Poll: Do Now Evil: Google steals Wi-fi info from thousands of homes

[Kaboose the Moose]

Google Australia will today be sent a "please explain" letter from two privacy organisations demanding to know why the company has been collecting personal Wi-Fi network data from Australian homes alongside the images it takes with its Street View cameras.

The letter comes in response to recent reports that the company has been quietly collecting Wi-Fi data around the world when taking pictures of streets and houses for its mapping service.

Street View, which has already rolled out in a number of countries including Australia, displays panoramic street-level photos taken by specially equipped vans which are also equipped with Wi-Fi receivers that scan private network signals as it drives through neighbourhoods.

The Street View photos are overlayed onto Google Maps and concerns that Wi-Fi data could potentially be used to match mobile devices to residential addresses has privacy campaigners on alert, and they claim Google has failed to adequately explain the purpose for which they are collecting this data in Australia.

Source: Does Google want your Wi-Fi data too? [http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3692659/Does-Google-want-your-Wi-Fi-data-too]

What is Google's secret plan for all this Wi-fi data? Finding out which areas have low Wi-fi penetration so they can suck them into jumping aboard Google's free Wi-fi (or whatever that thing is they're working on)? Does this collecting of data act worry you or is such things trivial and beyond concern? If so, why so?

Personally, the mere act of data acquisition without my consent does bother me. Then again if it's only WiFi data which is being used to "pinpoint location of mobile devices on Google Maps and other location services much like a GPS signal" and given that "any details it collects about the network are not published online" then I am not overly concerned. Then again..again, WiFi signals from all devices could be captured by Google's traveling vans, not just the signal from routers. Information from phones and laptops are all potentially accessible by Google and that does concern me slightly.

 

[Anarchemitis]

News flash: Google is not a search engine website company. They are the world's largest and most successful advertisement business, with other ventures including search engine systems. Their motto is "Don't be Evil" and you can take that as you will, but as it stands they haven't done anything necessarily evil (yet), they just wield an immense amount of power.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

News flash: Google is not a search engine website company. They are the world's largest and most successful advertisement business, with other ventures including search engine systems. Their motto is "Don't be Evil" and you can take that as you will, but as it stands they haven't done anything necessarily evil (yet), they just wield an immense amount of power.

..yes but is the taking of WiFi data without consent or explanation from people a thing of worry for you, is the crux of the dilemma here. Whether or not the act is evil, as you said, remains to be seen.

 

[Choppaduel]

they haven't done anything necessarily evil (yet)

that we know of.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

So.. Bringing free wifi to connection troubled areas is evil?

Or are we assuming they have been creating a secret army of robot bears and these signals will be used to command their movements from a remote super base somewhere in Earth's outer orbit?

If it's the former then, no. I highly doubt that free internet is something google is planning on introducing to people at this point in time though.

The latter is however, quite intriguing. I do hope its the latter. I want to see a robot bear invasion...

 

[Patrick Dare]

As far as I know when they did this elsewhere (and I'm assuming Australia as well) it was only unprotected networks since you can't get into protected ones anyways (well unless the person is using WEP). Any one with a laptop with wifi could go around and do the same thing. Personally I don't think it's a big deal. If they were going around trying to break into protected wireless networks that would be different.

Note to people: Turn your fucking encryption on!

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

[...] it'll probably block the dirty kind of pron. You know what kind I'm talking about.

The kind with Dick Cheney or are we still not talking about that?

As far as I know when they did this elsewhere (and I'm assuming Australia as well) it was only unprotected networks since you can't get into protected ones anyways (well unless the person is using WEP). Any one with a laptop with wifi could go around and do the same thing. Personally I don't think it's a big deal. If they were going around trying to break into protected wireless networks that would be different.

Note to people: Turn your fucking encryption on!

It's always a good idea..but there goes the days when I used to leech of my neighbors wireless during the first year of university.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Allow me to be "that guy"....

Mother FUCKERS!

 

[Patrick Dare]

It's always a good idea..but there goes the days when I used to leech of my neighbors wireless during the first year of university.

Haha, did this a couple times at my apartment while waiting for them to come install our internet. People should at least change the default password to get into the router's settings. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a wireless network named "linksys" and tried logging into the router and sure enough, default username and pass.

Edit:

They were probably just surveying who has it and who doesn't. Your signal fills the air even if the data doesn't. That's all they seem to be noting, which anyone can do with a Nintendo DS.

Yeah, I mean I guess they could be sniffing out packets on open networks but I doubt they were doing that.

 

[insaneHoshi]

I thought they were just scanning for ip adresses

 

[SadisticPretzel]

I haven't liked Google for a long time...This just adds another log to the fire.

 

[mooncalf]

News flash: Google is not a search engine website company. They are the world's largest and most successful advertisement business, with other ventures including search engine systems. Their motto is "Don't be Evil" and you can take that as you will, but as it stands they haven't done anything necessarily evil (yet), they just wield an immense amount of power.

An australian privacy group spokesperson remarked in an Advertiser article today that the don't be evil slogan is a myth which has been popularised but which does not actually factor into their decision making.

Julian Assange is less of a threat to global politics, but google play it nice.