German Prosecutors Investigating Google

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German officials are pretty damn mad about Google’s Street View cars driving around siphoning personal information off of Wi-Fi networks in its country. At this point, prosecutors are still deciding what action to take against the company. For now, Germany (and other countries) have demanded that the collected data be destroyed.

Google acknowledged the privacy breach in an apology issued last Friday, saying it had been inadvertently storing fragments of people's online activities over the past four years while expanding its mapping feature, "Street View."
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Does anyone know how you “inadvertently” collect personal data from Wi-Fi networks when supposedly all you are doing is driving around taking pictures?
 
Steve said:
Does anyone know how you “inadvertently” collect personal data from Wi-Fi networks when supposedly all you are doing is driving around taking pictures?
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Exactly. Nothing accidental about it.
Hope Google gets what's coming to them on that one.
 
German prosecutors have launched an investigation of Google Inc. in connection with a privacy breach that involved it recording fragments of people's online activities through unsecured Wi-Fi networks.
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Privacy breach over unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Hmm...
 
They should have just deleted the shit and not told anyone. And yea, there is no way this was an accident.
 
Blue Falcon said:
Just because I leave my front door unlocked doesn't make it OK for you to come in and take my belongings...
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Bad analogy.
More like you left your front door OPEN and youre pissed someone driving down the street saw your naked ass running around inside the house.
 
Steve said:
Does anyone know how you “inadvertently” collect personal data from Wi-Fi networks when supposedly all you are doing is driving around taking pictures?
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They were only wanting to collect the MAC address alone, so that when you try to use a device that has WiFi but not GPS (like for instance the ipad non3G version) it would reference a database, see 'this person is in range of these 4 routers, he must be here...' Wifi positioning system. It also provides more accurate location services when GPS reception isn't possible like in door settings. You can read about it here: http://gps.about.com/od/glossary/g/wifi_position.htm

They found a bug though that was saving that one packet of data that they were looking at for the MAC address instead of just the MAC address. Really that packet they have is practically worthless in real terms, it's something you were already openly broadcasting to the whole neighborhood, and it's a tiny tiny fragment of whatever you were broadcasting. Think of it like a few words in a paragraph of a document. (your neighbor listening in for a minute could capture a vastly larger amount of your data)
 
Monkey God said:
Bad analogy.
More like you left your front door OPEN and youre pissed someone driving down the street saw your naked ass running around inside the house.
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That's an even worse analogy. You still have to chose to connect (or programatically auto-connect) to that open network. Point remains Google connected to networks they don't own and collected data from them.
 
TexUs said:
That's an even worse analogy. You still have to chose to connect (or programatically auto-connect) to that open network. Point remains Google connected to networks they don't own and collected data from them.
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The article is weak on what they actually collected.
 
...surprised Germany doesn't demand that the information be turned over considering its illegal to have an unsecured wireless network in Germany and the the government already does exactly the same thing Google did.

Gonna make my trip back to Germany a pain this year, no free wifi from the neighbors. May need to actually sign up for a EU GSM data plan for the month I'm there:(
 
TexUs said:
That's an even worse analogy. You still have to chose to connect (or programatically auto-connect) to that open network. Point remains Google connected to networks they don't own and collected data from them.
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Curiosity killed the cat.
 
Oh, and you don't need to connect to a network to get data off of it... Wireless is broadcasted...
 
The Wifi analogy is tricky.

It'd be more like you put property outside on the sidewalk in-front of your house, eg. personal family photos, and people walking by looked at them.

You are broadcasting that information (your wifi signals) beyond the domain of your personal residence into public space.

A less accurate but more impact full version is the difference between leaving your door open and finding someone sitting in your living room. vs putting your couch on the sidewalk and seeing someone sitting in it.

But considering the German laws about unprotected wifi, this isn't surprising. The beauty of the tech is it goes through materials (floors and walls) to reach all over your house. But that also means it's not contained by the 4 walls of your property. Which is a tricky feature that causes a host of messy issues.
 
