Skip to content
  • Categories
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (No Skin)
  • No Skin
Collapse
Code Project
  1. Home
  2. The Lounge
  3. Please explain: why Google wants your Wi-Fi data

Please explain: why Google wants your Wi-Fi data

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Lounge
c++htmlcomarchitectureannouncement
27 Posts 13 Posters 1 Views 1 Watching
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • C Christopher Duncan

    If I was lurking around your neighborhood taking pictures and snooping on wireless data, someone would call the cops and I'd be arrested, or at least taken in for some serious questioning. I grow weary of the fact that Google feels immune to such consequences. Tacky as it sounds, whenever the governments finally go after Google and give them the Microsoft / DOJ treatment, I believe I'll roast marshmallows over the flames. It's time for the next group of small, furry mammals to take over.

    Christopher Duncan
    www.PracticalUSA.com
    Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
    Copywriting Services

    L Offline
    L Offline
    Lost User
    wrote on last edited by
    #21

    Christopher Duncan wrote:

    If I was lurking around your neighborhood taking pictures and snooping on wireless data, someone would call the cops and I'd be arrested, or at least taken in for some serious questioning.

    I seriously doubt that. I build 3D models of neighbourhoods for projects I work on. I drive up and down roads taking pictures and video. Back and forth many times to make sure I get good, focused shots from various angles. Never been a problem. Ever. From anyone. As for snooping wireless data - every wireless device out there has the functionality to do that. Wifi works because you can snoop for wireless connections! It would be quite the pain at the airport having to type in all the connection parameters. Probably wouldn't have caught on if people had to do that. Cheers, Drew.

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • C Chris Maunder

      I refuse to not be creeped out by this. Refuse, I tell you! (and yes, I'm fully aware that my home Wifi router is the least of the personal information I give out every day, all day. Still creeped!)

      cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

      L Offline
      L Offline
      Lost User
      wrote on last edited by
      #22

      Well, I suppose I can't help what creeps me out either. Tim Tams at Walmart, for example. Cheers, Drew.

      C 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • L Lost User

        Well, I suppose I can't help what creeps me out either. Tim Tams at Walmart, for example. Cheers, Drew.

        C Offline
        C Offline
        Chris Maunder
        wrote on last edited by
        #23

        Now that's just wrong. Especially when they are the Kiwi Tim Tams. :shudder:

        cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

        1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • C Christopher Duncan

          If I was lurking around your neighborhood taking pictures and snooping on wireless data, someone would call the cops and I'd be arrested, or at least taken in for some serious questioning. I grow weary of the fact that Google feels immune to such consequences. Tacky as it sounds, whenever the governments finally go after Google and give them the Microsoft / DOJ treatment, I believe I'll roast marshmallows over the flames. It's time for the next group of small, furry mammals to take over.

          Christopher Duncan
          www.PracticalUSA.com
          Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
          Copywriting Services

          S Offline
          S Offline
          Shog9 0
          wrote on last edited by
          #24

          Christopher Duncan wrote:

          If I was lurking around your neighborhood taking pictures and snooping on wireless data, someone would call the cops and I'd be arrested, or at least taken in for some serious questioning.

          Where do you live again? That pretty much describes me playing tourist... The most attention I've gotten so far was a homeless guy looking to sell me a can of coffee (no, I didn't buy it - wasn't my brand).

          C 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • S Shog9 0

            Christopher Duncan wrote:

            If I was lurking around your neighborhood taking pictures and snooping on wireless data, someone would call the cops and I'd be arrested, or at least taken in for some serious questioning.

            Where do you live again? That pretty much describes me playing tourist... The most attention I've gotten so far was a homeless guy looking to sell me a can of coffee (no, I didn't buy it - wasn't my brand).

            C Offline
            C Offline
            Christopher Duncan
            wrote on last edited by
            #25

            I live up here in the country north of Atlanta. Come on down, bubba. We just cleaned our shotguns last week and need a little target practice. The deer are smart enough to stay away. :-D

            Christopher Duncan
            www.PracticalUSA.com
            Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
            Copywriting Services

            1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • C Chris Maunder

              From the Insider[^]: Please explain: why Google wants your Wi-Fi data [^] That really weirds me out.

              cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

              D Offline
              D Offline
              David Cunningham
              wrote on last edited by
              #26

              My guess is that they want: to know the Mac addresses of your iPhone, iPod, laptop, Blackberry and other mobile devices so they can connect a mobile device (wherever it is) back to an actual physical address. (Yep, Chris is in San Francisco right now using public Wifi (maybe even provided by Google) but we know that he usually is found at this address in Toronto). And also to get an inventory of the number and type of devices on your wifi network. I don't think they were looking for "data" per-se. My guess is that it was a huge global device inventory exercise. D

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • C cjb110

                They aren't 'collecting networking information on you', they collecting networking information on the public and open EM waves. If they then somehow linked this networking information to an single address or person then that *might* be considered a breach of privacy. Wire Tapping is very different, a phoneline is easy to be considered as an enclosed environment, and the conversations carried by it are definatly private between two (or more) people. SSID/MAC's/Security Levels of a WiFi are no more private than the colour of your house. :rolleyes:

                C Offline
                C Offline
                CaptainSeeSharp
                wrote on last edited by
                #27

                cjb110 wrote:

                Wire Tapping is very different, a phoneline is easy to be considered as an enclosed environment

                Cellphons?

                Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined (High Quality 2:14:01)[^] Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] The Truthbox[^]

                1 Reply Last reply
                0
                Reply
                • Reply as topic
                Log in to reply
                • Oldest to Newest
                • Newest to Oldest
                • Most Votes


                • Login

                • Don't have an account? Register

                • Login or register to search.
                • First post
                  Last post
                0
                • Categories
                • Recent
                • Tags
                • Popular
                • World
                • Users
                • Groups