you'd be bitching and whining about it until your lungs bled. The only reason you're defending Google's reprehensible actions is because you're deeply in love with Google. Indeed, imagine for a moment if the government were going around sniffing wifi data in the name of "protecting the children" or if Microsoft did it for "collecting data to improve the Windows experience." You'd cry all day and night saying that they have no right to do so. But no, you love Google so much that you can't even see straight. What Google did was wrong, plain and simple.
Read what I said, dimbulb. Frankly, I wouldn't care if the Feds tried it, or Microsoft or anyone else... I happen to believe that if you broadcast information in the clear you have zero, and I mean zero, right to complain if someone intercepts that transmission. Period. You're truly dimwitted if you believe that it matters what the law says when it comes to radio transmissions. Look buddy... you put it out there and if somebody picks it up and uses it against you it's because you fucked up.
I look at this as being a classic example of people trying to shift blame and feeling that the law should afford them more protection than it possibly can. If the idiots who ended up in Google's logs had turned on encryption none of this would have mattered. But they didn't: there are untold numbers of wide-open access points there because the owners of said WAPs couldn't be bothered protect themselves. Their bad, not Google's. If it wasn't Google, it would have been somebody else, somebody that might be a hell of a lot more unscrupulous than a Google.
So yeah, Google screwed the pooch on this one, and it's unlikely they'll make that mistake ever again. And that's fine so far as it goes. And yes, Google's experience here may convince other entities not to try something similar (may, I say.) Either way, would you really feel secure running an open access point jacked right into your home network, regardless of what the law says? Really?
I disagree with you that Google did anything "wrong". Illegal, possibly, depending upon the locale, but that's not the same thing as wrong. Personally, I think that the law shouldn't even be involved here. Don't want your neighbors, the government or a large corporation to snoop on you? Then don't connect a powerful radio transmitter to your computer and there won't be a problem. Oh, you want the power and convenience of wireless technology, but don't want to have to learn how to use it properly? Well, then you can damn well take the consequences of your ignorance. Government has a legitimate interest in allocating spectrum use by various transmission sources: they shouldn't be telling anyone what they can and cannot receive. Certainly not in the era of pervasive encryption.
Keep in mind that Google made no attempt to crack or break into any system. No dictionary attacks, no attempt to decode encryption keys. All they did was record (accidentally, so they say) what was being broadcast by equipment using insecure manufacturer default settings. Yes, I agree that cracking should be illegal. Picking up unencrypted broadcasts should not.
What you're really saying is that the government (any government) should try to protect people who are too stupid to use a computer.
This stuff used to be heavily export controlled, not so much anymore
Yeah, until the Feds finally figured out that other countries have good programmers and crypto people too. Cryptography really isn't something that any one nation can maintain a monopoly on.
Presumably, they're looking for evidence, and based upon the effort they're going to, I suspect that they might not have a case without whatever is on the disks. Assuming that there's something on there that incriminates him. Which is why the 5th amendment protects the key.
Does Brazil have an equivalent to the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment? And actually, there's been quite a bit of dissent over whether or not the Fifth applies to passwords: a Federal judge ruled a while ago that it does so long as the password is in your head. He also ruled that if law enforcement can decrypt the data without need of the password (or manages to guess it) that's okay. Furthermore, in his opinion he said that if said password is written down or otherwise stored in plain text, it's also fair game. Actually, that was a fairly reasoned opinion, I thought, although IHAL (I'm Hardly A Lawyer.) But from what I've read on the subject, I wouldn't say it's cast in stone the Fifth protects such things at this point. If anyone has more information on this subject I'd like to hear it.
In Brazil, proofs produced by illegal means cannot be used (Federal Constitution, Art. 5, Inc. LVI
My guess is that, the next time this happens, it will no longer be considered "illegal means".
I recall a Slashdot article that said England already has a law that requires individual to turn over their passwords to law enforcement. Brazil's government may decide that they need something similar.
that artists should not have the choice of licensing their works under a copyleft license.