ShadowStriker said:
Oh, and you don't need to connect to a network to get data off of it... Wireless is broadcasted...
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Yes, all google did was sniff the packets traveling through the air, not connect and try to get personal information from your actual computer or shared folders on the network. I mean who hasn't sat in a Starbucks and sniffed packets to kill time, pretty easy to do and most wireless network cards support it in one way or another:D
 
ShadowStriker said:
Oh, and you don't need to connect to a network to get data off of it... Wireless is broadcasted...
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That's true. I wouldn't hold my breath that's what Google did, though.
A searching an indexing giant PASSIVELY collecting data? I LOL at that...
 
aggies11 said:
The Wifi analogy is tricky.

It'd be more like you put property outside on the sidewalk in-front of your house, eg. personal family photos, and people walking by looked at them.

You are broadcasting that information (your wifi signals) beyond the domain of your personal residence into public space.

A less accurate but more impact full version is the difference between leaving your door open and finding someone sitting in your living room. vs putting your couch on the sidewalk and seeing someone sitting in it.

But considering the German laws about unprotected wifi, this isn't surprising. The beauty of the tech is it goes through materials (floors and walls) to reach all over your house. But that also means it's not contained by the 4 walls of your property. Which is a tricky feature that causes a host of messy issues.
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I agree with this analogy. This is probably the closest I've seen for unsecured WiFi. Your signal enters public space (the sidewalk, street, etc). Its not like someone has to be in your home to use your wireless connection and your wireless network is not a physical extension of your home (like your driveway or lawn).
 
RangerXML said:
...surprised Germany doesn't demand that the information be turned over considering its illegal to have an unsecured wireless network in Germany and the the government already does exactly the same thing Google did
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Actually the government is probably more interested in getting their paws into Google's wallet then they are about doing anything about this.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
People with things to do haven't.
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Well that was a mean thing to say, what about waiting for friends or a movie to start? Its like listening to someone playing piano or singing gospel songs in their apartments on Sunday morning when your trying to sleep, nothing you can do to avoid it, but go over there and tell the person to "Shut up!" which you can't do because its past a time to reasonably assume that normal people should be among the living or turn off their computers in this case.

In Germany I don't think it can even be considered a crime since the responsibility is on the owner of the network. Same thing in England now where every user who logs onto a public network must be identifiable and logged and its the owners responsibility. Curious what Germany will do.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Actually the government is probably more interested in getting their paws into Google's wallet then they are about doing anything about this.
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I was actually refraining from saying this, but I think that fines will be the response. The EU is in the shitter when it comes to the economy and the tech industries are their fucking wallets (a billion here and a billion their). I lost half my fucking life savings in the scam called Euros, DM value was literally cut in half on the switch over.
 
The U.S. Internet giant has come under fire from German authorities. The consumer protection minister, Ilse Aigner, has said the "alarming incident" showed that Google lacks an understanding of the need for privacy.
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Yeah, as in Google shouldn't have said anything in the first place.

Frickin' euro-twits.
 
I'm not really going to defend Google on this one, sorry.
Someone else's data (What, Google going to just claim they "accidentally" harvested data, and sorted it into a database, from every WiFi point they drove by?) that Google, passively or actively aquired- sorry. They're not innocent.
It's different of some idiot that knows no difference hopping onto someone's WiFi to check his email one day, versus a searching, data-aquisition and indexing giant driving around harvesting data that's easy for the pickings.
 
Paranoid motherfuckers. What are they hiding? It's not like any of us has any privacy in this day and age anyway. If you are stupid enough to put your business out on the street, you deserve what you get. I have a hard time that Google has harvested enough data on any one person or corporation to incriminate them or commit identity theft, or anything else, even if they had the will to.

Just another cheap-ass cash grab by the fucked-up Europeans on an American company. I swear, I don't know why we even do business over there anymore.
 
Ualdayan said:
They were only wanting to collect the MAC address alone...
They found a bug though that was saving that one packet of data that they were looking at for the MAC address instead of just the MAC address. Really that packet they have is practically worthless in real terms...
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This is the only intelligent response I have read.

First, google has admitted they collected some "payload data". Thats pretty ambiguous but nowhere did they say "personal data". It has been well reported that Google has been collecting MAC addresses of wireless networks as it drives around. There's really nothing wrong with that.

