Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal By Google Over Street View Data Collection
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Supreme Court declined to throw out a class-action lawsuit against Google for sniffing Wi-Fi networks with its Street View cars. The justices left intact a federal appeals court ruling that the U.S. Wiretap Act protects the privacy of information on unencrypted in-home Wi-Fi networks. Several class-action lawsuits were filed against Google shortly after the company acknowledged that its Street View cars were accessing email, web history and other data on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. A Google spokesman said the company was disappointed that the Supreme Court had declined to hear the case."
I suppose listening to ham radio now is a crime.
its Street View cars were accessing email, web history and other data on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. A Google spokesman said the company was disappointed that the Supreme Court had declined to hear the case.
Boo hoo Google. By their logic, if I leave my door unlocked, the Google Street View car driver can stop his vehicle, open my door, and read the documents on my desk? Hey, I left my door unlocked so I was asking for it!
The Supreme Court hears something on the order of 1% of the cases people try to send it.
It's only news when they decide to hear a case, not when they don't.
It also has no precedential value that they rejected it--meaning the appeals court ruling it leaves undisturbed is all that's there, so this ruling is only binding on one area of the country.
Google has very quickly changed from a cool company to an evil one. There's too much money involved for them to remain moral now, and it will take the law to curb their ceaseless "pushing the envelope" with regards to spying on the public and acquiring and retaining data.
The old Google was innovative, the new Google is doing absolutely anything and everything to obtain profit, at any cost. It's a sad way for a once-cool company to go, but once you reach their size it becomes inevitable.
Glad the Supreme Court did the right thing.
It's even slightly closer to having a sign out front that says "Open House" and them reading the binder left on your coffee table with information about the house, than the completely incorrect manure you spout off about there.
Listening to HAM radio is also at least a bit closer than what you describe, though neither are fully comparable.
"By their logic" my butt.
You can't claim defense when your un-encrypted or poorly encrypted network gets read. Think about it this way, if you are getting changed in your room and have very poor / no curtains at all then you can't or shouldn't be allowed to complain when someone see's you naked. If you cared about your data getting read then you would of blocked people from reading it, just as if you cared about people seeing you naked, you'd hang curtains up. In this case I would of told the idiots who left there networks exposed to deal with it and learn for next time. You basically flaunted the fact your an idiot or didn't care and you got what you deserved, hard lesson.
The important message from Google that I noted today is that some of their programming team are discussing domestic products that pass personal data over unencrypted channels, and that includes WiFi passwords. This is nasty! This is SO easy to fix, and the open source libraries to do it are free in easy to inherit C, and a variety of other formats. This is the positive message that can be extracted from Google's work.
The purpose of existence is to make money.
> I suppose listening to ham radio now is a crime.
No, but recording and publishing it all on the Internet probably would and should be a crime. Which is more or less what Google did.
Putting the reception of data communications that are sent in the clear, with an with an SSID actively broadcasting out to the street and other structures on all sides, and with no attempt made whatsoever to secure them, into the same category as "wiretapping" is ridiculous. There shouldn't be any reasonable expectation of privacy without at least SOME kind of, even half-hearted or insecure, ATTEMPT to keep them private (say, a short, numeric, easily crackable WEP key).
Will overhearing a couple loudly arguing in their front yard while you drive past now be considered an invasion of privacy as well?
Not to mention the irony of courts calling this behavior by Google unacceptable, considering the other, much more invasive, things that are apparently just fine.
It's not about encryption or not. It's about the scale.
Steal an apple from your neighbor, and nobody will make a fuss. Steal a fruit from every tree in the village to set up your own juice pressing factoring, and somebody will take offense.
So why are not all corporations stealing our information with cookies and spyware online being charged under wiretap laws?
If I do the same thing I am a hacker and charged by those very same corporations.
The NSA actually has a better case via national security, just that in a Democracy civilian oversight would be required
to prevent abuse, though it can be said we are moving away from representative Democracy rapidly.
Back when in lived in SF, I provided free wifi to the coffee shop at the end of my block just for fun. QOS routing meant it didn't interfere with my traffic, and the only thing protecting it was a "please don't abuse this" welcome page.
Now people would be afraid to connect to it, on the grounds that even seeing if an access point welcomes the public could be seen as wiretapping.
When your democracy revolves around voting with dollars, how could anything besides this outcome have been expected?
That is a seriously misinformed view. Dollars don't vote, people do. And a 1%'er has exactly the same vote as a 99%'er.
Money is tool to influence voters who don't really care one way or another, nothing more. No amount of big money financed media campaigns will changes the minds of informed voters who care about a particular issue.
