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Google StreetView cars practice wardriving...
06-19-2010, 02:45 PM
...and, apparently, they were listening to the wi-fi signals they picked up.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/17 ... print.html]Register editorial
I'm not a big fan of wardriving - if I wanted someone to know about my wi-fi router, I would have posted a sign - but that's just my opinion. Listening in on the communications detected while wardriving crosses the line to "illegal actions".
Why is Google allowed to do things like this?
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"That storm now threatens significant reputational damage to Google, not
least because dozens of countries are considering initiating criminal
prosecutions against it and indeed a number of police investigations
have already begun."
It appears Google is not going to "get away with it".
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Epsilon
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They'll get another black mark on their reputation and have to pay a few million dollars in fines. But this is Google - they claim with a straight face that "Don't Be Evil" is their unofficial motto and a lot of people still believe them, and they spend a few million dollars on Superbowl commercials every year.
Those police investigations are the equivalent of a child getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar - annoying and embarrassing, but not even a minor setback...
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them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
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So what do you want to happen? Jail time? For who? Where?
Personally I think Google being willing to work with China and other repressive regimes was a far worse hypocrisy of their "Don't Be Evil" motto then this is.
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Epsilon
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Quote:So what do you want to happen?
Carve them up into discrete businesses, the way Bell was carved up into the various "Baby Bells" in the States. Except that in this case the carving should be done by business unit, not by region.
There's no reason that Google Earth and Google AdSense have to be part of the same company, and it's the fact that they currently are the same company that leads them to think stunts like this one are a good idea.
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Rob Kelk
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The timing is interesting from my point of view, since I'd just been investigating wireless security stuff before changing some things around with *my* router. ("Oh hai, I'm using the type of security that can be broken in minutes! >< ")
From what I've read, it's arguable that SSID and MAC address can't be considered private information by nature of the way WiFi works. It'd be like trying to hide the color of your house - the only way to keep someone from seeing it is to not have a house.
Capturing data... that's an entirely different story. Even messages that have good security reveal things that might be best kept private. (Another reason to look into VPNs?)
As for this, here's something else that sounds concerning (from here):
"On June 4, Google shared the data its cars had collected in France with the CNIL. The CNIL told IDG that it was the first country to receive data from Google. Spain and Germany have also requested the data captured within their borders."
Which sounds to me like the government is getting the actual data. Which might be more worrying than just google having it.
-Morgan.
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robkelk Wrote:Quote:So what do you want to happen?
Carve them up into discrete businesses, the way Bell was carved up into the various "Baby Bells" in the States. Except that in this case the carving should be done by business unit, not by region. I'm not certain that's possible. Google doesn't actually have a monopoly here so antitrust legislation wouldn't work. And would you mandate that all other companies have to be broken up in the same way? It's a lot of bureaucratic and political reshuffling toward not much purpose. What stops Google Earth from selling its data to Google Adsense after you break them up? I mean, the only punishment we have for that is hitting their reputation and fining them and you said that is insufficient.The real problem is the taking of private data, and that's always going to be a problem. Stricter privacy laws would seem a better solution than arbitrarily punishing one company.
It's not like Canada hasn't forced large international internet companies to abide by our privacy laws in the past. We gave Facebook a bloody nose over this kind of thing, we can probably give google a bloody nose as well.
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And THIS is why I don't use WiFi in my home. Hardwired access is far more secure from this sort of thing.
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Quote:Google doesn't actually have a monopoly here so antitrust legislation wouldn't work.
I wonder about that. Is there an effective alternative to AdSense, or to Google Earth? (The courts have ruled that "effective monopoly" equals "monopoly" in the past... but the same courts have also ruled that they aren't equal. No way to know how this one would come out unless and until it comes before the courts.)
Quote:I mean, the only punishment we have for that is hitting their reputation and fining them and you said that is insufficient.
Well, they don't seem to notice when we do that. If the point to punishment is to bring about a change in behaviour, then this particular punishment applied to this particular company isn't working.
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robkelk Wrote:Well, they don't seem to notice when we do that. If the point to punishment is to bring about a change in behaviour, then this particular punishment applied to this particular company isn't working. It's the same problem as the RIAA is facing. We might not be able to punish this in the way we want to and get the results we want. The problem here is corporate protection laws in general. The people who engaged in this behaviour should be held personally responsible for their acts. Google may be able to absorb a multi-thousand dollar fine, but Google Employee X will not be able to nearly as well. Make it clear that engaging in illegal acts while working for a corporation will get you punished severely. Then, if you can prove that the entire corporate structure was behind it, charge them all as a criminal conspiracy under anti-organized crime laws. Do that often enough and while the bigwigs may not hurt as much they'll find it very hard to get people willing to do their dirty work.
