesque features. Plato was the philosophical and literary genius, while by all reports, Socrates was an unmittigated asshole.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[GooberToo]

Every smartphone with a WIFI finder is guilty of the same crime.

Or every Android device so long as you have WIFI and wireless location detected enabled. Every Android device is potentially a WIFI finder. Furthermore, some Android applications actively and periodically turn your WIFI on/off so as to collect and transmit this information to third parties. Shop Savvy is one such application. The Locale application doesn't turn WIFI on/off of its own, but it also reports applications, application activity, WIFI proximity, and geographic information back to third parties.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[n_djinn]

Yup. No bribe gets you nowhere, too much bribing gets you busted. It's a balance from Cuba to China and the USA. Doesn't matter what kind of government (unless it's newly in power and stil idealistic), if it's an in power, it requires the second oldest form of business.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[euroq]

It isn't a perfect system, but it's certainly much better than a Democracy.

God dammit, WHY do so many people on the Internet believe that America is not a democracy, because it is a republic? Please stop saying "democracy" as if it means "pure democracy" or "direct democracy". A democracy is a government that is elected by people, which can happen in many different forms. A republic is not mutually exclusive with a democracy. America is a democracy, and it is also a federal republic. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Also, I would argue that being a republic does not protect us from the tyranny of the majority. For example, my right to see my boyfriend in California at a hospital when we are dying, as well as my right to pay my taxes together with my boyfriend, and over 1500 other rights that our laws have attached to marriage, was thrown out the window by a 52% - 48% vote in California a year or two ago. What actually protects us from the tyranny of the majority are rights setup in our laws, such as a law that the right of free speech cannot be taken away, even in a 95%-5% vote.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[marcosdumay]

And just why can't you have a Constitution, with the same 3/5 or 2/3 (watever applies to where you are) of the votes needed to change it, and direct representation at the same time.

Also, the complaint that the voters are stupid doesn't hold any water. Stupid voters will break that system the same way they break the current one. The situatuon doesn't get any worse.

The only problem I have with direct representation is that it is nearly impossible to agree on anything. Maybe there is a methodology available for reducing that problem, but I still didn't see how we can have milions of people agreeing on a budget.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[SpaghettiPattern]

Hi commodore64_love,
Most comments you make I find very fresh and inspiring. However,...

...forced purchasing of hospital insurance...

I fully understand opposing compulsory insurances. As well as opposing disproportionate taxing (like in Holland and in most of the Scandinavian countries for instance.)
However, I have given compulsory hospital insurance some thought and my conclusion is that it makes sense. The situation caused by not having it is that too many won't get one out of opportunism. Rich people can afford treatment anyway and poor people save on it. What's also important to is know that nowhere in the world hospitals run without being subsidised (either by the state of by charity); Running a hospital results in costs to the community. Poor, uninsured people will postpone treatment until they are admitted into the emergency ward. And eventually the community pays for the treatment as 1) the most basic civilisation rules say that you can't just leave someone to die and 2) the poor will not be able to pay the bill. Hence they will be haunted by bailiffs for the rest of their lives. So now you have 2 problems: 1) the community evidently pays for treatment of the poor and 2) poor bastards that got treatment the sneaky way will never be able to redeem themselves and become outcasts.

If everyone pays for a basic hospital insurance (excluding extravaganza like boob, nose and chin jobs) then costs to the community will possibly drop and there won't be a lower class of outcasts caused unpaid hospital bills.

Sure, systems will have to be put in place in order to prevent bastards from exploiting the system. However, the focus should be to protect society from the idiots that cause costs by taking irresponsible risks. Certainly not to protect idiots from being idiots.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[marcosdumay]

Goes to show that the value their put on their votes is quite low (or is it? $160k is a bit of money). That may be a consequence of al politicians being the same, of it being only one vote between many or that the students simply don't care about the entire situation. Also, answering that you'd sell your vote for a researcher is quite different from actualy doing it.

Of course, if we go into direct representation, people better be willing to sell their votes (for watever they want), or they'll never agree on anything at all.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[euroq]

To be fair, you're exaggerating. 56% vs. 51% isn't really twisting the facts that much, and his point was that it only took 51%. Also, probably because of his old age, exile wasn't an acceptable outcome, so the fact that he chose death over exile is just a small nuance in the end effect of the vote which decided to end him in one way or another.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[marcosdumay]

Stupid people are a problem for any kind of system you can think of. But there is nothing indicating that they'd be a worse problem on direct representation than they are now.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[euroq]

But it is by no means a 'democracy'

GOD, WHAT THE FUCK. This bullshit is always all over ./ conversations. How can smart people be so ignorant? A democracy is NOT mutually exclusive with a republic. America is a democracy. It also happens to be a republic. It may not be a DIRECT democracy, but it is still a democracy, which is a government which is elected by its people. This should not be a difficult concept to grasp.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[beerbear]

I don't have a solution handy, sorry. I was just trying to point out that the 'current Law of the Republic' is not really better than the scenario the parent poster was painting.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[beerbear]

That's OBVIOUSLY only because they're being drowned-out. And now pass the bong, please.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[rtb61]

That makes no sense as in a Democracy the majority define the laws, all of the laws. In a democracy you can not be protected by laws that the majority have not agreed to. Also note that a true democracy, requires that all people vote and that all people base that vote upon full true knowledge of the consequence of that vote.

You can not have a true democracy if all the people do not have access to vote, you can not have true democracy where lies are able to distort understanding of the consequence of that vote. You are a human being and as such a part of human society, you are bound by that human society it creates and defines you, without it you are a grunting, ignorant creature stumbling about naked, cold, wet and, diseased waiting to be eaten by far more primitively successful predators. Democracy gives you a voice, suck it up when the majority chooses to ignore it and that is still far better than screaming in primal rage without even a fur loin cloth or flint stone knife to protect you. (ignore the sociopath and narcissistic view of humans preying upon humans that is based upon a genetic anti-social mental defect propagated as desirable by a mass media run by psychopaths and manned by narcissists).

All of that has very little to do with Googles predilection for privacy invasion likely driven more by the private perversions of individuals in googles corporate food chain and data base engineers and the perceived power and erotic rush they get when they can invade and control other peoples lives, so the perverted minority working against the majority. Simple private data laws are required, covering regular detailed notification of private data held to the person the information is about and the right of the person to request the data be deleted or corrected and auditing of those laws.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, there's a big difference between Local-Public and Global-Public. Also permanently stored with multiple revisions, and being put on a very public website and making money off of that..

As to the Wifi, it doesn't matter that it's unencrypted, that's like saying it's ok to rape someone because "they were asking for it by wearing certain types of clothes".

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Hungus]

I think you might want to look at the definition of exaggerating: take a look here for a start http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exaggerating. As to commodore64_love twisting facts, well you should look well at the volume of his posts and discern wether or not he does in fact routinely twist facts. Also you might want to consider the history of the issue. I suggest reading the trial of socratese http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socrates.HTM .

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[euroq]

Oh lord, really? In the context I meant you were making a bigger deal of "twisting the truth" than he actually did, as 56% is not far from 51% and still the point remains that it only needed 51% to make such a vote win, not 56%, hence the argument against democracy. Also, I'm not reading the volume of his or her posts, I'm just commenting on the one post I read.

Finally, I'm not sure what exact point you were trying to confer with the link you provided about the trial, but apparently I got something right: some historians agree that the explanation for Socrates choosing death over exile is that Socrates was ready to die. Why you think that historical refresh was necessary to explain your statement, "You really need to start getting your historical facts straight and stop twisting them so" is unclear.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Hungus]

Sigh, a 51% vote is typically needed in a republic as well and yet a swing of 12% is much more significant than a swing of 1-2% if you cannot understand even this then the rest of the conversation is useless and I am sorry that I have wasted both your time and mine, Good day.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[euroq]

You are neurotic, you are making arguments of an argument that isn't there. The guy said that 51% of a vote was all that was needed to convict someone to death, regardless of what the actual vote was. I didn't say anything about a republic vs. direct democracy.

You think that everyone is stupid because the actual vote was 56%, and if we're not making the point that you are then we just can't comprehend what you can. A few list of your comments:

sigh
If you cannot understand even this then the rest of the conversation is useless and I am sorry that I have wasted both your time and mine
You really need to start getting your historical facts straight and stop twisting them so.
well you should look well at the volume of his posts
I think you might want to look at the definition of exaggerating

You are somewhat unbalanced. The world is not out to get you, Hungus, and you aren't smarter than everyone else, at least not by what you are saying in this conversation. (lol @ you enlightening us on what exaggeration is)

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Requiem18th]

But it is.

Re:I wonder who they forgot to bribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me doctor "euroq" which of the f4X does Hungus fall under?

1)

The guy said that 51% of a vote was all that was needed to convict someone to death, regardless of what the actual vote was

False What he said was:

Socrates was killed with a simply 51% vote. No trial; no lawyers; nothing to protect his right to speak his mind.

2)

You think that everyone is stupid because the actual vote was 56%,

False What was said was

if you cannot understand even this then the rest of the conversation is useless

a point which you have so graciously proven.

3)

I didn't say anything about a republic vs. direct democracy.

The OP did however:

The purpose of a Republic is to have a Supreme Law that protects the minority from such abuses, and which no one, ideally, can remove by a simple 51% vote. The Law of Individual Rights reigns supreme even above the government or its representatives, and can not be revoked.

It isn't a perfect system, but it's certainly much better than a Democracy. Socrates was killed with a simply 51% vote. No trial; no lawyers; nothing to protect his right to speak his mind. The Demos killed him because they didn't like him. That's what a democracy gives you.

3 Strikes .... and you out. Have a nice life. Be sure to come back and post once you understand rudimentary logic, rhetoric and argumentation.

Cooperating?

[Anonymous Coward]

The country's Cyber Terror Response Center broke the encryption on hard drives raided from Google last August and confirmed that private information had been gathered, violating South Korea's telecommunications laws.

[..]

"We have been cooperating with the Korean Communications Commission and the police, and will continue to do so,' said a Google Korea spokesperson."

So if Google is cooperating with the police, why did they have to break the hard drive encryption?

Re:Cooperating?

[pspahn]

cats and mice.

Re:Cooperating?

