Report Finds Google Supervisors Knew About Wi-Fi Data Harvesting 197
bonch writes "According to the FCC report, Google's collection of Street View data was not the unauthorized act of a rogue engineer, as Google had portrayed it, but an authorized program known to supervisors and at least seven other engineers. The original proposal contradicts Google's claim that there was no intent to gather payload data: 'We are logging user traffic along with sufficient data to precisely triangulate their position at a given time, along with information about what they were doing.'"
Re:What people figured all along (Score:5, Interesting)
It confirms no such thing. In fact the entire summary is out of touch with what was in the FCC report.
The entire thing is on line, you can read it for yourself. The FCC dropped the whole thing because there is no clear evidence that google violated any law.
GO READ THE FCC REPORT YOURSELF
instead of relying on a biased hack at the NYT to put their own spin on it.
There was never any intent do use this data, it was merely one engineer's pipe dream to do so.
And the fact that he MUCH LATER circulated memos that stated he was capturing freely available encrypted traffic to 7 people
does not mean they were actually aware of precisely what that meant.
Re:There are rules, even unspoken (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're talking about using encryption rather than broadcasting everything you do to everyone on your block, I disagree. You can, and you should.
Sorry, this is really a non issue for me. Google went around and did the equivalent of listening while people shouted from their rooftops. If you don't want people knowing what you're saying, don't shout it from your rooftop. The same goes for spewing unencrypted traffic across your neighborhood.
Re:What people figured all along (Score:5, Interesting)
Full underacted text (other than the name of Engineer Doe, is available here [scribd.com].
It was clearly a tiny project that got little oversight, and less review. For the NYT to say it was "approved" is quite beyond the facts. Collecting wifi access point locations was approved. But Engineer Doe went off the reservation and did way more than that.
Re:Who the hell cares? (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's sum up the whole thing, "Google had not violated any laws". That's straight from the article and the FCC investigation report. Not one single law was broken, PERIOD. So how is this news? If the NYT really wants to do news about privacy rights why doesn't it put the bullshit CISPA on the front page instead of ignoring it.
I find your attitude dangerous. We wouldn't have a concept of ethics if our laws made all corporations perfect citizens. We need outrage when companies act so blatantly unethical. It hurts me, because I don't want to live in the world we're building. This behavior was completely unacceptable, and the fact that this is currently the highest rated comment on Slashdot, of all places, means I might be a small minority. That scares the shit out of me.
Re:"Ohhh, I love to dance a little side-step..." (Score:5, Interesting)
in the UK at least, they're already criminals (section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 makes it an offence to gather any data howsoever if unauthorised).
So if I post a blog in the UK for everyone to see, but I don't explicitly authorize anyone to view it (the authorization is just implicit), then the Googlebot would be committing a crime by going through it and indexing it? Is that what you're saying?
Re:Motto?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: While I did work at Keyhole(what became GoogleEarth) for 1.75 years back in 2k3, and while my older brother is Google's VP-Engineering, Geo division, I have had no significant insider knowledge or discussions about this, or anything related to it, since I left that job. I also would probably be written off as a delusional paranoid schizophrenic by many, but I'll refrain from shilling half a dozen interesting tidbits about myself here. Anyway, my comment is this:
"This would be evil if Google:
1) Collaborated with the government to alert the government about potential "illegal" activities being conducted"
Now, I will mention that it is public knowledge that the CIA through it's venture capital investment arm 'In-Q-Tel' did more or less save Keyhole from going under during the hard times of 2003ish, a year or two before they were acquired by google.
I honestly can't see how people, even the author of the parent comment, can ignore that angle of the parent comment. Do you really, in any universe after the last decade, think the CIA wouldn't start scratching their heads regarding the possibilities of a dragnet of roving signals intelligence vehicles canvasing the nation, neigh, the world?? I mean, Really??. Do you really think that if they had done something illegal, or debatably unconstitutional on that scale, that they couldn't succeed in getting it brushed under the rug, under the cover that it was just a couple silly engineers stretching some bounds? Really? If so, enjoy your lack of paranoia. Ignorance is bliss.
-dmc