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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.
Lost it at '..and it will take the law to curb their ceaseless "pushing the envelope"'.
When you are Google, you get to write your own laws.
When your democracy revolves around voting with dollars, how could anything besides this outcome have been expected?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you think so, then don't come complaining when your phone take ages to pinpoint your location through pure GPS. Wifi positioning is incredibly helpful.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?!