[daremonai]

I doubt seriously they "broke" any encryption. If there were any serious encryption on the disks, it wouldn't be breakable in such a short time period.

More likely, in that case, is that Google just provided them the keys, but they thought it sounded cooler to say they "broke" the encryption.

Re:Cooperating?

[daremonai]

Thinking about it a little more, my guess is that the police just said they deciphered the disks, and the news media interpreted that as "breaking" the encryption.

Re:Cooperating?

[pnewhook]

Most consumer grade encryption is basically pointless in the ease it can be cracked. It's like a lock on a car door. If you want in you'll get in easily - it just stops the idle passer by from poking around inside.

anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

Anyone who believes Google did this by accident is a fucking idiot. Of course, their motivation may not have been to actually use this data, but to test government response to data collection on such a grand scale and open the dialogue for reduced privacy rights.

Let us ignore what Google says and ignore what involved governments say, instead watching what each group is actually doing in terms of respecting privacy and other privileges to data.

Also, to occupatio the inevitable: no, you don't have a right to record it on a grand scale just because you can eavesdrop it. Not until I can use my infrared camera and highly sensitive microphone to upload video of your daughter on the toilet.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[pelrun]

Bollocks. This is Google, not Facebook.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Sarten-X]

Hi. I'm a software engineer. A few months ago, I dumped a few million social security numbers to a log file. It sure is a good thing I turned off that logging before I switched projects.... Of course, it was turned on for five days until that happened, and nobody realized that SSNs were part of that log.

Life with data is difficult. Fields of "arbitrary data" are logged, sometimes publicly. There's nothing any reasonable person or company can do to stop it. The best they can hope for is that they've hired ethical people who will respect the limits of what they should and should not see.

s/\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}/SSN-SS-NSSN/g

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking idiot for thinking they'd capture WLAN traffic to gather private data. Hello? Someone left up there? It's frickin google. They can gather more private data from their servers in a second then all google streetcars could in a decade.....

Accidentally capturing WLAN traffic while charting APs sounds like a very reasonable explanation. Kismet in default settings anyone? Why make up some great conspiracy when the truth is so much more probable?

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[gravos]

Personally I am not a huge fan of gargantuan multinational corporations, so if Google loses billions over this it wouldn't really bother me. But judging from the thoughts of people I know who actually work at Google (as opposed to someone whose handle is FuckingNickName), it's unlikely that the engineer who wrote the code was intentionally violating any laws. Even if he meant to collect the data, he probably didn't realize the implications of doing so.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Burnhard]

Yes, I was just thinking that when reading the headline. I was trying to work out how you capture and archive data like this "by accident".

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Chuck Chunder]

Being called an idiot by someone who is obviously an idiot doesn't hurt that much.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[pspahn]

so if Google loses billions over this it wouldn't really bother me.

Oh but it might. I'm sure it's arguable by people in power that Google has become too big to fail. The economic prosperity of Google accounts for a lot of jobs that are still left this side of the Pacific. If these "slip ups" continue, it will get to a point that they deviate from their mission and end up like every other corporation before them.

I thought they were supposed to be better than that?

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

Are you paying attention? I as much as stated that they might not have done it to gather private data but to stimulate debate on privacy issues.

Accidentally capturing WLAN traffic while charting APs sounds like a very reasonable explanation. Kismet in default settings anyone?

Because of your ego, you're assuming Google project leaders are not much brighter than you. I tend to assume that all people high up in large organisations (government or otherwise) are brighter than me: if it's not obvious why they've done something, it's because I'm not smart enough to have figured out why yet. Geeks tend to be so full of themselves that they assume stupidity rather than subtle intent for any human action they can't explain, but I pride myself in having grown out of the "ppl r just dumb (altho im quite smart)" mindset.

To assert that so much data is useless and must have been recorded accidentally is to reach cult-like levels of apology when referring to the biggest data miner in history.

Even if you don't see any value today in information on how people use wireless networks (you know, for targeted ad systems and all that jazz), the data might be useful at a later date, so why not gather it?

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

Hi, can you confirm that you reported your mistake to your employers and that your employers reported their mistake to anyone affected by your action?

I'm sure you'll come round with "but all the logs and their backups and so on were wiped!" - but since you made the mistake of logging the information in the first place, how can I trust that you didn't also make a mistake when wiping?

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Cyberllama]

It was a pretty obvious accident, if you understood the technical explanation of what happened. The problem is, if you don't, it sounds like something that couldn't possibly be an accident. The crux of the matter is this:

They were gathering data on purpose. This was NOT the data they were trying to gather. They were trying to gather WiFi SSIDs for geolocation purposes. Unfortunately, the code was simply sloppy. It needed the first X bytes of the packet (which contain the SSID and ended up getting the first X+64. In other words, they weren't even capturing *entire* Payloads of packets -- only fragments of payloads. The data they were trying to gather is perfectly fair game and not at all a privacy issue. All devices do this to some extent, its how they find out what networks are around you and whether or not they're encrypted. You can't simply rely on the broadcast packets for that purpose.

If this was an accident, it was the result of the programmer doing a half-assed job. If it wasn't, however, then the programmer did a completely incompetent half-assed job. If he was *trying* to get this data, then he did it in probably the stupidest possible manner. The only logical conclusion to draw is that it was genuinely an accident.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[commodore64_love]

>>>you don't have a right to record it on a grand scale just because you can eavesdrop it.

Sorry bud but if your daughter strolls across your front yard completely nude or almost-nude bikini, first I will laugh, then I will record it. You don't have a right to privacy when your broadcasting your business within sight of my eyes or ears. As has been said many times, you don't have a right to free speech on a private website or forum. Neither do you have a right to privacy when dealing with a private videographer camming a public street.

If you happen to bikini sunbathing in your front yard when the Google van drives by, and it later gets uploaded to their mapsite, well tough shit. Maybe you shouldn't be displaying yourself to all the world. Or better yet: Accept the fact that whatever you do in public, IS public. To everyone.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

I'm sorry, what? If I was trying to record SSIDs, I'd read the packet containing the SSID then extract and log the SSID. If I was trying to record the first X+64 bytes then I'd record the first X+64 bytes.

And if I wasn't Google and couldn't afford to employ a programmer with any training or experience whatever, who for whatever reason confused himself to the point that "log the SSID" is interpreted as "log the first n bytes of the packet", it'd've been caught in code review.

And if it wasn't caught in code review, it'd've been caught after the first careful manual review of data following the first test run.

And if it wasn't caught then, it'd've been caught at the first review of real data collection.

You have to go out of your way in both ignoring spec and ignoring any sort of proper coding or testing practice in order for this to have happened.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Chuck Chunder]

It's not particularly hard to work out. They were interested in a couple of pieces of information from Wifi (basically SSID and MAC information) but it's not as if they can sniff for only those bits of info. Rather they are going to receive whole packets of information. Their mistake was in not immediately filtering out the parts they weren't interested in prior to writing it to disk. Google have provided fuller explanations of what happened.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

And that's a strawman. We're discussing whether (radio, sound) waves which can be picked up with suitably advanced tech should be recorded, not whether the behaviour of my eyes can be replicated.

For example, am I allowed to sit outside your house with an infrared camera and sensitive microphone to capture and broadcast your daughter masturbating in the shower?

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

Google have provided fuller explanations [blogspot.com] of what happened.

Is that an independent audit by someone with a recognised reputation, or the accused party giving its side of the story and your requiring us to beg the question?

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[commodore64_love]

>>>And that's a strawman.

No it isn't. YOU'RE the guy who brought-up the recording of somebody's daughter ("upload video of your daughter on the toilet"), and I responded to that by saying, IF she's doing it in the front yard then yes a guy with a camera has every right to record it. There is no expectation of privacy in a public view.

Now INSIDE your house, then yes said "daughter" has a right to privacy. And I addressed that in a separate post: "A reasonable limit might be to disallow recording of any sound (or sight) that is not detectable by human ears/eyes."

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he didn't. See TFA and your original retarded comment for the reason why.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Chuck Chunder]

Geeks tend to be so full of themselves that they assume stupidity rather than subtle intent for any human action they can't explain, but I pride myself in having grown out of the "ppl r just dumb (altho im quite smart)" mindset.

Ironic then that you are the one coming across as being so full of himself, claiming some insight into subtle intent that us poor idiots can't divine. You seem transfixed on "stupidity". I think it makes more sense to consider fallibility as an inherently human trait, present no matter how "high up" people may be in a "large organisation".

To assert that so much data is useless and must have been recorded accidentally is to reach cult-like levels of apology when referring to the biggest data miner in history.

I humbly suggest that to assert the data must have been recorded intentionally requires an equally uncritical manner of thought.

A single command line option would have spared Google this embarrassment. It wasn't set and went undetected, probably because more attention was put into ensuring that is was capturing the needed information rather than checking it wasn't capturing data they weren't looking at anyway. The reality is that setting a single command line option would have avoided Google collecting the additional data, however not settin

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you can tell so much more about a person from 64 bytes of data pulled from a random IP packet than you can from their entire search, browsing and email history.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[AHuxley]

"technical explanation of what happened" is they fixed all their fleet with sensitive wifi collection systems, rolled them out and sucked up all the data they could.
"geolocation purposes" was a nice motive, yes they may have been 'simply sloppy", but they did know it was "a privacy issue".
Google just hoped laws would bend in some digital wifi gold rush and google would have a full set of early, ad/wealth maps of wifi geolocation in one early easy, pass.
A "half-assed job" would be a few cars/vans in some cities, this was much more global and the "project leaders" well above their "programmers" signed off on it.
The rest was early PR spin to stop the story, then more PR to make it pass.
Recall http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2010/04/data-collected-by-google-cars.html
"Is it, as the German DPA states, illegal to collect WiFi network information?
We do not believe it is illegal--this is all publicly broadcast information which is accessible to anyone with a WiFi-enabled device."
"Genuinely an accident" would be a van, a city, a country... and code review/legal would have picked it up.
It was then "mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected)"..

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Chuck Chunder]

That only holds if avoiding capturing the data frame was part of the spec.

If I was trying to record SSIDs, I'd read the packet containing the SSID then extract and log the SSID. If I was trying to record the first X+64 bytes then I'd record the first X+64 bytes.