Two of the most power lobbies in the U.S. are the NRA and the AARP. The power of these organization is not campaign contributions, their power comes from the fact that their member as well known for reliably showing up on election day and voting their respective issue.
Want to change things, then educate and motivate voters. Want to support the status quo, then focus on the red herring of money.
There is no reason a street view car should have doing anything but taking pictures. Hence the name.
If Google had notified people in advance of what their intentions were for collecting this wifi data, people would have raised hell and not allowed it. That's why we all found this stuff out after the fact.
As the old saying goes, better to ask for forgiveness than permission. [at least if you are an asshole anyway]
The federal government does not like it when private corporations act like they are the federal government.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No, asshole, you were blaring it from a stereo through your open door, audible on the street. Yes, they fucked up. However, you shouldn't be offended that your broadcasts were heard.
Analogy fail. Thalidomide-baby-trying-to-throw-hand-grenade level of TOTAL FAIL.
You don't have to actively do anything to overhear loudly-played music.
Google took a series of deliberate, affirmative acts that resulted in "its Street View cars ... accessing email, web history and other data on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks".
"Don't be evil" my ass. "Don't settle for being merely evil" is a lot more accurate.
With Go-Pro, Google Glass, camera drones, news helicopters, pretty much every smart phone, and a lot of dumb phones, dashcams, security cameras, etc, there's basically no difference anymore. If something occurs that can be easily observed by members of the general public on/from public property it can, and sooner or later almost certainly will, be recorded. That genie has been out of the bottle way too long to pretend it doesn't exist anymore.
Now, laws governing what one can legally do with such photos/videos if taken are a separate issue entirely, but having it in your own "photo album" would likely be pretty safe unless specifically violating another law, like if the person were underage.
Curtains: Improving privacy since (at least) the 1500s...
It's absolutely ridiculous for anyone to even /consider/ classifying connecting to open Wi-Fi as "wiretapping," period.
Why doesn't Google just say they were doing it at the unwritten request of the NSA. NOBODY can confirm or deny it. And it just might be true.
I agree, these users were blaring their stereos, but I disagree with your characterization of Google's actions. They didn't just hear what was said passively. What they were doing was actively listening to, recording, and transcribing everything that they heard. That's a night and day difference, and that's why people are offended. If I was offended every time my WiFi traffic got picked up by someone or something else, I'd be a raging inferno of umbrage, given that WiFi devices do that all the time, but simply disregard the stuff they receive that isn't intended for them, much as we might filter out other conversations when we're in public and talking with someone else.
I'm all for privacy, but it's your own responsibility to protect your privacy. If you don't want your communications broadcast to the entire neighborhood, then take the steps necessary to set up encryption on your broadcasting device. There was a time when setting up encryption was difficult, but now it is a breeze and there is simply no excuse for not doing it. The instructions on most wireless routers even highly recommend encryption, so not setting it up is willful negligence on the user's part.
I've been trying to think of a better analogy, and while not perfect, I think this is the best so far. People equating Google connecting to open WiFi and capturing some random traffic, which was never even used, realizing their mistake and voluntarily comping forward to own up to it, as basically like coming into your house and poking around just because the door is unlocked, are completely off their rockers and have no concept of reality. That extends your analogy further to the driver letting you know what happened (even when you'd never find on your own), and Photoshoping out the information.
Hint for such morons: The exact message you are sending to companies like Google is "If you make a mistake, whatever you do, DO NOT admit to it, because if you do we WILL hold it against you!"
Captcha: privacy
All you guys posting to the effect that Google has been doing nothing wrong in connection with this - you all lost me at the point you failed to acknowledge or comprehend this:
Did any of you even read the summary? I have no issue with Google recording the presence of my (hypothetical) open WiFi hotspot at such-and-such location and publishing that fact, even with an exterior photo of my property. I have a BIG problem with them snooping on private correspondence and other private matters exposed on said open WiFi.
The fact that if I did have an open WiFi it would sure as hell be on a different network than the one I use for email and other personal activities is BESIDE THE POINT. The point is, per the summary, Google is actively snooping on things they know for damn sure are not intended for them.
If the summary is wrong on this point, fine; please point out exactly how it is wrong.
Just a sign that says "please don't pick the apples," although Google didn't even go on private property so more like "please don't pick up the apples on the sidewalk." They also didn't deprive the owner of anything, so more like "please don't replicate one of the apples lying the sidewalk and admit to me that you accidentally cloned one of the apples on the sidewalk, and agree never to use or sell the clone, and offer to destroy it if your having it bothers me (yeah, don't do any of that)."
But when the NSA does it, it's totally fine and not even legally considered "intercepted".
To all the morons claiming that Google was poking around in private files, please learn to read (and/or stop believing idiotic/biased/sensationalist summaries).
