Google Grabbed Locations of Phones, PCs 230
1800maxim writes "As it turns out, Google didn't only grab the hotspot SSIDs and MAC addresses with its Street View cars. As this article at CNET notes, Google also recorded location data of computers using wireless cards, as well as cell phones and other Wi-Fi devices. Google's explanation is that the data collection was accidental, and they declined to answer further questions from CNET."
Re:Outrage (Score:5, Interesting)
Google wants to collect MAC addresses. They do that on purpose. But they don't want mobile MAC addresses. They want FIXED ones, because that's what helps them Geolocate. Again, this all traces back to the same lazy coder who just copy and pasted some packet sniffing code into his project without bothering to change it to be smart enough to only record open wifi routers broadcast packets or to properly truncate the packet down to the MAC address. Instead he just had it take EVERY packet, keep the first 64 bytes, and dump the rest. This resulted in useless mobile MAC addresses also being recorded along with all the payload data that got Google into so much trouble.
Re:Outrage (Score:2, Interesting)
You (and most news articles I have read on this) fail to miss the point: this is locally public information. Publishing it worldwide may not be in violation of any laws in print (debatable), but that does not make it morally defensible.
To invoke a car analogy: this would be similar to having a worldwide database tying each license plate to its physical location on the planet. Sure, it's public information, since anyone nearby can do the same. But since each license plate can be uniquely tied to its owner, it is still a breach of privacy, whether the owner is near the car or not.