What Did Google Do?

[Madeline]

Can someone please explain this story to me?

Australia police investigating Google over private data gathered during mapping service - chicagotribune.com

 

[eagleseven]

It means Google, as their representatives were taking street-level photographs of different addresses for Google Maps, was collection the information of any private wireless routers detected in the neighborhood.

In other words, somewhere in the Google meta-server, your address is tagged with the IP and configuration information for any wireless networks in your home. This is legal in the US, but illegal in Australia.

 

[Madeline]

Google has "accidentially" collected the IP of every wireless server in the US? What the fuck sort of camera records THAT?

 

[The Infidel]

Google has "accidentially" collected the IP of every wireless server in the US? What the fuck sort of camera records THAT?

I dont believe it was "an accident". Google knows exactly what they are doing.

Once the gov't takes over the internet. They will have ALL of our information!

 

[Madeline]

Mebbe Google plans to take over the government......

 

[Colin]

It doesn't stop there!

Google was last night forced to remove images of some of Britain’s most sensitive military and security bases from its Street View service.

The website admitted that it had ignored signs warning that photographing the sites breached the Official Secrets Act.

The installations included Special Boat Service and Special Air Service bases, a Government atomic weapons research centre, top-secret Government eavesdropping centres and MI5 headquarters across Britain.

Google forced to remove pictures of secret bases | Mail Online

 

[eagleseven]

Google has "accidentially" collected the IP of every wireless server in the US? What the fuck sort of camera records THAT?

Anyone who has a laptop can do that. Those familiar with hacking call it wardriving, where you drive through a neighborhood scanning and attempting to penetrate any wireless networks and unprotected computers in the neighborhood.

If a person is expecting it, though, there are things they can do at the server level to prevent it, or even fire back.

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I've only ever tried it on a buddy's network, in order to alert him to obvious vulnerabilities (he was watching me do it).

 

[Madeline]

eagleseven, I knew you could piggyback on someone else's wireless network but I didn't know you could collect their IP thataway. I assume the genuises at Google know a bit more about IPs than I do -- and I'm not buying their claim that all this data they collected and stored was gathered by accident.

Anyway, who takes photos with a laptop?