You're saying that if "Artist A" wants to release her own works under a Creative Commons license, she must be stealing from "Artist B", who works so hard for a living.
I am going to have to disagree, Mr. Troll.
No, he's a. carrying his example to an extreme for humorous effect and b. making a point.
Let them attack everything. Hell. I say let them even win. Once people can't do anything with any of the stuff they own they will wither get smart and take matters into their own hands, or allow themselves to to be screwed.
Someone needs to put these people (and by "people" I mean the RIAA, MPAA, CRIA and all their sister organizations worldwide) in their place. Failing that, simple execution would be in order. A single shot to the back of the head will suffice, I think.
Then you would have no problem with people stealing music CDs in stores and leaving $0.10 at the counter, correct? After all, that's all it costs to produce, am I right? Consumers get to decide the cost for all products, yes?
The adults are trying to have a rational discussion here. RIAA shills and/or stupid people are simply not invited.
He's just pointing out the truth: it's your responsibility to secure the radio transmitter that you hooked up to your computer. It's not my my responsibility to avoid picking up your signals.
It's also my responsibility to lock my house's door every day, but that does not give anyone the right to open in and walk by my house, much less peak through my stuff or listen in my conversations, because I forgot to lock the door.
It's not the same, true, but leaving my wifi open is not an invitation to hack into transmissions, at best, its an open invitation for other users to also access the internet through it. I'm no lawyer, and even if I was I could not claim to know the laws in every single state, but its very likely if there are investigations going on that the states that have started them do have laws against hacking communications.
You're confused. Google in no way "hacked" anything (and the term "hacking", in this context, is a media-induced misnomer anyway. You're talking about "cracking".) Sure, if you locked your door and somebody went and picked the lock, that would be akin to hacking. If you put a sign on the outside of that door that says, "hey everybody, look at me, my name is Bob!", well, that's not akin to hacking. It's mere observation, which is pretty much what Google was doing. Google's scanners made absolutely no attempt to guess passwords, deliberately access confidential material or anything else, that seems pretty clear. They simply recorded what some users were foolish enough to broadcast in the clear. Broadcast, mind you. Complaining about this is like your local FM station getting irritated that you actually listened to it. If you put it out there, you have no leg to stand on if someone picks it up. Imagine the IT guy explaining to his boss how the company suffered a data breach because the IT guy couldn't be bothered to turn on WPA. "But boss, there's no way we had anything stolen... it's illegal!" Sure, dude. Better polish up the resume'.
In any event, good security should stand up to basic scrutiny: if you can't guarantee that, you shouldn't be running a wireless router. Period. Google's not to blame here: clueless users and disinterested hardware vendors are.
My Gdd, why do you people expect to connect a radio transmitter to your computer and have your data protected by a law? Christ, laws don't protect you in this case: there's too much anonymity involved, too many people that simply don't care about such laws, because they will never, ever, be held accountable to them. The only protection you have is what you implement yourself. Personally, I have to thank Google for raising the profile of this very important issue: it's too bad that some people (you for one, apparently) don't get the point.
Interestingly, I've been modded "troll" repeatedly for stating the obvious. It looks as if a significant number of people believe that they should be able to just plug in that Linksys box, hook it up to their network using the (dangerously insecure) default settings, and not worry about security because, you know, the law will protect their confidential data.
Sorry folks, that's just not the way it works, not in the world that the rest of us live in. I'm going to assume that you are an individual that knows how to properly secure a wireless network, or at least has some idea how the technology actually works. If you are not, this is not a subject that you should weigh in upon until you learn more about it.
I think Google is seen as being a bit too successful and there are a lot of companies that would like to see Page & Brin taken down a notch. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find Microsoft's hand behind some of this.
And just what drain-bamaged individual modded the parent post troll? He's just pointing out the truth: it's your responsibility to secure the radio transmitter that you hooked up to your computer. It's not my my responsibility to avoid picking up your signals. The truth is, when it comes to security the law cannot protect you. Just like cops can't protect you from having your house broken into and your wife and daughter raped. All the law can do is try to pick up the pieces afterwards and maybe offer some redress.