Second, given the knowledge that they are collecting MAC addresses, it's not hard to understand how this could happen "inadvertently". Of course, at some point someone wrote the code to save more than just the MAC addresses. But whether anyone intended for that code to be used on the general public is really not something we can assess without more information, so there is no point in debating it. Google says no one intended to save the data on public networks, and you either believe them or you don't. Now, move on.

And Steve, come on man. You were the one that posted the article about MAC address collection, so don't give us this sensationalist "I have no idea how this could happen... blah blah" stuff.

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/04/23/google_street_view_scanning_mapping_your_mac_address63
 
This.

It was accidental. EU's Paranoia and Money machine strikes again.

Not saying Google is completely innocent, but some of you guys are really going nuts about a single packet of information on an open wifi router.

The real crime is that people still use open wifi for anything that requires an iota of security or privacy.
 
evileye said:
This.

It was accidental. EU's Paranoia and Money machine strikes again.

Not saying Google is completely innocent, but some of you guys are really going nuts about a single packet of information on an open wifi router.

The real crime is that people still use open wifi for anything that requires an iota of security or privacy.
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Is it a crime to leave your door unlocked? Or is it a crime to open it and peek inside uninvited?

Yes, what Google collected is probably NBD... But sheesh you can't admit they're not exploiting ignorant people. Hopping onto open wifi is still a gray area in law HERE, but over there it's apparently not. To be an international company you have to abide by all respective country laws.
 
TexUs said:
Is it a crime to leave your door unlocked? Or is it a crime to open it and peek inside uninvited?

Yes, what Google collected is probably NBD... But sheesh you can't admit they're not exploiting ignorant people. Hopping onto open wifi is still a gray area in law HERE, but over there it's apparently not. To be an international company you have to abide by all respective country laws.
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I know it's not a crime. It was a figure of speech.

Jeez.
 
evileye said:
I know it's not a crime. It was a figure of speech.

Jeez.
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For some reason I can't edit, but....


They're not hopping on to open wifi routers. They're not even connecting to the router. They're sniffing packets - encrypted or not. Even if all the personal routers in Europe were using WPA2 this technology would still work the same. It's not exploiting anyone.
 
I'm from the UK and I am not a fan of the EU membership thing... costs billions and is a waste of time... now thats out the way... I think we should leave the EU btw.

What Google can do with this is when you do a search, they have your MAC address. Now, that in itself is nothing really but when you combine it with the GPS location of that MAC address you can piece together a bit more data. So you search and search on Google and all the time they are building a picture of you. They can then take that data and mine it and work out trends. Those trends can be added to your neighbours searching habits. They can, in turn, be added to others and so on and so forth.

Now, the mining of data is for one thing only: Profit.

I don't actually know the algorithms, or what badness can come of having all this personal data but they are going to use the data for something that makes them money.

I don't actually use Google for anything, including search, but they have ads all over the place with their third party companies like doubleclick. They can all get access to the data that Google holds too.

Google's search, email, social networking etc, is an opt in thing: You have to make a conscious decision to use those products so as far as I am concerned they can take whatever info they want if you allow accept their T's & C's but I don't really have a choice when I go to other sites that happen to use their ads or plugins... and you don't know until you get there. That negates the opt-in part of their empire... that is the only part of this data-gathering-and-mining-for-profit part that I don't like about Google and other online services (I'm sure M$ and yahoo etc do exactly the same!). I managed to get them to remove my house from streetview after the third attempt as they only removed it from when you are directly outside the front door... now you can't see me from anywhere.

Anyway, I hope the EU does something about it. To be honest, if they ban the collection of pseudo-personally-identifiable data (MAC addresses, IP addresses) and Cookies then that would be enough for me. Or at least make it so that you can only use that data to mine down to the city level for instance, instead of right to my front door. In reality that may not be feasible but something like that approach is needed.
 
I don't really have a problem with Streetview, because it's all public info that anyone can see, anyway.

But I DO have an issue with the Macs. NAT assures that your internal networking is only visible locally, and not to the Internet.
If Google is sniffing packets, or whatever... Point remains it's still on someone else's network.

What do you think Google would say if (big IF) they left a wireless hot spot at HQ unsecured and someone sniffed out the "Google grand plans"????
Or sniffed out the MAC addresses in their building trying to figure out the network topology and how best to bring it down?
I'm willing to bet Google wouldn't be too happy about that.
 
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