If you were writing the code from scratch for a single purpose maybe. If you were leveraging existing code that may, incidentally to your requirements, do other things you may not worry about them too much as long as it achieves, at minimum, what you require.

The software used here was configurable as to whether it logs the data frame (defaulting to capture). If avoiding capturing the data frame wasn't specifically part of the spec for the deployment then:
a) The programmer may not have considered turning it off.
b) Any review may not have considered it an issue.


Uncaught bugs happen during software development and deployment all the time and the issue here wasn't one which affected the stated purpose of the program. As such it's hardly unimaginable that it was a simple oversight.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

"On the toilet" is a British English version of "in the bathroom". I could have offered "in the loo", "on the bog", "dropping the kids off at the station", etc. In the 21st century, that means inside your house. And if Google can collect something leaking from your house around 100mm then I can record leaks of leaks between 1 and 350um.

But I'm glad we agree that any waves not detectable by human ears/eyes should not be recorded without permission.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

The software used here was configurable as to whether it logs the data frame (defaulting to capture).

So the kid just out of vocational college might forget to review a configuration file when running some software on his home laptop. The biggest data miner in the world with a challenging barrier to employment and multiple code reviews will not make this sort of oversight.

Uncaught bugs happen during software development and deployment all the time

One single review of the logged data would have caught this. Since it would be absurd to assume that Google didn't perform any reviews of logged data (even summary information on amount logged) during the exercise, we must assume that it was intentional.

Give it up. Even the smallest accountant would know to audit his processes and his records when performing any data collection. The difference between that accountant and Google is that we know Google has and employs the resources to continuously and carefully analyse personal data.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

Well, yes, you can find out some of what people across the world are doing with their own wireless networks, which is not the same as finding out what they're doing on the Internet while they use Google services or services supported by Google.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

Ironic then that you are the one coming across as being so full of himself, claiming some insight into subtle intent that us poor idiots can't divine.

You are asserting that it must be Google's stupidity. I am suggesting that it's better to be humble about your own abilities (e.g. to discern intent) while not assuming others are stupid.

I don't know precisely why Google did it, but I think it is the height of egomania to accuse them of gross negligence.

I think it makes more sense to consider fallibility as an inherently human trait, present no matter how "high up" people may be in a "large organisation".

This isn't an oversight of something subtle or complex corporate machinery repressing glorious logic. This is the professional fencer running around the streets waving his foil around and expressing shock that he injured random passers by.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[iserlohn]

Talk about a double standard.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[iserlohn]

You're making a extremely dangerous assumption here in implying guilt for a crime that doesn't exist. You need to have a reasonable expectation of privacy to get protection from privacy law. It would be extremely difficult to argue that you can reasonably expect privacy when you are sending data in the clear on unencrypted WIFI networks. No doubt that in court, this will be thrown out after a bit of grandstanding from the prosecution.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[iserlohn]

Being obnoxious doesn't make you right. Privacy violations requires that the victim have reasonable expectation of privacy in the first place. The courts usually decide reasonableness using a objective test (while negligence, for example, can be either objective or subjective). This is usually done by hypothesizing the stance of a "reasonable man" (or woman) with understanding of the subject, but not a specialist. In this case, it means that they should understand the fundamentals of how the apparatus they are operating works, and the difference of whether something is encrypted or not is definitely something to be considered.

Your infrared example does not make any sense. It is impractical for you to shield your infrared signatures in your day-to-day activities, while turning on encryption on wireless networks is not only easy, but highly recommended both as a service provider and a user.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what they say: It takes one to know one.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

t. Privacy violations requires that the victim have reasonable expectation of privacy in the first place.

On the contrary, privacy should be default in a civilised nation. If you want to process personal data then you should have permission. The EU recognises this with the principles behind various member states' data protection laws.

You can argue that there are times permission is given implicitly: for example, if you are in the background of a photograph taken in a public park. "Some data was leaking through the house walls and I can afford equipment to receive it," isn't giving permission. And encryption is irrelevant: the purpose of encryption is to stop the malicious, not to create an arms race with those who want to capture your data.

It is impractical for you to shield your infrared signatures in your day-to-day activities, while turning on encryption on wireless networks is not only easy,

"Might makes right," is not a suitable basis for society or law. Regardless, turning on encryption may be easy if you're a geek, but even understanding the nature of radio waves required millennia of technological development.

How is it that any suitable equipment can receive a radio wave which passes through it? How do you know that a supporting system can probably interpret what's not strongly encrypted? What is encryption? Two decades ago, few would have been able to well answer all these questions; two hundred years ago, no-one could. If you think that the answer to these questions are obvious it's because you lack imagination and can't conceive that the answers could have been different.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

The contentious act is recording personal data relating to millions of people across the world without implied or express permission from those people.

It is not reasonable for Google to say, "They couldn't reasonably expect privacy!" Instead, the onus is on Google to explain how WiFi users gave Google permission to collect this data.

Having the ability to eavesdrop is not receiving permission to eavesdrop.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[bonch]

It's not as if Google's CEO said that only people who have something to hide care about privacy or anything.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[bonch]

It was a pretty obvious accident, if you understood the technical explanation of what happened.

So why did they store the data for several years?

The data they were trying to gather is perfectly fair game and not at all a privacy issue.

People repeat this in every Google Street View story, and it's not true, as evidenced by this article. Privacy laws around the world prohibit this kind of data collection, which is why Google is under investigation in multiple countries.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[bonch]

Did you read the article? How is it going to get thrown out of court if Google clearly violated Korean privacy laws?

By your logic, I'm allowed to use sensitive microphone technology to pick up all the sounds in your house from the street. After all, you're publicly transmitting your soundwaves through the atmosphere.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Anonymous Coward]

Being called an idiot by someone who is an idiot should make you wonder what you did to be called an idiot by an idiot..

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Sarten-X]

It doesn't matter if I did or not (though I did), because in my company had contracts authorizing us to use the data however we wanted. I'm fairly sure we could run the SSNs across a 6-foot-tall marquee in the office and been legally clear, as long as no visitors were in the office.

All the logs were stored on encrypted volumes anyway, in known locations. Since the information never (because of preexisting security) left the company, no reporting was needed. Then there's the time where my team intentionally bypassed security layers to view other personal (protected) numbers, because we needed to see what they looked like to understand a production-only bug...

My point is that storing recorded information is ridiculously easy, and recording information is part of the job. Google was intending to collect basic wifi information (ESSID and channel, as I recall), and ended up storing a lot more than that (probably to try to only run the vans once). I've long since lost interest in the details of this case, but I'd assume Google vans just stored everything they received, and processed it later. That intermediate storage, never meant to be used or released to the public, would constitute "eavesdropping" under loosely-worded laws.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[arose]

They were not an accused party when they came clear and probably would never have been if they'd just wiped the disks instead of doing the right thing.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, can you confirm that you reported your mistake to your employers and that your employers reported their mistake to anyone affected by your action?

In the real world the messenger bearing bad news gets shot.

but since you made the mistake of logging the information in the first place, how can I trust that you didn't also make a mistake when wiping?

If you're that sceptical, why are you even bothering to ask these questions anyway? How can you trust his answers?

The real problem is believing people are who they claim they are just because those people can give an SSN and other easily obtainable stuff.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

It doesn't matter if I did or not (though I did), because in my company had contracts authorizing us to use the data however we wanted.

1. "Only following contract/orders" is no excuse, as every single professional organisation will tell you;
2. SSNs/local equivalents are subject to regulation in many jurisdictions. The law trumps your contract.

All the logs were stored on encrypted volumes anyway, in known locations. Since the information never (because of preexisting security) left the company, no reporting was needed.

I see. So I'm supposed to trust your competence here even though you're demonstrably incompetent when it comes to the simpler task of correct logging.

The correct procedure is to issue a notice to anyone whose data you are handling of: (i) what you did wrong; (ii) what you believe the impact was and why; (iii) and how it was corrected. This applies even when your hubris makes you 100% sure that nothing could possibly have gone wrong. Then people have something to work with in the event that you were wrong and data was leaked.

Then there's the time where my team intentionally bypassed security layers to view other personal (protected) numbers, because we needed to see what they looked like to understand a production-only bug...

The correct procedure here is to incorporate test users in the production database, carefully marked and maintained by testing staff acting within prescribed limits as regular users, not to randomly select a customer as a guinea pig for fixing your bugs. Developers are by policy permitted special access to these records alone.

My point is that storing recorded information is ridiculously easy

Indeed. But storing information ethically and legally is hard. If your ability ends at "I can store information" then someone made a grave mistake when employing you.

In a previous life I worked with a firm providing support software to four of the Big 5 (then) accountancy firms. Making sure

(i) all clients / data subjects agree to whatever you do with their data; and

(ii) they're aware of absolutely anything you did which they may not have been agreed to or expected

was a key part of the trust maintained between us and our clients. Maybe it's harder in the litigious US, but an honest firm which is able to admit (to the appropriate parties) when it's fucked up makes for a far healthier business environment than one which hides its problems. No?

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

In the real world the messenger bearing bad news gets shot.

Certain mature business environments understand that mistakes are made and know that it is far healthier and more productive for cooperating individuals/departments/firms to be open than to cover up mistakes.

If you're that sceptical, why are you even bothering to ask these questions anyway? How can you trust his answers?

I can't trust his answers, but anyone who is open and honest (and ultimately, if I am a business partner, allows me to inspect his processes and systems) is more likely to be telling the truth.

The real problem is believing people are who they claim they are just because those people can give an SSN and other easily obtainable stuff.

That's a problem, but a separate one. There is no silver bulllet technological solution to the social problem of identity theft, only an arms race.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

Or maybe they found out that an anonymous/ex-employee was about to release the information. Or maybe they wanted to stimulate debate with a carefully engineered announcement of bullshit. Who knows? Without proof, I can't come to the conclusion that Google are honest simpletons - especially given so much evidence to the contrary.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Chuck Chunder]

You are asserting that it must be Google's stupidity

I am not asserting that it "must" be anything. I am saying that Google's own explanation that it is a simple oversight seems entirely plausible.

I think it is the height of egomania to accuse them of gross negligence.