Google screwed up here, but only by gauging the collective intelligence of the world's politicians to be much higher than it really is.
'Thanks Jammie, we've had all we can get out of you and caused you enough grief — pay us $1 and we'll forget about it.' Actually doing that would be a lot less costly and more reasonable that what they appear to have in mind."
Reason, and reasonableness, has never been a part of their campaign from the beginning.
The Utah AG was 'tweeting' while the murder was 'twitching'? This case received a lot of publicity (as most executions do) and he was just spreading the news as it happened. He's now qualified to work for one of the big networks.
Twitter is primarily a means of efficiently transmitting trivia. The fact that a life was taken by the State should not be considered trivial.
Now, having said that, I can also state that pretty much all forms of modern telecommunications are used for mostly trivial purposes. Let's face it... most of us don't really have anything worthwhile to say.
If T-Mobile and Sprint were more than also-rans in this market, then there'd be less of these shenanigans from AT&T and Verizon.
Yeah, I tend to agree. Not to mention the fact that T-Mobile may not be around much longer, not in its current form. And that's too bad: the underdog tends to treat its customers better because it can't afford to lose them. I've had a cell phone since, well, the late eighties I guess, and so far T-Mobile has given me the least grief of any of the providers I've had. I suffered through Cellular One contract (my God what a bunch of pricks), Sprint, AT&T, U.S. Cellular, you-name-it. Granted, they all suck to one degree or another. It seems like shoving it up your customer's ass is just bred-in-the-boner to these people.
I'll be blunt when I state that it doesn't cost them nearly as much as they're claiming
Q: How do you tell when a cellular provider's CEO is lying?
Can you people make up your mind? On one hand, you continually tell us that it's a bad idea to have Seamonkey-style applications that contain all sorts of functionality. You proclaim that it's not modular enough. So we create minimalistic browsers that can be extended via extensions and plugins. But now you're telling us that it's good to include unnecessary functionality within the core browser? Please, just make up your mind. Don't tell us that modularity is essential, only go turn around and advocate absolutely non-modular implementations like this.
Ha... people's opinions on this subject do seem a bit schizoid at times. The problem is that sometimes you want something to just be there so that it's consistent for everyone, other times you want extensibility and in all cases you want performance and security. It's called "having your cake and eating it too."
From a security point of view, I'd feel better if Google wrote their own PDF implementation. Far be it for me to read TFA, but I get the impression that this code comes from Adobe, whose software generally makes me nervous.
I tend to agree. Whether or not you like Google's corporate policies, the fact is that most of their software releases are competently executed. The same cannot be said for Adobe. I've had to use their libraries in the past, and had to contact their developer support (I use the term loosely.) The responses I received were usually along the lines of "the function call operates as intended according to the documentation." The fact that it did no such thing didn't seem to make much difference. That was a few years ago though, so possibly they've improved.
Yeah, because a web page should look exactly the same on my smartphone as it does on my 1080p display....
I don't think the OP understands the purpose of a markup language, a browser, or the idea the pages should render gracefully on different devices. And that's okay so long as he's not a Web developer.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't flamebait it's a prediction based on historical data.
I've been noticing an excessive number of flamebait mods the past couple of days. Kinda wonder if we have some astro-modding going on around here.
you'd be bitching and whining about it until your lungs bled. The only reason you're defending Google's reprehensible actions is because you're deeply in love with Google. Indeed, imagine for a moment if the government were going around sniffing wifi data in the name of "protecting the children" or if Microsoft did it for "collecting data to improve the Windows experience." You'd cry all day and night saying that they have no right to do so. But no, you love Google so much that you can't even see straight. What Google did was wrong, plain and simple.
