37 States Join Investigation of Google Street View 269
bonch writes "Attorneys General from 37 states have joined the probe into Google's Street View data collection. The investigation seeks more information behind Google's software testing and data archiving practices after it was discovered that their Street View vans scanned private WLANs and recorded users' MAC addresses. Attorney general Richard Blumenthal said, 'Google's responses continue to generate more questions than they answer. Now the question is how it may have used — and secured — all this private information.'"
Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
*sigh*
That was some really nice street view mapping, location discovery, and concept of 'out in the public' we had there once :/
Private Info? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, who thinks this info is private? We're talking about payload data from unsecured wifi. For that matter we're talking about payload fragments.
Obviously, Google shouldn't have collected this. Obviously, Google shouldn't disclose this information to anyone, including governments.
The data should be destroyed and everyone should move on.
Google didn't collect anything that someone with a wifi card and some easily obtained software couldn't obtain.
Simply put, if you're concerned about privacy secure your wifi because without some encryption you really don't have any privacy.
Devil's Advocate... (Score:5, Insightful)
First off they're scanning public information. This is unencrypted, and broadcast across the airwaves for anyone with a WiFi device to pick up. Secondly they are using this for their location service. By recording the location of the hotspot with the identity they can roughly guess someone's location without the need for GPS. If people want privacy then they should turn off their WiFi or at the very least stop broadcasting the name of the network openly.
As far as Washington goes - just yet another example of idiots in power with no grasp of I.T. and without the wisdom to consult with someone who does.
Overblown? (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who thinks this is overblown? For all the actually invasive data-mining that happens on a daily basis on the web and in real life, are we really concerned that Google captures a few seconds of broadcast, unencrypted network traffic? Is this a more important issue than the online and physical database breaches we see all time from other companies (and governments) -- many of those go entirely unnoticed, and even big stories from that category only get a day or two of news coverage, but people have been whining about this Google thing for weeks.
Even if you assume that Google really wanted to capture this data for some nefarious purpose, exactly what are people worried about? It's not at all clear to me that capturing a random 3 seconds of traffic from someone's open WiFi provides Google with any particularly useful or terribly private information. Ignoring the fact that anyone in the neighborhood could be doing continuous captures of the same AP, or that half of these WiFi networks are connected to broadcast-based uplinks (like cable modems), I just don't understand why this -- even if the intent is evil -- ranks high among the other privacy concerns in modern life.
Politicians from 37 states (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe this is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
We should look at the positive side of this. Since the states have so little to do now that they can waste time and money on bullshit like this, that must mean that the economy is fixed, everyone has jobs, there is no poverty or hunger, and crime and violence is a thing of the past.
Re:Overblown? (Score:3, Insightful)
First, Google isn't getting traffic logs. They're getting a couple of seconds of network traffic which may or may not include any useful traffic. Even if you're actively browsing there's a good chance you didn't click on anything in those few seconds, or if you did, that they missed the 1 packet that had the URL in it. Conflating "traffic logs" with a few seconds of packet captures to make Google seem evil speaks more to your character than theirs.
Second, you and everyone else are welcome to circle my house 24/7 and log or otherwise record all of the broadcast, unencrypted data I emit. I'm not making any special exception for Google -- this information is already public by nature of being broadcast in plaintext.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Private Info? (Score:5, Insightful)
>For me privacy is not about the place, privacy is about the person.
Perhaps - but what google did isn't like hiding in a bush behind you recording your conversation with your girlfriend. It's more like you are standing on top of a chair shouting "I love you Jane Fonda will you marry me" and they record it.
Seriously - when you BROADCAST information, without making any attempt to limit who can receive it despite your broadcasting device being equipped with the means to do so you can't expect it to be private afterward.
Or to use an analogy I used in a previous story on this topic: If you shag your girl against the window without closing the blinds you can't blame the neighbours for staring - not even the pervy fat-guy across the road who videotapes it (and then posts on slashdot about privacy concerns).