I am accusing them of nothing. I am looking at what they say happened and assessing it as sounding plausible.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

You're calling me an idiot and the centrepiece of your argument is that I don't trust Google's story.

Google wrote software, gslite, to log a packet provided by kismet along with time and GPS location. They admit this much. Their claim is that they accidentally put their software into production around the world without testing or monitoring of results as they came in. This is hilarious.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[iserlohn]

1) Encryption is significant. It signifies that you have taken steps to protect your data (and hence your privacy). It is the digital equivalent to a lock. It doesn't matter that a physical lock is pickable. The presence of the lock indicates to the person walking by that this gate is protected. The same principle is applied.

This is also the reason why many geeks don't understand why some companies are happy with weak encryption protection in their products. The very act of encryption, even if it is using a 56-bit key that had been uploaded onto rapidshare, communicates to the recipient - "you must be authorized to view this data". The law places great emphasis on this.

2) I never said anything about "might". The law concerns itself quite a lot with pragmatism. It is easy for the AP owner to secure his wireless transmissions. Therefore, his failure to do so indicates that he does not expect his data to remain private when transmitted in this fashion in the clear.

Conversely, if somebody is worried that his infrared transmission being visible from the outside, he or she would need to cover his house with space-grade heat foil, at great expense, and probably ruin the aesthetics of his house, to the objections of his neighbors. Therefore, in this case, we cannot take the lack of precautions to mean the lack of expectation of privacy.

3) In any case, what we have been discussing is peripheral to the actual issue. Directive 95/46/EC, which is what Google was accused violating, is incredibly vague, together with the issue that it has to be transposed into national law before it takes effect against private organizations (like Google). Many transposition of EU directives have discrepancies, and this includes the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, which transposed the above directive. With regards to the DPA 1998, it is arguable whether Google's storage of WIFI frames can be construed as "collecting" in the sense of the DPA 1998 as the data in the payload portion is only "incidental". Furthermore, it is likely to be exempted from many of the requirements due to it being used for statistical purposes as per s33 of the DPA 1998.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[FuckingNickName]

You appear to be considering UK law.

(1) Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 5(b)(i). By default, no wireless telegraphy may be intercepted. This is the opposite to US tradition (although this was modified for certain bands), but the basic principle is that UK wireless users get privacy unless they give express permission otherwise.

(2) However you'd like the law to be is irrelevant. And properly securing your home systems and network against a determined eavesdropper is very hard. Hell, until recently simply choosing a moderately secure WiFi protocol required a degree of knowledge far beyond the average user's. The law should not enforce a technocracy.

(3) Yes, EU directives are deliberately and annoyingly vague. But recording of the whole packet was not incidental and you can't just record anything then claim you're only going to use it for statistical purposes.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[gottabeme]

Why wouldn't they store the data? What incentive do they have to delete it? Do you have any idea how much storage capacity Google has? The fact is that there shouldn't have been any privacy-sensitive data in there, because it was captured from in-the-clear transmissions.

Do you suggest that it ought to be illegal to stand on the sidewalk and look through a window in a building, or listen to the sounds coming out of a building? Because that's no different than receiving in-the-clear wireless network transmissions: it's just another kind of wireless transmission.

If Google had cracked encrypted data, that'd be a completely different matter.

If you're arguing that Google should have been more proactive to avoid capturing anything but the SSIDs, in the off chance that some other data might have been captured which wasn't intended for in-the-clear transmission, I can agree with that. But there's no way it should be required by law, and there's no way it should be a crime to not do so. The onus should be on those transmitting to ensure that they aren't transmitting sensitive data in the clear. If you say Google should be more responsible for their actions, the same principle applies to those running wireless networks: they also should exercise due diligence, and Google shouldn't be faulted for the transmitters' negligence.

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Sarten-X]

1. "Only following contract/orders" is no excuse, as every single professional organisation will tell you; 2. SSNs/local equivalents are subject to regulation in many jurisdictions. The law trumps your contract.

The law in our jurisdiction, as stated by our lawyers, does not require any kind of notification unless a threshold number of users are affected, and their protected information leaves a reasonable authorized area. There is no definition for an authorized area. The law doesn't affect us, so the contract has more restrictive limits, cutting back the authorized area to just our company.

So I'm supposed to trust your competence here even though you're demonstrably incompetent when it comes to the simpler task of correct logging.

I think I showed myself perfectly competent. We were looking for a given condition that triggered a rare bug. We were unable to reproduce the bug in test cases. I logged everything relevant, and caught the bug. The logs were then stripped of all protected information. According to all applicable legal restrictions, even that's unnecessary.

The correct procedure is to issue a notice to anyone whose data you are handling of: (i) what you did wrong; (ii) what you believe the impact was and why; (iii) and how it was corrected.

The correct procedure, according to all applicable laws, is to do our jobs. If and only if a large release (or breach) occurs, we are required to go through the notification process only if it's likely that protected data could be accessed. Such a process is very expensive, to the point where a single incident would have bankrupted our company back then. Obscene privacy to the point of killing innovation is useless.

The correct procedure in an ideal world is to have a unique identifier for every person for every place they want it. SSNs only have one billion combinations, and the easy ones (123-45-6789) get used all the time. Then, every institution using that number could record its use, and there would be a central place where it could be monitored. The whole thing would be funded by leprechauns, powered by unicorns, and secured with magic pixie dust.

The correct procedure, according to my opinion, is to screw over every idiot who fights against a national ID number. My company had no relation to Social Security, and indeed no financial-history need at all. We used the SSN as a global identifier, because it's the best there is in the United States for correlating personal records across different sources.

This applies even when your hubris makes you 100% sure that nothing could possibly have gone wrong.

Fortunately, you aren't in charge. The law (and common sense) requires that we follow appropriate procedures based on a risk assessment. If a heavily-encrypted hard drive is stolen, there's practically no chance the data is public. If we learn the data is somehow public, we must respond accordingly. We proceed based on knowledge, not fear.

Then people have something to work with in the event that you were wrong and data was leaked.

You mean like the note in the operations log saying I modified the other log? How about the note in my supervisor's notebook where I explained "I'm going to just log all of X to find what's triggering the bug"?

The correct procedure here is to incorporate test users in the production database, carefully marked and maintained by testing staff acting within prescribed limits as regular users, not to randomly select a customer as a guinea pig for fixing your bugs.

We tried that for two days first. Test cases didn't trigger the bug.

Developers are by policy permitted special access to these records alone.

Not when it's another company's data source, to which we're only allowed access by the aforementioned contract, and we can't change anything. Sure, we made our te

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[arose]

Without proof, I can't come to the conclusion that Google are honest simpletons - especially given so much evidence to the contrary.

What evidence? You have speculation that they might have wanted random snippets of (let's be honest) crap. Or alternatively, that they'd stick their neck out to "stimulate debate" (to what end?).

Re:anyone who believes Google did this by accident

[Cyberllama]

The SSID is in every packet in the headers. Yes there are broadcast packets that specifically announce the network (if you haven't disabled them), but if you're driving through the area and will only be in range of a given network for a second or two, you can't really rely on seeing one. So you just grab any packet, cut out the important bit, and dump it on a hard drive.

In this particular case, the part that was being saved contained some extra data -- part of the payload. There was not enough truncation happening. Apparently he just grabbed some code from some other project, and quickly modified it to this task and did a sloppy job of it. Simple as that. An easy, though careless, mistake.

Again, you'd really have to be wearing a tinfoil hat to think that Google did this on purpose. Ignoring the perfectly rational explanation, you'd have to try to imagine some weird reason why Google would capture partial payloads on purpose. If they wanted payload data, why not take all of it? Moreover, what nefarious purpose could they possibly have been planning with this data -- given that they're only getting a few packets per network as they drive past -- it's mostly acks and other worthless chatter. If they wanted, for instance, email addresses, they'd get VERY, VERY few relative to the quantity of data (and the total amount of data captured wasn't even significant, since they were such tiny pieces -- It could all fit on a single hard drive easily).

Given all that, if Google really had some evil plan, why did they fess up? They were asked by the German government what sort of data they were collecting. They did an internal audit, found the extra bytes in what they had been collecting, and immediately announced it to the world with an apology. Why not simply delete it and keep quiet? Nobody would have ever known . . .

If this is Google being evil, then Google is downright schizophrenic. I'm afraid I'm simply going to have to invoke Occam's razor here and point out that the simplest explanation is not the weird conspiracy theory where Google has unclear, but evil, motivations and incompetently pursues them before admitting it to everyone and giving up. That simply does not make sense.

Who cares about Streetview data?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me more about "broke the encryption on hard drives raided from Google"! You can't drop a bomb like that and then continue talking about random email and text messages like that is the important bit.

The South Korean Government is no fan of Google's

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no secret that the South Korean government isn't overly fond of Google - the company has shown reluctance in cooperating with that country's repressive internet laws (possibly the worst among democratic countries). For example, large websites in Korea are required to make users post under their real name (verified by their national ID number). Rather than be complicit in this, Google chose to block posts to YouTube from Korea (while encouraging those users to change their country preference to somewhere else, thus evading the block): http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/349076.html

Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[Compaqt]

that all Giggle was doing was recording aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum that was hitting their equipment:

What's the limit to that?

Is it also OK to record faint sound waves emitted from a given StreetView address?

Is it also OK to record GSM cell phone transmissions (recently shown vulnerable to cracking)?

Is it also OK to set up a listening device to log the electromagnetic signature emitted by monitors and keyboards, and then associate that with a given StreetView address in your database?

Would it also be OK to use a high-power lens to record photons leaking beyond a window that you thought you had pulled the curtain on?

Would it also be OK to record infrared heat signatures of building occupants walking around or doing whatever?

And if a "normal" person (not a corporation with cute logo) did all this, wouldn't he be arrested for stalking?

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[Anonymous Coward]

"And if a "normal" person (not a corporation with cute logo) did all this, wouldn't he be arrested for stalking?"

No they wouldn't there used to be highly detailed maps of the UK hotspots obtained by wardriving. Which is all google were doing. No-one seemed bothered about this until google started wardriving.

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[pspahn]

Wardriving is one thing. Industrial strength wardriving is another.

Or do you think going fishing with your buddies on the weekend is the same thing as trawling nets across the Florida Keys?