Read what I said, dimbulb. Frankly, I wouldn't care if the Feds tried it, or Microsoft or anyone else ... I happen to believe that if you broadcast information in the clear you have zero, and I mean zero, right to complain if someone intercepts that transmission. Period. You're truly dimwitted if you believe that it matters what the law says when it comes to radio transmissions. Look buddy ... you put it out there and if somebody picks it up and uses it against you it's because you fucked up.
I look at this as being a classic example of people trying to shift blame and feeling that the law should afford them more protection than it possibly can. If the idiots who ended up in Google's logs had turned on encryption none of this would have mattered. But they didn't: there are untold numbers of wide-open access points there because the owners of said WAPs couldn't be bothered protect themselves. Their bad, not Google's. If it wasn't Google, it would have been somebody else, somebody that might be a hell of a lot more unscrupulous than a Google.
So yeah, Google screwed the pooch on this one, and it's unlikely they'll make that mistake ever again. And that's fine so far as it goes. And yes, Google's experience here may convince other entities not to try something similar (may, I say.) Either way, would you really feel secure running an open access point jacked right into your home network, regardless of what the law says? Really?
I disagree with you that Google did anything "wrong". Illegal, possibly, depending upon the locale, but that's not the same thing as wrong. Personally, I think that the law shouldn't even be involved here. Don't want your neighbors, the government or a large corporation to snoop on you? Then don't connect a powerful radio transmitter to your computer and there won't be a problem. Oh, you want the power and convenience of wireless technology, but don't want to have to learn how to use it properly? Well, then you can damn well take the consequences of your ignorance. Government has a legitimate interest in allocating spectrum use by various transmission sources: they shouldn't be telling anyone what they can and cannot receive. Certainly not in the era of pervasive encryption.
Keep in mind that Google made no attempt to crack or break into any system. No dictionary attacks, no attempt to decode encryption keys. All they did was record (accidentally, so they say) what was being broadcast by equipment using insecure manufacturer default settings. Yes, I agree that cracking should be illegal. Picking up unencrypted broadcasts should not.
What you're really saying is that the government (any government) should try to protect people who are too stupid to use a computer.
but that is a decision for the US Supreme court
Congress could fix this. They're the ones that broke it in the first place.
This stuff used to be heavily export controlled, not so much anymore
Yeah, until the Feds finally figured out that other countries have good programmers and crypto people too. Cryptography really isn't something that any one nation can maintain a monopoly on.
The law of gravity. The feds hang you by your feet out a 5th floor window till you talk......
Nope. That would violate the Fifth Amendment. You'd have to use either the fourth or sixth floors.
Too late
Presumably, they're looking for evidence, and based upon the effort they're going to, I suspect that they might not have a case without whatever is on the disks. Assuming that there's something on there that incriminates him. Which is why the 5th amendment protects the key.
Does Brazil have an equivalent to the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment? And actually, there's been quite a bit of dissent over whether or not the Fifth applies to passwords: a Federal judge ruled a while ago that it does so long as the password is in your head. He also ruled that if law enforcement can decrypt the data without need of the password (or manages to guess it) that's okay. Furthermore, in his opinion he said that if said password is written down or otherwise stored in plain text, it's also fair game. Actually, that was a fairly reasoned opinion, I thought, although IHAL (I'm Hardly A Lawyer.) But from what I've read on the subject, I wouldn't say it's cast in stone the Fifth protects such things at this point. If anyone has more information on this subject I'd like to hear it.
Wow, you are proud of your topical ignorance while sharing an opinion? Great, thanks for adding your share to the noise in this world....
That wasn't noise ... it was an encrypted message.
Surely there's many links, most of those weaker than the algorithm itself.
Guess not. Two governments have failed to break it. Hows that work with your belief that recovery will always be compromised by some 'link'?
They just didn't apply enough governments.
In Brazil, proofs produced by illegal means cannot be used (Federal Constitution, Art. 5, Inc. LVI
My guess is that, the next time this happens, it will no longer be considered "illegal means".