I can even give you a car analogy. If I take pictures of the highway as you drive by - and thus get a picture of your car showing make, model and registration - how did I invade your privacy ? If I do it in your own front yard I still didn't invade your privacy - especially since, if you really cared, you could easily have draped a car-condom over it.
Information you broadcast without limiting who can receive/understand it - is not private information - your own actions have MADE it public information.
Re:Private Info? (Score:4, Insightful)
Information you broadcast without limiting who can receive/understand it - is not private information - your own actions have MADE it public information. (emphasis added)
Therein lies the problem. The average consumer does not think of wireless networking as "broadcast" information. They still consider it private. This is partially a lack of understand of the technology, and partially because it does not occur to most people that anyone else might try to snoop.
If I don't want you petting my dog, I can put up a fence around my yard that keeps the dog in and strangers out. But there's no fence I can use to stop wireless signals from going past my physical property, or to keep you from petting my computer... digitally, I mean... hey, stop it.
Re:Private Info? (Score:1, Insightful)
> But there's no fence I can use to stop wireless signals from going past my physical property
Um, Physics 101? There is.
Re:Private Info? (Score:5, Insightful)
What certain geeks like you seem to fail to understand is that normal people don't give a flying fuck about how it works on a technical level.
What a normal reasonable person expects from an open wi-fi is that their neighbors might borrow their internet. What they don't expect is that a random asswank will record all their data. While it's very easy to do it does require you to go out of your way to do it which means you're a dick.
In the same way when you sunbathe in your backyard or fuck your girlfriend in the window you probably don't mind if your neighbors see you, but you have every right to be pissed if someone decides to take photographs.
I for one don't want to live in a world where any information that leaves the 4 walls of my house is public.
Re:Private Info? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Overblown? (Score:1, Insightful)
There's no practical way to evade.
WEP, WPA, SSL
Re:Private Info? (Score:3, Insightful)
Reasonable means...typical home owners are not going to understand the reasons to create a cage, have the means, or technical knowledge to do this, let alone work around issues like cell signals, radio, etc.
Re:Private Info? (Score:4, Insightful)
>The average consumer does not think of wireless networking as "broadcast" information
The average consumer also doesn't think drunk driving is such a big deal - we still hold them accountable when they kill somebody.
Failing to recognize the potential consequences of your actions does not absolve you from being responsible for them.
Re:Private Info? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even close to the same ballpark... hell it's not even the same damn sport.
If a policeman walking down the road sees you shooting a gun at your girlfriend through the window with the open blinds he will damn sure rush in and intervene. "Plain sight" is not covered by the 4th ammendment and broadcast data is much closer to "plain sight" than thermal imagery from INSIDE the house.
More-over there is no practical way to PREVENT thermal energy if you want to, but it's easy to prevent broadcasting unencrypted wifi. Every damn router on the market has an easy setup wizard that suggests encryption as the RECOMMENDED DEFAULT. That makes disabling it an act of choice. Usually made to avoid the hassle of passwords.
Well the price you pay for that convenience is the choice to make your data public.
Re:Private Info? (Score:3, Insightful)
Public != Public Domain.
As long as their purposes are legal, then they're not doing anything wrong. They might be acting unethically, you might not *like* them doing it, but that's another issue entirely; this whole Google debacle is about legality.
Re:Private Info? (Score:1, Insightful)
But there's no fence I can use to stop wireless signals from going past my physical property, or to keep you from petting my computer... digitally, I mean... hey, stop it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
Re:Private Info? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is reasonable however to expect them to tick that little box when they first set up their router, you know the one, to secure it.
If that isn't enough their computer makes every effort to tell them "warning this connection is unsecured" etc etc etc
If you're too stupid to realise than things written in the margins of a library book are less private than things written in your diary or that "warning, this connection is not secured" means "warning, this connection is not secured" then you've passed bellow the "reasonable" threshold.