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[commodore64_love]

A reasonable limit might be to disallow recording of any sound (or sight) that is not detectable by human ears/eyes.

So if the sound is below, say, 10 dB then it would be forbidden by private persons/companies to record it. Or if the EM captured is below 50 lux(?) that too would be forbidden to record. That would stop them from using super-sensitive equipment to hear conversations in the kitchen, or take a peak into darkened bedrooms.

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[VortexCortex]

that all Giggle was doing was recording aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum that was hitting their equipment:

What's the limit to that?

The limit is the expectation of privacy. I do not expect my 200ft range non encrypted WiFi to be private. I do not expect the SSID & MAC broadcasts of my router to be private. Turn on your wifi, view available networks. See any that arn't yours? Guess what? You just did EXACTLY what Google has done -- except that Google logged the WiFi data from all over the world. I don't expect sound, light and/or RF waves that can be clearly discerned from more than 200ft away from my house to be private -- The police can use such emanations (e.g. gun fire) as probable cause to enter without a warrant; If I was broadcasting FM radio signal at the range my router does for 2.4Ghz, without a license, the FCC could use such recordings as evidence against me and ticket me for having a pirate radio station....

Such emanations are not considered private.

Once I set up a new WRT54GL. The SSID was "linksys" by default. I connected to it via my laptop, later I changed the SSID & enabled encryption. Two days latter I was at a friends house using my laptop -- It automatically connected to my friend's neighbor's WIFI -- their router SSID was "linksys" and was not password protected or encrypted. I disconnected, but meanwhile, did I just break the law because someone is too stupid to setup their router? Should I be fined? NO.

Is it also OK to record faint sound waves emitted from a given StreetView address?

Google did not do this. A more equivalent question would be: Is it also OK to stand in the street with a microphone and record the very loud shouting match that is occurring in a house 50 ft away, behind closed doors, yet is easily discernible to normal human hearing at the same range?

Is it also OK to record GSM cell phone transmissions (recently shown vulnerable to cracking)?

Yep! It's OK to record any EM you can build an antenna to detect. Is it OK to aim a satellite dish at a satellite that is broadcasting encrypted data? Yes. Is it OK to decrypt the data? No. Is it OK to access unencrypted transmissions without express permission If the data is not encrypted? Yes (Hint: TV & AM/FM radio).

I have never been comfortable revealing login credentials over any phone system -- wireless or otherwise. I know it's not private.

Is it also OK to set up a listening device to log the electromagnetic signature emitted by monitors and keyboards, and then associate that with a given StreetView address in your database?

Should It be illegal to walk around the neighborhood and take pictures and films of birds and trees? What if a house is in the background? Should it be illegal to geo-tag my video of a blue-jay attacking a cat and upload it to Youtube?
What if your monitor is causing interference with my camera's audio recording? I would have captured some EM signal -- Where does the insanity begin?

Would it also be OK to use a high-power lens to record photons leaking beyond a window that you thought you had pulled the curtain on?

Would it be illegal for me to testify that I heard screams and gunshots coming from a house, and describe the person I caught a glimpse of via a window that the murderer thought they had pulled the curtain on? Would it be illegal if I had picked up my video recorder and used it to record the same information?

Would it also be OK to record infrared heat signatures of building occupants walking around or doing whatever?

Yep. In my town the cops use infrared cameras and do flyovers to find hot-spots where folks are growing marijuana in their attics... All energy is information. If it is escaping into the public -- it's public information.

And if a "normal"

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[VortexCortex]

Wardriving is one thing. Industrial strength wardriving is another.

Or do you think going fishing with your buddies on the weekend is the same thing as trawling nets across the Florida Keys?

Whispering is one thing. Shouting is another.

Or do you think that shouting at your buddies loud enough to be heard in the next house over has the same expectation of privacy as whispering behind closed doors?

Wifi is shouting. Ethernet is not.

Shouting in a made up language that only you and your buddies understand gives you a degree of secrecy, but when doing so you must realize that everyone within earshot can still hear you. Additionally, if you begin the made up language sentences with a common addressing protocol such as "Hey, Tim! Honk, honk, blarg, honk!", or "SSID, MAC, [encrypted data]" you shouldn't expect the non secret "Hey, Tim" or "SSID/MAC" part to be secret.

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a really bad analogy as they are totally different procedures.

1) a bunch of amateurs in cars cover my whole city in war drive.
2) google in two cars cover my whole city in a war drive.

The only difference was it took google a lot longer to gather the information.

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[mangu]

A reasonable limit might be to disallow recording of any sound (or sight) that is not detectable by human ears/eyes.

So, telephoto lenses should be illegal? Directional microphones? How would you record a speech in a public place?

I recommend you watch a classic film from the 1960s, "Blowup" by Michelangelo Antonioni where a photographer unknowingly takes a picture of a murder in a public park. Even simple equipment may capture sounds and sights that humans wouldn't detect.

The rule should be expect no privacy in public places. And in private places be discreet. If the neighbors can hear your wife screaming while you have sex, it's not their fault. If the neighbors can see your WiFi network it's not their fault either.

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[rrossman2]

... I'm just wondering wtf Giggle is

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[bonch]

This is Slashdot, where the mantra seems to be: "If I can do it, it's okay."

Re:Before someone gives the reductionist answer

[Compaqt]

It's quite pathetic that you haven't gotten modded up yet, because your response is a good and detailed one.

I definitely concede that it's a complicated issue.

On the one hand, I'd like to preserve the right to tinker, including exploring electromagnetic phenomena.

On the other hand, industrial, automated recording of such signals seems to be another kind of insanity.

Encryption broken?

[hcs_$reboot]

“We succeeded in breaking the encryption behind the hard drives, and confirmed that it contained personal e-mails and text messages of people using the Wi-Fi networks,” said a [Korean] police official.

I was however assuming
1. that in such case Google would have been legally forced to provide the encryption key,
2. and anyway, that a HD encrypted by Google wouldn't be so (apparently) easy to break.

Re:Encryption broken?

[_merlin]

and anyway, that a HD encrypted by Google wouldn't be so (apparently) easy to break.

They probably doubled the security by using ROT26!

Re:Encryption broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Zergs have very advanced technology, technology that far surpasses anything we have.

Re:Encryption broken?

[AmberBlackCat]

The only lesson to learn from that is don't assume something like TrueCrypt is enough to protect you from the government. Of course that assumes Google was using serious encryption.

Re:Encryption broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google employee probably used a password to encrypt the disc.

Re:Encryption broken?

[Qwavel]

The facts that he confirmed have already been reported in about a million news articles. This information was first reported by the French authorities last Spring. Google themselves confirmed it in the fall.

Come to think of it, I think we've probably had about 10 articles on /. about exactly the same thing. If we assume that /. will run this item for every single country that 'discovers' the problem then I guess we have about 90 more /. articles to go.

Re:Encryption broken?

[marcosdumay]

Or, maybe they used 1 to break the encryption, making point 2 moot.

Re:Encryption broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

it was the encrypted wifi not the HD encryption

Re:Encryption broken?

[slaad]

2. and anyway, that a HD encrypted by Google wouldn't be so (apparently) easy to break.

That was my first thought as well. Given how much most people know about encryption though, I'd be willing to bet that it wasn't even encrypted. There was probably some aspect of the data that was encoded in some way and the official(s) who wrote and/or gave the statement just said encryption.

Re:Encryption broken?

[ian_from_brisbane]

There was probably some aspect of the data that was encoded in some way

Like this:

A=U
B=R
C=Q
...
X=P
Y=E
Z=A
etc.

wrong way

[Anonymous Coward]

while it would really surprise me if they collected all the data on accident, i still think many governments are going the wrong way here.

ok, they collected something that they shouldn't, let them destroy it. if you wish, stand next to them while they destroy it, fine them for having collected it in the first place.

but do not demand the data that shouldn't have been. what do you want to do with it? its like stoping a coke trade and then keeping all the drugs, not destroying them. i am sure it happens, but it is wrong.

Hang on...

[c0lo]

... letting aside the "breaking the encryption behind the hard-drives" containing "sensitive private information from unencrypted wireless networks during the filming process."... what the hell is with:

“We are looking to penalize whoever ordered and developed the program, but are unsure as of yet who that might be,” said a police official.

1. first whoever ordered and whoever developed are highly probable two different persons.Did both of them broke the SK law?
2. why they go after the "whoever ordered and developed" and not after "whoever used the tools"? Is it in SK customary to go after the person that manufactured the knife used in a stabbing?
3. the way I know, Google used some open-source components in putting the "tool" together. Is the original author of these components equally guilty?

Re:Hang on...

[John Saffran]

It's still under investigation, ultimately the case rests on information such as whether this data collection was his work (intended or otherwise) or he was ordered to include this 'feature'. Followed by determining why it's there, eg. was it his own work or was it because of an order from above, etc. Juristiction is being mentioned because SK police obviously don't have the right to interview a US citizen without the cooperation of the US government, but beyond that the story so far is pretty stock standard for an ongoing police investigation.

Re:Hang on...

[Tom]

1. first whoever ordered and whoever developed are highly probable two different persons.Did both of them broke the SK law?

The "and" inbetween does indicate that, yes.

2. why they go after the "whoever ordered and developed" and not after "whoever used the tools"? Is it in SK customary to go after the person that manufactured the knife used in a stabbing?

Because that would mean going after the minimum-wage drones who rode in the streetview cars. That's not the people you want to punish for this.

3. the way I know, Google used some open-source components in putting the "tool" together. Is the original author of these components equally guilty?

Non sequitor. Nowhere does it say anything like that, or that they'd go after the manufacturers of the car, or the antennas, cameras, whatever.

Your trying to throw up strawman here to cloud the fact that as far as government reactions go, this one is actually a pretty good one.

Re:Hang on...

[c0lo]

It's still under investigation, ultimately the case rests on information...

I wouldn't raise the question if the wording would allow me. Let me quote again the TFA, with a bit of emphasis.

“We are looking to penalize whoever ordered and developed the program, ...” said a police official.

Hmmmm... the police... to penalize more than 1 person... So, what's going on with the police in SK: investigates, judges and inflicts penalties all together?