I recall a Slashdot article that said England already has a law that requires individual to turn over their passwords to law enforcement. Brazil's government may decide that they need something similar.
You can still roll your own.
Yes I'm a big fan of Cyanogenmod, myself. Turns the venerable G1 into a useful device.
that artists should not have the choice of licensing their works under a copyleft license.
You're saying that if "Artist A" wants to release her own works under a Creative Commons license, she must be stealing from "Artist B", who works so hard for a living. I am going to have to disagree, Mr. Troll.
No, he's a. carrying his example to an extreme for humorous effect and b. making a point.
Let them attack everything. Hell. I say let them even win. Once people can't do anything with any of the stuff they own they will wither get smart and take matters into their own hands, or allow themselves to to be screwed.
Someone needs to put these people (and by "people" I mean the RIAA, MPAA, CRIA and all their sister organizations worldwide) in their place. Failing that, simple execution would be in order. A single shot to the back of the head will suffice, I think.
Then you would have no problem with people stealing music CDs in stores and leaving $0.10 at the counter, correct? After all, that's all it costs to produce, am I right? Consumers get to decide the cost for all products, yes?
The adults are trying to have a rational discussion here. RIAA shills and/or stupid people are simply not invited.
He's just pointing out the truth: it's your responsibility to secure the radio transmitter that you hooked up to your computer. It's not my my responsibility to avoid picking up your signals.
It's also my responsibility to lock my house's door every day, but that does not give anyone the right to open in and walk by my house, much less peak through my stuff or listen in my conversations, because I forgot to lock the door.
It's not the same, true, but leaving my wifi open is not an invitation to hack into transmissions, at best, its an open invitation for other users to also access the internet through it. I'm no lawyer, and even if I was I could not claim to know the laws in every single state, but its very likely if there are investigations going on that the states that have started them do have laws against hacking communications.
You're confused. Google in no way "hacked" anything (and the term "hacking", in this context, is a media-induced misnomer anyway. You're talking about "cracking".) Sure, if you locked your door and somebody went and picked the lock, that would be akin to hacking. If you put a sign on the outside of that door that says, "hey everybody, look at me, my name is Bob!", well, that's not akin to hacking. It's mere observation, which is pretty much what Google was doing. Google's scanners made absolutely no attempt to guess passwords, deliberately access confidential material or anything else, that seems pretty clear. They simply recorded what some users were foolish enough to broadcast in the clear. Broadcast, mind you. Complaining about this is like your local FM station getting irritated that you actually listened to it. If you put it out there, you have no leg to stand on if someone picks it up. Imagine the IT guy explaining to his boss how the company suffered a data breach because the IT guy couldn't be bothered to turn on WPA. "But boss, there's no way we had anything stolen ... it's illegal!" Sure, dude. Better polish up the resume'.
In any event, good security should stand up to basic scrutiny: if you can't guarantee that, you shouldn't be running a wireless router. Period. Google's not to blame here: clueless users and disinterested hardware vendors are.
My Gdd, why do you people expect to connect a radio transmitter to your computer and have your data protected by a law? Christ, laws don't protect you in this case: there's too much anonymity involved, too many people that simply don't care about such laws, because they will never, ever, be held accountable to them. The only protection you have is what you implement yourself. Personally, I have to thank Google for raising the profile of this very important issue: it's too bad that some people (you for one, apparently) don't get the point.
Interestingly, I've been modded "troll" repeatedly for stating the obvious. It looks as if a significant number of people believe that they should be able to just plug in that Linksys box, hook it up to their network using the (dangerously insecure) default settings, and not worry about security because, you know, the law will protect their confidential data.
Sorry folks, that's just not the way it works, not in the world that the rest of us live in. I'm going to assume that you are an individual that knows how to properly secure a wireless network, or at least has some idea how the technology actually works. If you are not, this is not a subject that you should weigh in upon until you learn more about it.
pretty sure people are red meat
Only if you're native American. I'm not so sure about the rest of us.
Why this is being given such legal scrutiny.
