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The Ever-Evolving Question of Privacy

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Paul Keith:
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1282755/Google-Street-View-secretly-recorded-wifi-information-millions-homes.html?ITO=1490

Google has again been accused of invading privacy after secretly collecting details of millions of home wi-fi connections to help it sell adverts.

The search engine giant mapped every wireless internet connection in the country and now uses the data to make money.

Google staff in specially adapted cars collected the signals from inside residents' homes as they toured the country for the company's Street View project.

They were able to record the location of every router and wireless network without telling anyone because wi-fi signals spill out from inside homes on to the street.
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The company has admitted it should have been more 'transparent' but played down the significance of the wi-fi mapping. Spokesman Peter Barron said: 'Many other companies have been collecting data like this for as long as if not longer than, Google.

We don't collect any information about householders, we can't identify an individual from the location data Google collects via Street View cars and we don't publish this information.

This is publicly broadcast information which is accessible to anyone with a wi-fi enabled device, but we accept in hindsight it would have been better to be more transparent about what we collect.' But human rights group Privacy International has called for a 'full-scale audit' of Google.
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Comment:

I can't believe you're making such a big deal out of this. Sure, it's surprising and shocking that they have personal info, but the information that was collected is open for anyone to view, and therefore there should be no problems.

The photo's taken for Street View are no different than walking down a street by yourself, or taking photographs of strangers houses.

The wi-fi hotspots and signals can easily be found by anyone walking down a street with a laptop, mobile phone or handheld games console.

And the data taken (ie, emails, forms etc) from people's wi-fi signals can also easily be picked up due to the fact that the data collected was from routers that hadn't been set up to have security settings.

If people don't like any of this, maybe they should just live somewhere where people can't see their houses (?), use wired connections, or set up wireless security.

It's not hard.
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Eóin:
Using scanners to listen in on someones pre-GSM mobile phone calls is illegal, why do some people have such difficulty understanding this to be totally illegal too?

Renegade:
I wonder when the courts are going to figure out that it's the same as a peeping Tom, and that's illegal too. Sigh...

Eóin:
The more I read that last quoted comment the more stupid, and disconnected from reality, I think the poster must have been.

Their suggestion seems to be that if something is easy to do, and easy to prevent, then it's ok to do it. Extending that logic one could argue it's fine to go around shooting people. After all a gun is easy to use and everyone else could wear body armor.

tomos:

just in case anyone missed it -
a related thread, but focusing more on governments trying to get their hands on what google have collected:
Power corrupts... and absolute power...

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