Re:Hang on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Non sequitor

You mean: sequitur? (if posing as an erudite, do it to well. Otherwise, a plain English "it does not follow" would be fairer).

Re:Hang on...

[c0lo]

My dear latin speaking friend: if the law was broken by Google, you go after Google as a company.
Not after individuals that got nothing to gain from the actions: I don't see how the developer (that made a honest mistake to capture more than necessary) and the manager (that didn't take enough care to double check the tools) can be more responsible than the "minimum-wage drones": I argue that none of them had something to gain from the excessive WiFi traffic collection (do you know otherwise?)

If you go after individuals in this case, why not go after all the individuals that were part of the actions violating the laws? (since when not knowing that you break the law is a defence?)

BTW: in your reply at point 2, what the "minimum-wage" has to do with the responsibility of breaking the law?

Re:Hang on...

[Anonymous Coward]

2. why they go after the "whoever ordered and developed" and not after "whoever used the tools"? Is it in SK customary to go after the person that manufactured the knife used in a stabbing?

Because that would mean going after the minimum-wage drones who rode in the streetview cars. That's not the people you want to punish for this.

I would submit that the makers of the tool are also the wrong people to punish.

It seems to me that the person(s) who sent the drones out to use the tool would be the only ones who might deserve punishment...

Although, this sure doesn't warrant punishment in my book.

Re:Hang on...

[Tom]

I would submit that the makers of the tool are also the wrong people to punish.

Why not let them have their investigation to determine that? If the tool was made with the express purpose of committing a crime, then the tool maker can be liable.

Although, this sure doesn't warrant punishment in my book.

But your book doesn't matter, the book of law does. ;-)

Re:Hang on...

[Tom]

My dear latin speaking friend: if the law was broken by Google, you go after Google as a company.

Companies can not shield individuals from all responsibility, and that is a good thing. A crime is still a crime even if committed it wearing your business suit and a tie. Going after the company is certainly well and good, but we all know they would pay any reasonable fee out of the cookie jar.

If you go after individuals in this case, why not go after all the individuals that were part of the actions violating the laws? (since when not knowing that you break the law is a defence?)

Sure, but if you have to decide on some place to start, I think they could've chosen worse.

Re:Hang on...

[John Saffran]

I see where you're coming from, but I suspect this is an error in translation .. IMHO there's a missing 'if found guilty by investigation' after penalize and he's speaking on behalf of the justice process.

Given that they've not even spoken to the developer and don't have the facts in hand (eg. the program in question) it's fair to say what the final conclusion should be is still uncertain.

Hard drive encryption broken?

[Graftweed]

"We succeeded in breaking the encryption behind the hard drives"

Wait, what? All of the solutions I know of to encrypt hard drives at block or filesystem level are prety well implemented. You can't just brute force them. So either:

• Someone at google left the password/phrase on a postit note next to the HDDs and/or it was '12345'
• It wasn't 'encrypted' at all, but the Cyber Terror Response Center[1] thought it would sound awesome to say they broke it
• The South Koreans are hiding the most advanced super computer in the world on some basement somewhere. Or some methematicians who can factor large primes in their sleep.

[1] What the hell is up with these bullshit terror-inspiring names anyway? It sounds like a bunch of kids getting together on the playground and trying to think of the most kick-ass name for their dodgeball team.

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[pspahn]

methematicians who can factor large primes in their sleep.

I'm curious to know if this was a typo or not.

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maths fail. A prime number's only factors are 1 and itself.

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[Graftweed]

I'm curious to know if this was a typo or not.

It was, but now that you mention it, I wonder if any studies were ever conducted on meth as an aid to prime factoring. No? Well, how do they know, then?!

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[Marcika]

I'm curious to know if this was a typo or not.

It was, but now that you mention it, I wonder if any studies were ever conducted on meth as an aid to prime factoring. No? Well, how do they know, then?!

Well, anecdotally, Paul Erdös was on meth constantly for the last 25 years of his life - and he was the most prolific mathematician of all time... So I wonder how Gauss or Euler would have fared on amphetamines...

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[AHuxley]

No need for super computer, mathematicians ect.
A postit note, pen and a rather older person who looked about 20-30 yo in May 1980 in the basement can do wonders with locals ie
please cooperate cryptanalysis.

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, they're well implemented, but often the keys are written into other utilities with far less protection for data backup or recovery reasons. Coupled with access to non-encrypted data and with subpoenas against Google personnel, it's unsurprising that a competent government with access to tapping email at servers, seizing locked data safes, etc. could crack such a drive.

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[initialE]

You break the encryption on hard drives in the simplest manner, that is to say, break the person on the other side of it. Where's that xkcd reference when you need it...

Re:Hard drive encryption broken?

[Graftweed]

Where's that xkcd reference when you need it...

You're talking about rubber hose cryptanalysis, and here you go.

Broke the encryption

[Arancaytar]

Google uses encryption that can be broken? WTF?

Re:Broke the encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as encryption that can't be broken.

Do no evil ? ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all part of a large operation in association with the US security services.
It's not paranoia.It's fact. They want to know everything about you about what you do , who you're doing it with and it's all part of post 9/11 US paranoia.Think anything you do on the net is not monitored and logged ? Think when you connect to your bank that it's a private transaction ? Nothing you do on the net is private.Nothing you got as equipment or encryption is not passed through them for approval.( Export control .. reminds you something ? ) When Google passed it was PURPOSEFULLY lifting as much data as could be done with the clear and definite intent of handling the data over to authorities in order to make their surveillance work easier under the cover of " doing no evil "
Im sorry , but i don't trust Google to be the innocent little white sheep.
In my book they are just part of a greater data gathering scheme orchestrated with the US intelligence
organisations.Dosen't look too bad to have a car with a google logo on it .. but it certainly looks weird to have a car written NSA/FBI/* Joint TaskForce go around do the same work.

IMHO : this is far from being accidental, they just got caught with their pants down.

since google is in bed with the NSA

[FudRucker]

theres no telling what all their spys gathered while driving around everyone's neighborhood...

Encryption Broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

“We succeeded in breaking the encryption behind the hard drives, and confirmed that it contained personal e-mails and text messages of people using the Wi-Fi networks,” said a police official.

Fuck the "Google broke the law" story, give us more information how they broke the encryption on the hard drive!

South Korea's Laws aren't worth squat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw South Korea, they depend on the US to keep North Korea from eating them. Let them moan about their silly laws.

Encryption standards?

[mercurized]

"The country's Cyber Terror Response Center broke the encryption on hard drives" Wait, what? Either they didnt put a too big effort into encrypting, or they got some means of unencrypting which isnt very well known..

Re:Encryption standards?

[paziek]

Must be Protoss helping them.

Re:Encryption standards?

[Arancaytar]

Maybe the reporters are stupid and there either was no encryption, or Google was forced to hand over the keys.

Or maybe South Korea outlawed strong encryption, but I haven't read about that anywhere.

Re:Encryption standards?

[Arancaytar]

I RTFA, and the "breaking the encryption" was a direct quote from the police. So it's not the reporters being stupid.

However, it's quite possibly the police lying to sound more badass.

Re:Encryption standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else get the feeling that finding out the real story around the encryption breaking (whether there was encryption, how it was done, etc) will be *far* more important and interesting than the privacy law issues/crimes/penalties?

In particular, I'd really love for Google to specifically react to this in a very transparent way (as much as their legal counsel will allow), even in ways not directly tied to this. For instance, for people/companies/etc using Google Apps, it's a natural reaction to kind of freak out about sensitive data they have stored in the Google cloud.

Am I missing something and this is a no-op for Google customers?

Re:Encryption standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

The police thought "ext3" was an encryption algorithm, because they couldn't read it from their Windows XP machines.

Not getting it

[tusam]

No it's not ok to invade privacy but it happens, so what was the big deal with this "information gathering" to begin with?
I'm always assuming there's at least one neighbour or car on the street listening to my wifi, that's why it's encrypted, not bridged to lan etc. Anyway here's some of those reductions..
1) While simply driving by most of what you get is beacon frames
2) They mostly drove around during week days when most people are at school or at work (where which I at least hope they have encrypted wifi)
3) They're google, they already have all the data they could ever want and a lot more personal stuff than what you get in half a minute from the street

They say they were collecting SSIDs for mapping purposes (which has been done by many projects for years as already mentioned), didn't mean to get other data and are not using it for anything. Not that I'd trust them more than any other multinational corporation, but can't see why they'd be lying about that.
It's a lot easier to place inexpensive kismet_drones in busy areas or with big antennas on hill tops overlooking residential areas than it is to drive around catching glimpses of some lone unemployed bozo surfing porn.

Also, wouldn't mind seeing more wifi hacking being punished by law, but in the actual cases where there's crimes being committed (theft, damage, defacing) and not just for the public spectacle.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[John Saffran]

The real-name laws in korea were created for two reasons:

1. Serious instances of unfounded slandering against various people, especially celebrities.but not restricted to them. The aim is to encourage people to behave responsibly on the internet by tieing what they post or upload back to the individual, beyond that the SK government doesn't give a rat's arse what you do online or which sites you go to.

Case in point being, to continue with your example, that Google (or more specifically Youtube) was required either to have a system to point back to the real-person or alternatively restrict the ability to post or upload potentially slanderous material. Google chose the latter and it's worthy of note that people can do everything else, eg. view videos.

Basically it's the side effect of having the highest rate of internet participation in the world .. you get all sorts of people just like normal society, including those who enjoy malicious rumour mongering and think they can engage in that behind the privacy of the internet. Ironically in a large proportion of cases it turns out the posters were immature school kids (including primary schoolers) being just that .. immature.


2. Many government functions that in real-life require authentication are fully online. This is probably beyond the experience of most people on slashdot, but you can do all sorts of personal activities online (eg. taxation, etc) and by definition you can't take people at their word when talking about those. Therefore real-name identification is required there also, particularly as there's rampant attempts at ID theft from china for various reasons.

