

WiFi data collection: An update - tshtf
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html

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carbocation
They seem to be behaving like a good citizen here.

Although only tangentially related, in the same blog post they said the
following, which I found to be exciting news: "next week we will start
offering an encrypted version of Google Search"

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bobbyi
> They seem to be behaving like a good citizen here.

They didn't look into the issue until forced by a (German) government
investigation and then denied wrongdoing by claiming it was an "accident". How
would a bad citizen have behaved?

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carbocation
Based on their fairly extensive explanation, this actually seems like an
accident to me, so I don't see the need for scare quotes. Do you not agree? I
would like to better understand the alternative point of view.

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alain94040
The alternative is why in the first place, for three full years, they recorded
wifi traffic? Who coded this function? What does the function do with the
data? Where do they store that information? For how long do they keep it?
Where did they do this, worldwide?

When their car is stopped at a traffic light for a minute, does it stop
recording wifi traffic? I'm hoping it's illegal in the US to wiretap a phone,
so how does this compare?

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SoftwareMaven
Since we are in hypothetical conjecture land, I'll give a guess:

My guess is that the code was originally written for a completely different
purpose. When they decided to start gather wifi data, somebody said, "Hey, I
think Bob wrote something like that. Maybe we can use it."

Next came a quick rush to get the thing into their street view cars without
doing a deep analysis on the code.

And, yes, wiretapping without a search warrant. Electronic communications
don't generally fall under the same laws as far as I know (IANAL!).

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draebek
Is anyone else not terribly concerned about this? I wonder if this isn't an
overreaction: I suspect I'd rather Google keep collecting wireless data and
improving its location services. I'm vastly more concerned about, say, what
Google is or isn't doing with my Google searches, my Google Reader behavior,
my Gmail accounts...

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amalcon
It isn't a big deal. The question is, why is Google seemingly making such a
big effort on this front, when they're dismissing other concerns (like what
they're doing with your searches) as not a big deal?

I mean, I'm not one who's particularly nuts about Google and privacy -- we've
known they're in the data mining business all along, anyway. This just smells
very strongly of a PR move.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I agree. It is probably an attempt to mitigate damage that would happen when
the regulators announce their findings.

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jdietrich
This 'issue' is beyond trivial - at the speed the Street View car is moving
and the rate at which they hop wifi channels, they're unlikely to capture more
than a couple of packets.

The fact that they bothered to respond says a great deal IMO about Google's
priorities.

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pquerna
Also interested at the bottom of the blog: """and next week we will start
offering an encrypted version of Google Search"""

Pretty big shift on their end to go within 1 year from very few services being
over HTTPS/SSL to offering most major services over it.

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MWinther
They screwed up, admittedly. On the other hand, getting 0.2 seconds of open
wifi hotspot data is most likely a lot more embarrassing for Google than any
of the wifi-users affected.

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navyrain
This seems like an overreaction, but I think they probably know that, and
still like the PR value of the reaction.

Frankly, of all the entities out there with the means to listen to wifi
signals in bulk, google is amongst the less intimidating.

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kevintwohy
Good example of how to handle a screw-up. Well put.

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WestCoastJustin
Summary: On April 27 that said they we not collection wifi network data
traffic. That was incorrect. They were but only unencrypted network data
traffic and it was changing channels 5 times a second. So, they didn't get
much.

End result -- they are stopping the collection of WiFi network data entirely.

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joelhaus
Overreaction or Opportunistic?

Considering the kind of attention Facebook has been getting, companies in the
tech space who can differentiate themselves not only magnify the amount of
trust they build, but also will afford itself greater protection against
something like a congressional investigation on the broader industry's
privacy/security standards.

I'd call this a business savvy move.

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robryan
Better idea would be to inform people somehow that they are running insecure
wireless. I'm sure the vast majority of people have no idea there doing so and
these days probably getting their internet leached by neighbours.

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SoftwareMaven
That's an interesting idea, but I can think of no way to do that without a
door-to-door campaign.

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rodh257
This is the exact post I would make if I was recording peoples wifi data and
then was about to get audited...