I think Google is seen as being a bit too successful and there are a lot of companies that would like to see Page & Brin taken down a notch. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find Microsoft's hand behind some of this.
And just what drain-bamaged individual modded the parent post troll? He's just pointing out the truth: it's your responsibility to secure the radio transmitter that you hooked up to your computer. It's not my my responsibility to avoid picking up your signals. The truth is, when it comes to security the law cannot protect you. Just like cops can't protect you from having your house broken into and your wife and daughter raped. All the law can do is try to pick up the pieces afterwards and maybe offer some redress.
Google screwed up here, but only by gauging the collective intelligence of the world's politicians to be much higher than it really is.
'Thanks Jammie, we've had all we can get out of you and caused you enough grief — pay us $1 and we'll forget about it.' Actually doing that would be a lot less costly and more reasonable that what they appear to have in mind."
Reason, and reasonableness, has never been a part of their campaign from the beginning.
And concurrently giving the world a fine example of why people in his state are routinely referred to as Utahrds.
Of course, there's also the well-known "anonymous cowtard" who regularly posts on Slashdot.
The Utah AG was 'tweeting' while the murder was 'twitching'? This case received a lot of publicity (as most executions do) and he was just spreading the news as it happened. He's now qualified to work for one of the big networks.
Twitter is primarily a means of efficiently transmitting trivia. The fact that a life was taken by the State should not be considered trivial.
... most of us don't really have anything worthwhile to say.
Now, having said that, I can also state that pretty much all forms of modern telecommunications are used for mostly trivial purposes. Let's face it
Franklin, Franklin, Benjamin Franklin
Send me a few Franklins and I'll spout any opinion you want.
If T-Mobile and Sprint were more than also-rans in this market, then there'd be less of these shenanigans from AT&T and Verizon.
Yeah, I tend to agree. Not to mention the fact that T-Mobile may not be around much longer, not in its current form. And that's too bad: the underdog tends to treat its customers better because it can't afford to lose them. I've had a cell phone since, well, the late eighties I guess, and so far T-Mobile has given me the least grief of any of the providers I've had. I suffered through Cellular One contract (my God what a bunch of pricks), Sprint, AT&T, U.S. Cellular, you-name-it. Granted, they all suck to one degree or another. It seems like shoving it up your customer's ass is just bred-in-the-boner to these people.
I'll be blunt when I state that it doesn't cost them nearly as much as they're claiming
Q: How do you tell when a cellular provider's CEO is lying?
A: His lips move.
Can you people make up your mind? On one hand, you continually tell us that it's a bad idea to have Seamonkey-style applications that contain all sorts of functionality. You proclaim that it's not modular enough. So we create minimalistic browsers that can be extended via extensions and plugins. But now you're telling us that it's good to include unnecessary functionality within the core browser? Please, just make up your mind. Don't tell us that modularity is essential, only go turn around and advocate absolutely non-modular implementations like this.
Ha ... people's opinions on this subject do seem a bit schizoid at times. The problem is that sometimes you want something to just be there so that it's consistent for everyone, other times you want extensibility and in all cases you want performance and security. It's called "having your cake and eating it too."
From a security point of view, I'd feel better if Google wrote their own PDF implementation. Far be it for me to read TFA, but I get the impression that this code comes from Adobe, whose software generally makes me nervous.
I tend to agree. Whether or not you like Google's corporate policies, the fact is that most of their software releases are competently executed. The same cannot be said for Adobe. I've had to use their libraries in the past, and had to contact their developer support (I use the term loosely.) The responses I received were usually along the lines of "the function call operates as intended according to the documentation." The fact that it did no such thing didn't seem to make much difference. That was a few years ago though, so possibly they've improved.
But yeah. I'd rather Google had handled it.
Yeah, because a web page should look exactly the same on my smartphone as it does on my 1080p display....
I don't think the OP understands the purpose of a markup language, a browser, or the idea the pages should render gracefully on different devices. And that's okay so long as he's not a Web developer.