Ironically your post is a perfect example of scenario 1, ie. malicious slandering by people hiding behind internet anonymity, in the manner in which you deliberately twist the SK's request and google's actions with unsubstantiated additions like:

- It's no secret that the South Korean government isn't overly fond of Google

Hardly, the government has only required that google comply with the laws that were created to address the previously listed comments. Beyond that Google has been free to operate as it sees fit .. calling that repressive is ridiculous, the government doesn't track people's activities nor are companies required to do anything beyond enabling the tracking down of people for legal purposes, eg. lawsuits for slander.

We're not talking about china and it's so-called golden shield (or shower to be more accurate).


- Google chose to block posts to YouTube from Korea

No, google chose to remove the functionality to post without an account liked to a real person. To quote from the article:

YouTube has decided to restrict its video upload and comment functions in South Korea.” It also stated, “Because there is no upload function, users won’t be required to confirm their identification.”

Note that viewing videos is not restricted at all and uploads/comments to sites that are linked to a real-person are unrestricted beyond the uploader being aware that they should be sociable in their behaviour.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google simply didn't feel it cost effective to create complex functionality that would be country specific (with all the possibilities that different countries would then start asking for their own items) so it was easier to simply remove rather than add.

- while encouraging those users to change their country preference to somewhere else

Where exactly did they say that?



It's fair to say that your post is a perfect example of what the law is designed to address, slanderers hiding behind anonymity to post all sorts of lies and half-truths. We'd all like to think that this type of people don't exist, but unfortunately some people only feel better by putting others down, one only has to look a

damn str8!

[airdrummer]

the fcc regs give everyone to right to receive all e/m on the public airwaves...

Google Is ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is the internet god. bow down before them or else your private data become public.

Google & privacy = a bad joke

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect Google knew very well what it was doing from the very first moment.

When they have gathered enough data, they decided to get plausible deniability ("alibi") by announcing: "Oops, our Street Cars have been spying 'by mistake, but we are open about it, see? And we fixed it fast too!'".

As a bonus, your data is now in Government's hands too. That's why I don't use Gmail. It's enough that they have my search queries data for over a year.

Laughable...

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in South Korea and the law here is really a joke. If laws are on the books and aren't enforced, then all laws are suspect. Examples: It is law to wear helmets when on motorcycles here in South Korea...no one, save for a few but me, wear them. The police don't stop people. Child seats are the law here in S.K., but few use them. Ive had children wave at me while standing and looking out of sunroofs here, while there was a police car in the other lane beside them. The police thought it was very cute. Before the Olympics ('88?) or the World Cup here (not really sure which as it doesn't affect me) prostitution was made illegal, but yet I was forced to explain to my son, on a trip to Seoul, why there were women sitting in pink lighted windows wearing next to no clothes. There was, hilariously, a police box on the corner, at the entrance to the area.

I had an English student here who happened to be the chief of the national police in the town that I live in, and I questioned him about this weirdness. His answer was simple. "It's too much trouble and everyone does it."

So, could some lawyer not take the non-enforcement of the most basic laws here and use that to go after the prosecution of transgressions of law that are just, to be honest, blatant grandstanding?

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Many government functions that in real-life require authentication are fully online. This is probably beyond the experience of most people on slashdot, but you can do all sorts of personal activities online (eg. taxation, etc) and by definition you can't take people at their word when talking about those. Therefore real-name identification is required there also, particularly as there's rampant attempts at ID theft from china for various reasons.

WTF? Most government activities can be done online elsewhere in the world and there are no laws like Korea. I'm in a South American hell hole, noted for corruption and lack of efficiency, and I can make my taxes, bid on government contracts, almost everything online. I just need to stop by the local IRS equivalent and get myself a digital certificate for my identification.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[bertoelcon]

10% is a very large proportion of people victimised by cowards .. people need to sit up and take notice.

Then don't give the cowards credit. I would guess that 99% of those were just trolls that would not do anything in real life, and like any other trolls ignoring them is the smartest option. If people can't learn how to deal with that then maybe offing themselves was the better choice.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

beyond that the SK government doesn't give a rat's arse what you do online or which sites you go to.

They do, actually: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2929934 (If someone is foolish enough to fall for the North's propaganda, I don't think anything the South Korean government does is going to help them.)
More worrying was the censorship of bloggers enforced during the last presidential election: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2883992

Serious instances of unfounded slandering against various people, especially celebrities.but not restricted to them.

The Constitutional Court just struck down the vague law against 'spreading false information': http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/S-Korean-court-rules-internet-ftimes-1769864260.html?x=0&.v=5 (also http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/456284.html)

Where exactly did they say that?

On their Korean blog: http://youtubekrblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-post_08.html (English translation: 'You will still be able to enjoy watching and sharing videos on YouTube. You may still upload videos and comments without proving your identity by choosing a non-Korean country setting from the top of any YouTube page.')

It's no secret that the South Korean government isn't overly fond of Google

Hardly, the government has only required that google comply with the laws that were created to address the previously listed comments.

They didn't seem too happy when Google refused to play along, that's all (http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/350258.html).

I wouldn't be surprised if Google simply didn't feel it cost effective to create complex functionality that would be country specific

You're probably right - Google doesn't have a huge marketshare in SK - but at least it has the happy side-effect of not being complicit in laws that restrict freedom of speech.

...you can do all sorts of personal activities online (eg. taxation, etc)...

Sure, but verifying someone's identity for taxation purposes is rather different from doing the same in order to post comments on YouTube.

10% is a very large proportion of people victimised by cowards .. people need to sit up and take notice.

And the proportion of people bullied offline is likely many times greater. There's no doubt this kind of behaviour should be punished, but heavy government regulation isn't helpful. Given that the real name law applies only to large websites, do you really think it will do much to prevent children from bullying one another online?

Assuming it were feasible, would you like to see something like the real name law implemented in other countries, like the USA?

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[necro351]

Many government functions that in real-life require authentication are fully online.

This is a good reason to have an ID system the government can use to identify citizens on-line. However the notion of enabling private parties to sue each other over comments made on websites on the grounds of slander is not a good idea. As you pointed out, the vast majority of these "slanderers" are children or inconsequential people, so one wonders why anyone would care? This seems reasonable given that in most other countries people generally disregard or ignore what is said about them in mere comments, and only sue actual concerns with a physical address (e.g., a newspaper) when they have to. Furthermore, it seems that the majority of such suits would be frivolous and used primarily as a means of censuring other people by intimidation. If the state were to use such a power (the party who you suggest should be suing your parent poster) it would literally be some form of an Anti-Sedition law, which is generally regarded as at best a war-time necessity, but at worst a gross violation of free speech. The next step would be the state having the ability to literally track and follow its citizens and observe what they say and post on the internet. If companies have to maintain this information, at best the state would only need a subpoena, and at worst, they would soon pass a law giving them a computer protocol to access it at will. Such an event is bound to occur when you have a country where companies are used to maintaining pools of people's real identities. You make this all sound as if we should think this is reasonable, but it just sounds alarming, and your defense of this type of law, even in its early form, is in many ways even more alarming. Are you sure you even want to _look_ down this road?

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[russotto]

The real-name laws in korea were created for two reasons:

Wow. I knew we had Microsoft shills, and China shills, but shills for South Korea?

Athenian Empire?

[cbraescu1]

The downfall of the Athenian Empire

What are you talking about?

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[_merlin]

There are lots of shills for the USA - they call themselves "patriots" and claim to support "freedom".

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[russotto]

There are lots of shills for the USA - they call themselves "patriots" and claim to support "freedom".

There probably are shills for the US government as well, what's your point?

Of course, a lot of non-shills claim to support "freedom" as well. I certainly do. And I don't think the shills would know freedom if it bit them in the ass. For instance, a shill would claim that "freedom" means the government allows anyone of "good moral character" a license to put things on the Internet under their verified identity, and would be shocked at the notion that "freedom" meant no license was needed at all.

Wouldn't stop it at state level though

[realxmp]

As for the problems we face today, most would disappear if we followed the 9th and 10th Amendments instead of ignoring them. No more bailouts of AIG, or forced purchasing of hospital insurance I don't want, or war on (some) drugs, or giving "stimulus money" to General Motors, and so on. Congress is forbidden, by the tenth, to do those things.

Wishful thinking I suspect, whilst Congress might be forbidden but if they couldn't do it that way, it would be done via the States instead. Money always finds a way, it'd take longer but it would happen. Such is the system we live in.

As for the bailouts being restricted by the 10th a company who's collapse would affect practically every state would probably come under the interstate commerce clause. They should have made sure they had more chance of making a profit from what is effectively an investment though.

I wonder...

[hesaigo999ca]

Wow, what a mess....
>Street View service archived private information in more than 30 countries, including email and text messages.
First off, I thought the only thing it was faulting on was collectiong router info, not emails and private info...is this just a Korean claim to be able to get google source code and the likes, or can anyone really confirm this, maybe even someone from google...did the streetview really collect that personal of information, or just some ip addresses...conflicting here.

Also why would the google korea work with government in korea, when google US does not cooperate with the Us gove...
is this because the google korea director is korean, and decided to let his people and country have access to the code, when google INC (board of directors) probably did not want to hand over the code, but it was too late, sort of thing...???

Lastly, if google did really let this go by, which I have to say I am surprised their code control is pretty extreme, i could not see a lone programmer slip something in , especially on something that gets such a pouring in of information, that could also jeopardize the whole company....maybe some of the story is fictitious (up to where does the truth end and the lie begin?), to manipulate stock prices...by people that would want to see google fail?

WWII was started by the Germans?

[AmigaHeretic]

World War 2, simply because the majority decided they did not like the minority who looked different (i.e. asian).

Dude, Krauts hate it when you call them Asians.

What gives you the right to send signals...

[AmigaHeretic]

...through my brain? I use to think about this type of argument when people were "stealing" DirectTV. All the signals companies are broadcasting onto my property and waves going through my body doing who knows what. Radio, TV, cell phones companies, satellite companies, etc. All sending signals to me with out my permission. Can I "opt out"?
If you are going to blast the signal to me I have every right to listen/decode/see what you are bombarding my property with 24/7.

If you don't want people to listen/decode/see your signal then don't broadcast it into my property or into public spaces that I have a right to be in/pay taxes to have.

An antenna doesn't "REACH" out into your property or into the sky. It's sits there and you are choosing to broadcast and hit it with your signal.

Re:What gives you the right to send signals...

