Evans Liberal Politics
May 16, 2010
Google Private Data Collection:
Company ADMITS Snooping Via WiFi Networks,
with Commentary
See Google Private Data Collection: Company ADMITS Snooping Via WiFi Networks, © The Huffington Post, May 14, 2010, by Bianca Bosker, quoted verbatim, with commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans:
This post was published on Daily Kos, May 16, 2009, under the title Concerned About Privacy on the Web? I’ll Give You the Skinny About So-Called Privacy!.
In a blog post published Friday, Google admitted to ‘mistakenly’ collecting sensitive private data sent over WiFi networks.
Germany’s data protection authority (DPA) requested Google audit the WiFi data collected by its Street View cars. The audit revealed that contrary to the company’s claims, for at least three years, Google has been collecting payload data (the information users send over a wireless network) from non-password-protected WiFi networks. A programming error from 2006 was at fault.
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Explaining how this collection of sensitive data occurred, Google’s Senior VP of Engineering & Research Alan Eustace said, “Quite simply, it was a mistake.” He explained, “An engineer working on an experimental WiFi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data. A year later, when our mobile team started a project to collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using Google’s Street View cars, they included that code in their software—although the project leaders did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data.”
Google outlined the steps it plans to take as a result of the mistake. The company says it intends to delete the data “as quickly as possible.” It has already grounded its Street View cars, and will halt collection of WiFi network data.
Additional measures include:
* Asking a third party to review the software at issue, how it worked and what data it gathered, as well as to confirm that we deleted the data appropriately; and
* Internally reviewing our procedures to ensure that our controls are sufficiently robust to address these kinds of problems in the future.
Google tried to mitigate concerns by clarifying that none of the private data was used in Google products and only “fragments” of information were collected.
The admission comes following outspoken criticism from Germany’s Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar, who was “horrified” to learn that Google’s Street View car cataloged private WiFi network data like Mac (Media Access Control) addresses and SSIDs, in addition to snapping pictures of public streets.
Read Google’s full blog post here.
rjc999 on Huffington Post explains how this could happen in a featured comment:
Google doesn’t care about your home, the point of the WiFi collection is to map location of WiFi routers. Why would you want to do this? Well, if you have a mobile device which doesn’t have built in GPS (laptop, iPhone 2G, etc) and you want to have it determine your location for geo-based webapps, the way this currently works is to look up the GPS location nearby wifi routers and triangulate it.
It’s nothing more than a mechanism for enabling cheap GPS in every device without requiring GPS satellites. Nothing more, nothing less. And the reason Google is doing it is so that they don’t have to waste money on licensing data from SkyHook or Teleatlas.
Yes, that’s right, your WiFi router has already been mapped multiple times by multiple companies with their own fleet of geo-recording cars.
Visit Google Street View and see what the fuss is all about.
Read the discussion about this at the Democratic Underground.
The most quoted and extensive article about this on the web may be the Associate Press’s Google grabs personal info off of Wi-Fi networks, AP, May 14, 2010, by The Associated Press, here hosted on CNBC.
You can also read about this on NPR: Google Grabs Personal Info Off Wi-Fi Networks, NPR, May 14, 2010, by Martin Kast
Also see Google admits wi-fi data collection blunder, BBC News, May 15, 2010, by Maggie Shiels.
Commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: ha ha ha… this is the biggest tempest in a teapot I’ve heard of in a while. PRIVACY??? You people are still concerned about privacy? ha ha ha haha…ha. HA!
Concerned About Privacy on the Web?
I’ll Give You the Skinny About So-Called Privacy!
(Helpful Tech Stuff)
Probably for as long as there has been a functional internet (or at least since the beginning of 2006, as I recall), the F.B.I. has stored an untraceable, untouchable cookie on ANYONE’S computer that has ever used the internet. Yes I mean everybody… Too bad lawbreakers… I guess they’re just too busy to bust you so far….
See Announcing the FBI’s New Public Source Information Program (pdf). Don’t say you weren’t told.
Microsoft, for it’s part collects all the emails that are sent over the internet, I believe, and not just the ones sent on Hotmail or with Outlook. It keeps these in a huge database where the emails are sorted by keywords.
Ever wonder why, when you call your internet service provider for tech support that they always almost demand that you install their Help software? And then there are TOOLbars….
Let’s talk about Internet Explorer, shall we? Long, long ago, in a kinder, gentler universe, in other words in the days of Internet Explorer 6, when for example there wasn’t so damned much digital rights management built into media players, you could pretty much surf the web and do whatever the hell you wanted. Internet Explorer 7 changed all that and collected all the data Microsoft is capable of collecting about exactly what you do on the web. However, with Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft has outdone itself. Geeks knew about Internet Explorer 7, referring to it as a “snitch” and used alternative web browsers such as Firefox, which has long been the choice of intelligent geeks.
But now, with Internet Explorer 8 on your computer, the game has changed just a wee scotch in favor of Microsoft. IE8 is built into all Windows computers now. It used to be that you could download Internet Explorer, but now, if something goes wrong with the code you are basically screwed because it is considered part of the basic Windows operating system and not something separate you can download easily from Microsoft. Wait, we’re getting to the good part: so IE8 is built into your computer right? Well IE8 collects all the data and loads all the cookies that ANY web browser you use acquires, whether you are using IE8 at all or not. Snitch par excellence! Don’t believe me? Just use Firefox and spend a day surfing the web, and then use a reasonable computer “cleaner” such as CCleaner (have I mentioned you really should have this?) to clean up the computer. You’ll see that Microsoft Internet Explorer was right there watching all the time, and that, for example, it loaded all the cookies which your Firefox browser loaded. Just letting you know.
