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Google Releases FCC Report On Street View Probe

Posted by Soulskill on from the fingers-and-cookie-jars dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news that Google has released the full report of the FCC investigation into the incident in which its Street View cars collected personal data while mapping Wi-Fi networks. They are putting responsibility for the data gathering on a 'rogue engineer' who wrote the code for it without direction from management. "Those working on Street View told the FCC they had no knowledge that the payload data was being collected. Managers of the Street View program said they did not read the October 2006 document [written by the engineer that detailed his work]. A different engineer remembered receiving the document but did not recall any reference to the collection of payload data. An engineer who worked closely with the engineer in question on the project in 2007, reviewing all of the codes line by line for bugs, says he did not notice that the software was designed to capture payload data. A senior manager said he preapproved the document before it was written."

11 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. what about the rest of the life cycle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    was anyone assigned to validate requirements against functionality? compliance? export control? 3rd party software integration copyright and license? was any due diligence done other than to review for technical bugs?

    1. Re:what about the rest of the life cycle? by zidium · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is this modded -1????

      I would hope Google would do such things regularly!

      --
      Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
    2. Re:what about the rest of the life cycle? by Tharsman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I got to say, it sounds extremely odd that there were no more eyes. Google is a company that has a price tag on how much every signle web search executed by a user cost them, in energy and equipment degradation. They have specially manufactured cpus that can run hot so they can conserve as much heat as they can. ... but in all those years, even in the initial test run... no one noticed the cars where filling their hard-drives WAY too fast?

      This takes me back about 7 years ago in a contract involving 3 parties. Client, contractor and a sub-contractor. In a meeting, the usually incompetent IT manager employed by the client to run their data center, asks our sub-contractor "why is the database growing at a rate of 1GB per day?" The sub-contractor was clueless and we shocked. Sure, we perhaps should had noticed.... (BTW, reason for the growth: zero normalization. I kid you not, these guys had absolutely no normalized tables at all, and nearly every field indexed.)

      My point is: unexpected bursts in data storage are too easy to notice, because the first time hard drives fill up and windows (or whatever OS they use) shouts for air... well... some one will notice.

      But these are not morons... these are Google engineers... the ones that have quantified the cost of a search to the atomic level. I'm sure more than just an unnamed "rogue engineer" was very aware of this.

    3. Re:what about the rest of the life cycle? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Multi hundred gigabyte HDs don't fill up that fast.

      Besides, Street View is some tiny little bit of Google with managers and engineers stuck in some corner of the cafeteria. It's not like tons of money is expended on them (eg, the price tag on data center cooling) so multiple levels of review / fine tuning probably just doesn't occur. I saw the Google car in town not too long ago - a DIY dream. Gear strewn over the rear seat with cables everywhere and a what appeared to be big tube of cables running into the trunk.

      And these Google engineers - I'm sure they're smart and all, but they put their pants on one leg a time.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  2. Cool! by marcello_dl · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The company that holds some million people email and web search and history deploys stuff controlled by on 1 one 1 engineer. But hey, it was only a few tera of data...

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    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    1. Re:Cool! by preaction · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, one engineer is being thrown under the bus. I wonder if his name was Goldstein...

  3. Didn't bother to read the memo... by Local+ID10T · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, this sounds like most managers I know.

    Managers of the Street View program said they did not read the October 2006 document [written by the engineer that detailed his work].

    --
    "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
  4. Management's justifications by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They are putting responsibility for the data gathering on a 'rogue engineer' who wrote the code for it without direction from management.

    An engineer who worked closely with the engineer in question on the project in 2007, reviewing all of the codes line by line for bugs, says he did not notice that the software was designed to capture payload data. A senior manager said he preapproved the document before it was written."

    Isn't interesting in Corporate America, when things go great, it's management's brilliance? And when things go bad, it's a rogue employee?

    I'd really like to know management's justification for their obscenely high compensation, for one thing.

    Here's another thing while I'm ranting:That's one of the big differences between managing and leading.

    Leader: it's MY fault and I'll take care of it.

    Manager: it's someone elses fault. You go take care of it.

  5. OH PUHLEASSSSEEEE! by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If I had a nickel for every time I've inserted code (especially the "I've got the data in my hand, why don't I save it somewhere" kind) "without direction from management" that I ABSOLUTELY KNEW was useful and/or going to be asked for as soon as they thought of it anyways; well, let's just say I could have retired early. Call me a "rogue".

  6. Managers' Fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The developer documented his work and sent the documentation out to others on the team (including the managers). It's the managers' jobs to make sure the developers understand the requirements correctly. In fact, the developer was working on the project in order to capture the data and study it to see if it would of use to Google.

    What are the managers doing if they aren't managing the engineers? We might have to stay late writing code, but are they staying late reading documents and getting up to speed on what everyone is doing? Isn't that their job? I'm still in school so please correct me if I'm wrong.

    1. Re:Managers' Fault by busyqth · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What are the managers doing if they aren't managing the engineers? We might have to stay late writing code, but are they staying late reading documents and getting up to speed on what everyone is doing? Isn't that their job? I'm still in school so please correct me if I'm wrong.

      Of course it's their job. And they probably did it.
      However, when the Federal Government comes sniffing around it's very convenient to forget that you read the document.