[ian_from_brisbane]

If you are going to blast the signal to me I have every right to listen/decode/see what you are bombarding my property with 24/7.

I completely agree. And the answer to the GP's various questions is "Yes, it would be OK." It's up the the emitter to restrict emissions that he wants to remain private. That includes photons/vibrations/radio/heat.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

=John Saffran=

nothing more to add very well said....

Full of shit

[fnj]

A large part of what you state is, for want of an elegant and non-insulting term to come to mind, bullshit.

1) Slander is oral defamation. Libel is written defamation.

2) Both apply only to persons. It is impossible to slander a nation or its government. It may be possible to slander corporations, due to connivance between governments and corporations whereby corporations are legislated to have many of the qualities and rights of a person. This is known as the "corporate shield," and is a powerful protection of the officers of a corporation from being sued or held to account, save for blatantly fraudulent dealings.

[There; I suppose you think that is libel against corrupt governments]

3) It is very difficult to get a conviction of either slander or libel where the defamed party is a public figure. Public figures are fair game. Even if Google as a corporation is to be considered a person for these purposes, it is a very public one. As far as the nation of South Korea or its government, give me a break.

4) What you hasten to label slander is actually a well honored tradition called "debate." Honest, if somewhat spirited, debate. It's not even close to being vindictive. My own post is a little more vindictive, but only against yours which is itself vindictive.

5) People commit suicide for all kinds of reasons, and almost always from a complex tapestry of events. I would urge being exceedingly careful about trying to legislate what one may and may not say orally or in writing, including electronic writing, about someone. One person shouting "you big fat dope" one time or a handful of times should not be actionable. Dozens or more people collaborating in repeatedly so yelling may arguably be regarded in certain circumstances as an actionable conspiracy. Be that as it may, there already exist sufficient laws regarding conspiracy, slander, and libel. We don't need any new, targeted, and overly expansive and restrictive laws. I would advise the South Koreans that they didn't need their internet anti-anonymity law, either, but that decision has already been made by their government, until such time as it is repealed (yeah, right - as if rights restrictions are ever repealed anywhere).

Be in good health, but be ye not quite so hasty to condemn debate.

Re:Full of shit

[zelda43]

expressed in fine fashion and to the point.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[fnj]

Parent is insightful and should be mod'ed up. Parent's respondent seems a bit off the wall.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[Daengbo]

BS on the entire post. The identity laws were a knee-jerk response to the suicide of a popular actress after the kind of flap that is common in western tabloids. Instead of using it as a talking point to promote discussion about how suicide isn't the appropriate response to ... well ... anything, the politicians instead pushed through legislation they'd wanted to pass for years in order to chill free speech like the anonymous, amateur Korean economist that was putting the government to shame.

In short, it's the story of the PATRIOT Act, but in Korea.

Re:Hard drive encryption broken? weak password?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the first encrypted disk software, the current stuff (mostly at least) has a master key that actually encrypts the drive which remains constant from the creation of the drive. Then a user password is used to encrypt this key, and the result is stored. (Some cases may just do "vanilla" access control based on a password but I think people recognize the weakness there.) The user puts in his password, which decrypts the real key and it is used. This permits user password to be changed (and also allows "corporate" passwords to be stored which can decrypt the actual encryption key underlying also). With the original designs, the password got munged into the actual encryption key directly.
The encryption software thus can claim it has a huge key which would be infeasible to break, yet if the "password" is too simple ("password", "12345", you name it), a dictionary attack or a brute force attack on the password can be run. There are enough regularities in disk formats that checks on decrypting one or two blocks (or maybe even just parts thereof) would be pretty good oracles to tell whether the right key had been found, even apart from check values most software has to prevent someone
from mounting an encrypted drive with the wrong password. An encrypted drive is no more secure than its password, regardless of the strength of the underlying key. Remember that the entropy of English words is only ~2.3 bits per character.
My guess is that either Google was legally compelled to deliver the password, or that it was broken via brute force or dictionary attack.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

If 10% experienced bullying, well what percentage had "tragic results?", one could argue that natural selection just played its role.

Moronic ridiculousness

[zmooc]

Gotta love a world where everybody is allowed to send radio waves through your private parts but where it's illegal to pick up those radio waves.... information publicly broadcasted cannot possibly be considered private. And therefore receiving this information and doing things with it cannot possibly invade anybodies privacy.

So this is Cyber Terror?:P Or what kind of ridiculous concept is a Cyber Terror Response Center?!

By the way, what is Google doing with encryption that is so easily broken?! And why would they have to break it if Google was cooperating?

Justice has not been done until Googles carpark archives everything their antennas receive and the entire world understands that it is and should always be perfectly legal. If you want privacy, don't shout your private information well over the edge of our solar system. Morons. Arghl.

Re:The South Korean Government is no fan of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Serious instances of unfounded slandering against various people, especially celebrities.but not restricted to them.

Which ought to be protected by law, not hindered by it.

The aim is to encourage people to behave responsibly on the internet by tieing what they post or upload back to the individual

That's precisely the problem! No government has the right to "encourage people to behave responsibly" by limiting their right to anonymity. You should be free to say whatever the hell you want anonymously on the internet, without fear of harming your reputation. That is the beauty of anonymous speech. That's the beauty of the internet.

Case in point being, to continue with your example, that Google (or more specifically Youtube) was required either to have a system to point back to the real-person or alternatively restrict the ability to post or upload potentially slanderous material. Google chose the latter and it's worthy of note that people can do everything else, eg. view videos.

So in other words, totally defeating the entire point of Web 2.0, and the point of Youtube in particular.

Basically it's the side effect of having the highest rate of internet participation in the world .. you get all sorts of people just like normal society, including those who enjoy malicious rumour mongering and think they can engage in that behind the privacy of the internet. Ironically in a large proportion of cases it turns out the posters were immature school kids (including primary schoolers) being just that .. immature.

Yes, immature kids, so why should the South Korean government give a rat's ass about them?

2. Many government functions that in real-life require authentication are fully online. This is probably beyond the experience of most people on slashdot, but you can do all sorts of personal activities online (eg. taxation, etc) and by definition you can't take people at their word when talking about those. Therefore real-name identification is required there also, particularly as there's rampant attempts at ID theft from china for various reasons.

So what happens when a Chinese identity thief steals your magical internet verification $foo? Seems like a single point of failure significantly worsens the problem, rather than solving it.

Hardly, the government has only required that google comply with the laws that were created to address the previously listed comments. Beyond that Google has been free to operate as it sees fit .. calling that repressive is ridiculous, the government doesn't track people's activities nor are companies required to do anything beyond enabling the tracking down of people for legal purposes, eg. lawsuits for slander.

It's true that Google ought to obey the laws of the countries it does business with. However, this does not make South Korea's ridiculous and oppressive internet identification law right.

Where exactly did they say that?

Twas in the article summary recently. Ask whoever wrote that.

It's fair to say that your post is a perfect example of what the law is designed to address, slanderers hiding behind anonymity to post all sorts of lies and half-truths. We'd all like to think that this type of people don't exist, but unfortunately some people only feel better by putting others down, one only has to look at Youtube comments unfortunately.

Is this Bizarro world or something? Do you even understand what you're saying here? Let me make this very clear : you do not have the right to remove anonymous speech from the internet just because you, or someone else, might be offended by it. Don't like an anonymous comment on Youtube? Block the user. Just don't read the damned thing. Getting bullied by someone on Faceb

I don't think Google did anything wrong.

[gottabeme]

Maybe you are allowed to do that. Have you checked any laws in your jurisdiction? If you're remaining on your own property or on public property, I'd be surprised if it were illegal for you to point a microphone or an antenna or a camera anywhere.

It shouldn't be illegal, because if it were, it'd always be a judgement call as to whether someone was being malicious, and innocent people could be hauled in by people who didn't like them for doing something that "looked bad." Oh, wait, that happens to people with cameras all the time since 9/11...

IMO it boils down to this: if you don't want people seeing into your house, close the curtains. If you don't want people hearing what goes in on your house, close the windows and doors, install soundproofing if necessary, or just don't talk so loudly. If you don't want people being able to listen in to your wireless network, encrypt it and change the key every so often. If a person is broadcasting his wireless network in the clear, yelling out the front door, or leaving his curtains open at night with the interior lights on, he shouldn't expect privacy.

Google didn't crack anyone's encryption or pick any locks, so I don't think there's a crime here.

Now if a government agency had done it, that'd be different...oh wait, I forgot about ECHELON, et al.

This whole argument against Google is like telling a neighbor to close their eyes when they look out their window which happens to line up with your window so that you can leave your curtains open and they won't see into your house. What you should do is close your curtains when you want privacy. Now if your neighbor sneaks over and puts a fiber-optic camera through the crack around the window frame, then you have a valid complaint.

WHOA now

[uvajed_ekil]

Hold on a second. Maybe you hate Google. Maybe you hate all large corporations. Maybe you genuinely think Google's Street View data collections are invasive. Maybe you are extremely paranoid about your security and privacy, and are constantly peering out from under your tinfoil hate and over your shoulder. Maybe Larry Page raped your dog. Even if all of these things are true, I think you have to admit that Google being investigated by the Korean Cyber Terror Response Center seems a little overblown and inflamatory. Cyber "terror?" Are you kidding me? Their intention is to create fear and panic, not to continue to dominate their competition and rake in piles of cash? Really? You've got to be kidding me. This is the same thing we have begun to see in the US, thankfully on a limited basis. Please not that most criminal actions are *NOT* terrorism or cyber terror.

I suppose I don't know enough about ROK law enforcement and the inner workings of their government, but an agency with "terror" in its name doesn't seem like the appropriate choice for investigating non terror-related crimes. Are they somehow responsible for all "cyber" crimes, as a poorly named authority?

What erks me the most ...

[ModernGeek]

is that organizations such as this one tend to be completely useless when it comes to solving actual problems, but they're perfectly capable of defending large corporations assets, or boasting their own name with stunts like these.

When was the last time that an organization like this stopped a DDoS attack, or stopped those recent people who have been explorting asterisk boxes?

The Internet is the wild west, and we've had to do our best without protection from anyone else. It's probably better that way, but when I hear about civil matters being dealt with through the cooperation of Police, it makes me wonder.