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(Helpful Hints: If you really want to keep your computer as “clean” as current privacy allows, you should have CCleaner and also ATF Cleaner and use them BOTH frequently. Do be careful which options you select when you run them. You’ll find that one complements the other and using both you can keep a pretty clean system. Just a thought. And if you want something for spyware, adware and even most viruses, I’d really suggest getting Malwarebytes. Go there and download the free version. Basically, this is the tool of choice of many if not most professional computer repair techs these days. It won’t slow down your computer because the free version has no “shield”, but is extremely effective against almost all malware put out there by the baddies. Be sure to update the “definitions” each time before you scan your computer. Another very good free anti-malware tool is SUPERantispyware….
Let me be clear that you still need a good antivirus software program on your computer and three very good FREE ones can be found at cnet download.com, by which I mean AVG Free, Avira or Avast, all decent choices; maybe I’d suggest Avira. Can’t be too careful these days. I still use Webroot, and in my case I use their premium package “Internet Security Essentials” which costs $59.95 a year (usually $49.95 for renewal). I guess knowing what I know now that is something of an extravagance and not necessary as one of the free antivirus programs mentioned will give you a good “shield” while Malwarebytes is now the program of choice to clean a computer of any bad infections, in the opinion of many geeks. For issues with how Windows itself runs or if after you’ve cleaned up your privacy traces and are sure you have enough memory (RAM), your computer still runs slowly and/or has a lot of errors, I’d suggest either Advanced System Care Pro ($19.95 and worth every penny) or Registry Mechanic ($29.95). I guess I’m a little backward as I run mine way too often. There are a lot of really bad registry editors and system optimizers out there, too. I’d feel safe with either of those I just mentioned. Some geeks say to only run your registry editor after you have a very definite problem on your system, or once a year, whichever comes first. There now, I’ve told you most of my tricks… show some luv and share this post with your friends if you’ve found it at all valuable.)
Heck, now all my geek friends (not to mention Webroot) are going to be mad at me for giving “secrets” away. I’ve tried to give you a summary of tricks I’ve gathered over years of experience…. A clear violation of the “Giving Away Geek Secrets to everybody when only the privileged few are Supposed to Know” Act.
Now let’s talk about the Patriot Act, the final nail in the coffin, removing all doubts anyone ever had about having any privacy.
Under the Patriot Act’s provisions, the National Security Agency monitors all electronic communications in this fair land. Communications between Americans and foreigners of course receive special attention. All these communications are sucked up into NSA’s supercomputers where they are sorted by keywords. Certain keywords trigger human analysis…. we can all guess what sorts of keywords NSA might be interested in. But with the NSA, we are talking about ALL electronic communications. In other words, internet activities, emails, cell phone communications AND landlines (and god knows what else).
Now, me, personally, I suppose I am a member of the Press, aren’t I? That means I get the DeluXe Treatment and EVERYTHING electronic I do is given special human analysis by NSA. I’m so lucky!
For a little sense of “proof” about the whole business, I just ran a little experiment. First I closed out all my programs. Webroot Internet Security Essentials had updated about a half an hour ago… Then I ran first CCleaner and then ATF Cleaner to remove all temporary files, cookies and privacy concerns. Then I did a full sweep with Webroot. Right now there are four untouchable cookies on my system, because that’s how many Webroot counted, and of course after you run the privacy tools (which are, I assure you, quite effective), all cookies are theoretically “gone”. But I’ve got four that apparently nothing can touch…. Actually I’m surprised. I used to get six or seven when I did this trick. Maybe “the boys” have realized that I’ve graduated into into the geek big leagues or maybe I’m just getting a little respect these days….. Dream on, right?
Finally, the next big thing in what is called “forensic computer science” are the “slack files” that are on everybody’s computer, basically forever. Nothing you do on a computer ever really is gone, there are traces of your activity, whatever it is, and one of the main places these traces remain are the slack files. Not the log files, the slack files. No, I had never heard of them either. A lot of people know about the “log files” and these can be deleted if you know how, but not the slack files. I’ve got a friend at Best Buy who right now has designed and is marketing forensic software that can peer into computers and analyze these slack files, which remain after all traces of temporary and even log files have been deleted. They say after you die you still live on if there is one person on earth who remembers about you… computer’s are sort of like that… Nothing ever really disappears that you do on a computer, it’s there forever, and now they’re coming up with commercial software to analyze those traces. (Got that, you perverts?) Brave New World indeed. I imagine our intelligence agencies have had this capability for quite a while now.
All I’m saying, folks is…. with this latest Google concern, you’re talking about some very small snippets of private data gathered randomly by a Google hirees traveling around in vans… Give me a BREAK….. PRIVACY…. lmao Privacy har har har….. That dream ended long ago.
See How PATRIOT Threatens Online Civil Liberties, Electronic Frontier Foundation, no date.
See Epic Fail in Congress: USA PATRIOT Act Renewed Without Any New Civil Liberties Protections, Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 26, 2010, by Kevin Bankston. You guys wanted us to be safe from terrorists??? Well… now …we’re “safe” right?
Visit Save the Internet and support Net Neutrality.
RELATED news: See U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts, The New York Times, May 15, 2010, by Mark Mazzetti, excerpt quoted verbatim:
WASHINGTON — Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.
Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information — some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began.
But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence.
"When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people fear the government, you have tyranny." — Thomas Paine.
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