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Court Declares Google Must Face Wiretap Charges For Wi-Fi Snooping

Posted by Unknown on from the sergey-brin-peering-through-your-window dept.

New submitter Maser_24 writes with news about continued action against Google for snooping on unsecured Wi-Fi networks when collecting data for Street View. From the article: "A federal appeals court this week ruled that Google could be held liable for civil damages for the company's 2011 scandal involving the company's collection of Wi-Fi data from unsecured hotspots using their Street View vehicles. To come to that conclusion, the court followed a rather unique logic path; according to the court, unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots are not 'radio communications' that are 'readily accessible' to the general public and therefore Google violated the Wiretap Act." This despite being cleared of wrongdoing by the FCC.

18 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now charge the NSA for requesting that they do that.

    1. Re:Good. by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah how about trying "We were ordered to do it by the US government and we can't give you details because a) national security and b) gag order". Seems to work for the government, why can't it work for Google?

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Good. by slash.jit · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also Why not have lawsuits against NSA and force them to pay the civil damages for spying on american people.

    3. Re:Good. by Bigby · · Score: 2

      Ironically, the Constitution only disallows the government (including the NSA) from broad wiretapping (illegal search). The private wiretapping laws are just laws...not the supreme law of the land. So being ordered to do it by the US government would make the breaking of the law even more blatant and damaging.

    4. Re:Good. by sjames · · Score: 2

      Actually, according to the FISA court, not all of the NSA's actions were authorized. The court then went on to state that the NSA was beyond their ability to control it since it was lying to them freely.

  2. no no no.... by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bad logic that is favorable to your agenda is still bad logic.

    Twisting logic is what I get mad at the "other guy" for. Don't tolerate it.

    1. Re:no no no.... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Bad logic that is favorable to your agenda is still bad logic.

      Twisting logic is what I get mad at the "other guy" for. Don't tolerate it."

      It isn't bad logic if you understand what this is about.

      Privacy laws are generally based on "intent", and "reasonable expectation of privacy". Sometimes those things intersect, sometimes they are at odds.

      The LOCATION of a wifi router is pretty much accepted as public information. Here is a router. It transmits. It sends out its MAC address.

      The CONTENT of the data it sends, however, is a different matter.

      For many years, a large percentage of the population -- possibly even the majority -- did not know or care enough about the details of WiFi communication to secure their routers. Because that was true of so many people, it can be argued that it was "reasonable" for them to expect that their communications were private.

      If their communications were intended to be private (i.e., it wasn't intended to be an open access point with a name like "Come Get Me, I'm Free!", and there was a "reasonable expectation of privacy" (again reasonable being inferred from the simple fact that it was true of so many people), THEN Google was illegally intercepting private communications.

      You and I might think that not bothering to learn enough about it to know you should secure your router is not reasonable. But that's not the way the law works. If an "average" person commonly does it, it's considered reasonable.

  3. Terrible Ruling by laing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unencrypted RF communications should be fair game for anyone to receive and record. The fact that it's digital seems to be what swayed the judges in this case. I can't for the life of me understand how this could have happened. I'm not in favor Google's actions, but they were not illegal. Now the law has been twisted and there will be unintended consequences.

  4. Not radio communications? WTF?! by killfixx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's exactly what this is... In no uncertain terms!

    Fuck... Pot, meet Kettle...

    WiFi is explicitly radio... and it's readily accessible without any intervention on the users behalf...

    I regularly connect to unsecured hotspots without even meaning to...

    Blah...

    I can't even express how utterly exasperated I am with our government...and the people that keep them in office...

    God damn...

    Well, there's one thing our government is good at, learning from past mistakes... Those gladiatorial games were great inspiration for our current raft of "populace pacification techniques"... TV, sports, and (to a lesser extent) religion...

    When will we wake up... When will the common man stand his ground and tell those in power to go fuck themselves? When?

    --
    "Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
  5. Really now? by JustAnotherIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots are not 'radio communications' that are 'readily accessible' to the general public

    Every single apartment complex I've lived in/visited would say otherwise.