Re:Private Info? (Score:5, Insightful)
oh it can leave your 4 walls but you have to make at least a symbolic gesture that you wish it to be private.
Encrypt with WEP rather than broadcast it openly.
Seal it in an envelope rather than writing it on a postcard.
Speak it over a private telephone line rather than using a loudspeaker.
Go for a shit in the bathroom and you can expect privacy.
Go for a shit in the middle of the public street and you can expect none. Even if you're deranged or stupid and convinced that you're invisible.
pull the curtain closed in the changing room if you want privacy rather than screaming that passers-by are violating your privacy when you don't.
if people don't know unsecured actually means "unsecured" then they need to learn.it's simple. the world does not need to bend over backwards for them.
Re:Blah (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, we had such concepts once. That was before everything you did "out in the public" was recorded and followed you everywhere.
"You have no expectation of privacy in the public" was fine when "no privacy" meant that you could be observed, but stops being fine when "no privacy" means "everybody you ever interact with can view a record of everything you've ever done". I, for one, do not wish to live under the Lidless Eye.
Re:Or (Score:2, Insightful)
37 states that see the possibility of extorting some type of payout.
Don't think anybody without some type of motive would care about this, Google on their own discovered an oversight, corrected it, and publicly disclosed their error without using the data and is willing to destroy it if they weren't likely to get sued for destruction of evidence.
Perhaps these states want the data to use themselves.
How Dare They! (Score:3, Insightful)
How dare they collect private information like MAC addresses! Those carefully shielded numbers are there for an important purpose: to be kept safe from prying eyes, hidden behind a shield of apparently unlocked wireless networks.
Asses.
WRT network content: If you decide that a regular house isn't good enough for you so you buy a fully glass house, then don't hang up any curtains, what the heck did you expect to happen? "Oh look, this big bad corporation took photographs of my completely glass house! They don't have any intent to do anything with it. We must sue them before they do that!" Why do you people think that your computer warns you every time you connect to an unsecured network that everyone can see all of your bits! The reason they could photograph you naked in public is because YOU WERE NAKED IN PUBLIC. Normally I have some sympathy for non-tech users getting things wrong, but this one is just long-running and stupid.
As a side note, it seems a little odd that people are freaking out that Google might have their e-mails, the websites they visited, etc. That's like complaining that General Petraeus might have improperly bought a slingshot at a fair. Google pretty much knows the gender of your next child. If they saw you remotely streaming Wrestlemania IV, Amazon probably already told them what you rated it and that you keep re-reading Twilight on your Kindle. While I'm uncomfortable with individual corporations having so much data about people, they've already got it. I'm just expecting the day that I get an e-mail from Google saying that they've automatically updated my calendar with the date I made over Google voice, they called the repairman about the noise in the car, and I have six months until an undiscovered cancer kills me. Sniffing my wireless network won't give them anything they're probably not already collecting from this Chrome browser. Of course, my wireless network isn't completely naked because I actually read the 20 point font easy setup card that came with the damned thing.
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because Google gets investigated doesn't mean competitors won't be happy to pick up the slack. It's not like Google is all that exists and that nobody else could do it.
This is Google's fault for making bizarre mistakes with its scanning software. It deserves a little smackdown to remind it of how careful it needs to be.
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
"You have no expectation of privacy in the public" was fine when "no privacy" meant that you could be observed, but stops being fine when "no privacy" means "everybody you ever interact with can view a record of everything you've ever done". I, for one, do not wish to live under the Lidless Eye.
And yet there's no way back - it's just another, darker side of "information wants to be free". You can try to legislate it, but technology today makes stalking people easy and even trivial, and anonymity (or rather sufficient degree thereof) is not hard to achieve on the Net for those in the know, and then gathered information can be spread far and wide.
The only positive thing in this is that everyone is affected. Consequently, this is going to be a cause of a major shake-up in our cultural values, with much less attention paid to skeletons in the closet - once we find out that, yes, everyone really has one. Which may well be a good thing in the end.