No one would would have ever known about this except that Google (out of an, apparently misguided, attempt to not be evil) actually voluntarily came forward reported that this had occurred. They were scanning for SSIDs which are extremely useful to assisted GPS, and also ended up storing some random non-encrypted packets from completely unsecured WiFi networks they passed. That is so far from "snooping through your email" that the complete morons claiming such have got to be running around with flaming pants by now. Not to mention if Google actually wanted to actively snoop through email they have a HELL of alot of better ways to do it than this!!
By getting all up in a tizzy you are saying to Google, "in the future please be evil, becase I guarantee you right now, no good deed goes unpunished"
... Google threw an epic bitch fit over the NSA reading data off of their unprotected, unencrypted WAN connections.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
You sure as hell got THAT right. But it's not like the shills are prevnting real people from posting here too. We only have ourselves to blame for the din of the shills and apologists completely drowning us out here.
"What happened" was capturing, and not even using (for any purpose), some random unencrypted packets that happened to be flying past from completely unsecured WiFi networks. Those same packets could have been received by anyone connecting to those open networks or analyzing the WiFi in the area.
Even on a WIRED network, anyone naive enough to think unencrypted packets aren't basically "fair game" for multiple third-parties has zero understanding of the technology and thus has no business saying anything about the issue at all. Now, send those same unencrypted packets across an unsecured wireless network that is active broadcasting its SSID to everyone in range to invite them in, and any possible "expectation of privacy" is so far gone that it shouldn't even be a consideration at all.
If they actually had ended up using/selling the data in the end, an argument could be made that maybe they shouldn't do that, but it would still be only a weak to moderately effective argument, certainly not an iron-clad one. And that's not even not the case, as in addition to choosing not to use the data, they voluntarily came forward to report what had happened. At this point I suspect most everyone probably would have been better off if Google had just covered it up and deleted the data like the slightly more "evil" organizations out there would almost certainly have done without a second thought.
The only beneficiaries of Google's choice to not be evil and come forward (apart from the lawyers) are the very few folks who, after hearing about this, might have finally gotten it through their heads that they should either enable some kind of security, or be more cautious about what they send unencrypted across the network, or just stop believing the illusion of privacy, or all three.
I hope they don't allow Google to agree to anything that lets them off the hook because they got the settlement money they wanted.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Better analogy would be someone left the door open for maid to come and clean and someone else enters the house and starts reading your secret diary. It ought to be a crime. The open wifi was for specific purpose. Not for Google to come and read password and emails.
Sergei Brin, is that you? “If we could wave a magic wand and not be subject to US law, that would be great. If we could be in some magical jurisdiction that everyone in the world trusted, that would be great. We're doing it as well as can be done." Did you say that to the Guardian?
how can anyone "educate", or even be heard, without large amounts of money?
Ask the economics professor who beat House Majority Leader Mitch Cantor in Virginia. The professor spent less than $100,000.
Cantor had money. The professor had enthusiastic voters.
So, Obama goes on the offensive and executes a bunch of E.O.'s
And the SCOTUS goes on the offensive and executes a bunch of ruling that are split conservative/liberal, aka party line.
No, they weren't. They were recording raw ethernet frames, and actively collecting SSIDs and MAC address for coarse location information. Had they not inadvertently collected the raw ethernet frames, they did nothing worse than writing down what radio stations you can hear in different parts of the city, because that's EXACTLY THE FUCK WHAT THEY WERE DOING, TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHERE PEOPLE ARE BY WHAT RADIOS THEY HEARD.
"There is no reason a street view car should have doing anything but taking pictures. Hence the name."
Deluded much? Because the name given to any object in the world ALWAYS fully describes its one and only valid purpose and if it does anything else at all, it's wrong.
"If Google had notified people in advance of what their intentions were for collecting this wifi data, people would have raised hell and not allowed it /because they're a bunch of paranoid whiners with zero understanding of technology, looking for a fight/."
Fixed.
I really don't get this. You get a radio transmitter, start transmitting stuff en then go complaining that others are listening. Anybody, corporations like Google included, should have the absolute right to do whatever they want with any electromagnetic or other radiation that reaches their bodies or equipment. Any restriction on that would be the modern-day equivalent of prohibition to look at things. If you don't want me to see your stuff or receive your radio waves or listen to your sound waves, just don't be so rude to transmit them towards me, even penetrating my body.
0x or or snor perron?!
The people at Google know how to collect data. If Google wanted to do this, the street view cars would have been outfitted with an array of antenas for each 802.11 band, to get all the traffic. Instead, the equipment in use was a simple wifi transceiver taking occasional random samples, which is consistent with doing statistical studies.