Or we could steal a page from the RIAA playbook. Make the charge for each count of privacy invasion some high fee (like $10,000) then just add up all the hundred of thousands of cases. Even Google will have pause when we start ceasing billions of dollars worth of assets.
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Quote:Even Google will have pause when we start ceasing billions of dollars worth of assets.
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Logan Darklighter Wrote:And THIS is why I don't use WiFi in my home. Hardwired access is far more secure from this sort of thing.
So what do you do when the router is up *here*, and the computer is down *there*... Or over that way...
Well, that's why I've been trying to get OpenVPN set up, because it looks like you're *supposed* to be able to get it to run everything through the VPN. The routing arrangement is being a pain though.
-Morgan.
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Morganni Wrote:Logan Darklighter Wrote:And THIS is why I don't use WiFi in my home. Hardwired access is far more secure from this sort of thing.
So what do you do when the router is up *here*, and the computer is down *there*... Or over that way...
Well, that's why I've been trying to get OpenVPN set up, because it looks like you're *supposed* to be able to get it to run everything through the VPN. The routing arrangement is being a pain though.
-Morgan. That's what the 50 ft of Cat 5 cable is for.
3 separate length's of it actually. I had roommates for about 3 years and we were running 3 computers in the house. None of our computers was in the room with the router. We laid it mostly under the carpet and along the floorboards at the bottoms of the walls. But there were a couple of spots where we had to take the cable up and over a door and back again. Mind you - we COULD do wifi if someone came over with a laptop. But we had to turn that on. It wasn't normally.
Simple and reliable. And I don't have to have WiFi security set-up.
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Security
06-20-2010, 01:04 PM
I am not sure that the capture of unencrypted traffic is actually illegal; though I will confirm that; I suspect there may be variations by state/country; I will have to read the actual laws before passing judgment on Google in this regard.
Having said that; running unencrypted wireless is a questionable practice at best. You are shouting out for anyone so equipped to hear "I'm checking my e-mail! I'm writing a response to a post on privacy! I'm surfing porn! The internet is for..." It is like expecting privacy when you are shouting into your phone on a street corner. Unfortunately there are a lot of people implementing it 'out of the box' and it was the cheapest box on the shelf.
Now, if you are using an encrypted wireless solution and someone breaks it or attempts to break it without legal authority; there is no question as to the legality.
The tech is cheap and the implementation is easy; go encrypted if you go wireless.
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ditto to what Rev said. There is little to no excuse to run an open wifi hotspot.
It used to be the case 4+ years ago that setting up an encrypted network was a pain in the ass, that is no longer valid.
Chose a reasonably long WPA (not WEP) password, and write it down somewhere. You will only need to enter that once for each device you have on the wifi network, not a lot of work to be secure.
Also, while we are on the topic of securing your network: change the default password on your router.
-Terry
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Logan Darklighter Wrote:That's what the 50 ft of Cat 5 cable is for.
3 separate length's of it actually. I had roommates for about 3 years and we were running 3 computers in the house. None of our computers was in the room with the router. We laid it mostly under the carpet and along the floorboards at the bottoms of the walls. But there were a couple of spots where we had to take the cable up and over a door and back again. Mind you - we COULD do wifi if someone came over with a laptop. But we had to turn that on. It wasn't normally.
Simple and reliable. And I don't have to have WiFi security set-up.
Well, a laptop is what I'm setting this up for, so... yeah. '.'
Although even if it wasn't, I don't think I'd be able to get away with running cables through more of the house. '.'
-Morgan. Is it working? It looks like it's working...
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Meh, I've always run some level of encryption on my Wifi network, it may've initially been WEP but once me PSP could support a level of WPA that's what I changed to.
Side's the data Google has for my Wifi is wrong, they have it two houses away on the other side of the road. I've probably got a more accurate historical Wifi map than they have due to my odd Netstumbler runs. That only captured SSID, MAC, channel, LAT/LONG & encryption status and nothing else.
--Rod.H
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Stories like this one are the reason I have a hard time figuring out how to percieve google. On the one hand, wardriving like that is wrong. On the other hand, going out of their way to support health care for same-sex couples does a lot to diffuse that hatred in me.
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