    --
    What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
    1. Re:Really now? by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Every single apartment complex I've lived in/visited would say otherwise.

      Yes, but you may recall that a few days ago Google said it was accelerating its VPN and encryption rollout to frustrate the NSA. The NSA made a phone call to the DOJ. They're one big happy family you know. So now Google will be punished in a roundabout fashion for daring to piss in the NSA's cheerios.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  6. Re:And they're right by hypergreatthing · · Score: 2

    wifi is radio. I could tune into them using a reciever in the 2.4 ghz range easily. I can even use a dsp to decode it via soft radio, and respond to the messages. anything that uses the radio spectrum is radio. Morse code is the same thing as wifi, just 1000x slower.

  7. Civil Damages? by foxalopex · · Score: 2

    Maybe I'm a little off on my law but civil damages are when people sue each other. So it makes sense if Google used the information in some way that hurt you then you have the right to sue Google for damages. In Canada, for a while when cellphone calls were not encrypted, it was perfectly legal to listen to the calls provided you did not use the information gleamed off that to benefit in any way. Google to the best of our knowledge deleted this information or no longer has it so what exactly would you be suing Google for? How did Google collecting this information harm you or how in the world are you ever going to prove that?

  8. conspicuous by 7311587 · · Score: 2

    I like how there is a story on slashdot about Google making high level encryption that the NSA cannot penetrate. Then a few stories later is the government taking Google to court for something serious. Don't mess with the government.

  9. What the fuck? by wolrahnaes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How in the hell are WiFi networks not "radio communications" which are "readily accessible"? What fucked up, distorted logic led to this?

    I hope I don't have to explain how they are radio communications, if that's not obvious to anyone please go play with crayons in the corner.

    As for readily accessible, when the vast majority of WiFi-equipped PCs and most mobile devices need nothing more than software which simply asks the wireless card to pass through what it sees, uh yes, it is readily accessible.

    It's like arguing that since FRS radios typically default to channels 1 or 14 when turned on, channel 6 is not readily accessible. Sure you don't get it without asking, but its about as easy as it could possibly be.

    --
    I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
  10. USA! USA! by organgtool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So the NSA is performing actual wiretaps and widescale data collection which violates the Constitution and they are facing absolutely no penalties or even pressure from any other branch of government to stop this behavior yet Google is being punished for "wiretapping" by collecting information that was voluntarily broadcasted on public airwaves. At first this didn't make any sense until I remembered Google's recent efforts to encrypt users' data to make it tougher to be collected by government agencies. I guess that's the price they're going to pay for trying to force the government to obey its own Constitution.

  11. Re:Judges untrained in comms technology, that's ho by laing · · Score: 5, Informative

    Analog cellular phone calls are covered by a separate law (The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986). It not only makes it illegal to record them, it makes it illegal to sell a radio that can receive them (or be easily modified to receive them). Thankfully all mobile phones are digital now. Unfortunately that law is still on the books.
    Another court case conflicts with the Google ruling. Back when they were in popular use, the police sometimes recorded wireless phone calls from 46/49 MHz cordless phones (without a warrant). The police used these recordings in court to convict a drug dealer and the drug dealer argued that the communications were private. The courts ruled that they were not. Here is the court ruling from this case:

  12. Re:Judges untrained in comms technology, that's ho by weiserfireman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Judge made the mistake of trying to interpret the motive of the person setting up the unencrypted hotspot instead of the intent of the people who designed the WiFi standard. He also doesn't understand how WiFi and networking work.

    He decided that in general, someone setting up a hotspot doesn't intend for the traffic to be snooped, therefore it "isn't publically broadcast". The law should be based on the design of the technology, not the intent and misunderstanding, of the person who turns it on.

    WiFi doesn't work if every computer listening in on the hotspot doesn't examine every packet, at least as far enough to see if it was intended for it or not. It doesn't take a special $600 adapter for someone to snoop, or packet capture, the network traffic. That may be the easiest way for an untrained person to do it, but it isn't the only way.

    We need special judges, who are trained technologists, to rule on technology cases.