Posted on 06/17/2010 9:04:53 AM PDT by patriotgal1787
"We're gonna change the whole system. We're not gonna put a new battery in the system. No, no, we want a new system". -- Van Jones
Glenn Beck talking about Google story -- Google is too far deeply in bed with the US government -- there are some 20 attorneys general investigating this. Something doesn't seem right. Please research this. I don't know what it is, but have a feeling it has something to do with internet regulations, net neutrality.
I've been writing about this for weeks in my weekly column at World Net Daily. Keeping an eye on this for several weeks, ever since it surfaced in Germany. Just what is Google doing, and how does it connect with the story I posted below, (Leiberman and Rockefeller - enemies of free speech.)
Is someone pressuring Leiberman to do this? Susan Collins of Maine too? Or are they doing this on their own? People, this is scary. SCARY.
Add Connecticut to the list
Connecticut's top prosecutor has called on Google to say whether it had collected data from personal and business wireless networks without the owners' permission. In a letter to a lawyer for California-based Google, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal demanded detailed records on any information taken from networks in the state and how it was used.
Google representatives have said the search-engine company has not broken any laws with the collection of data for its mapping service, after Blumenthal pressed the company to "come clean with the American public."
Authorities fear the information gathered for Google's Street View service, which provides pictures of neighborhoods, may violate privacy laws. Last month, Google acknowledged it had mistakenly collected data over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries. Police in Germany and Australia already have launched their own investigations into the matter.
We swear we didn't know!
Google says it stopped grabbing Wi-Fi data from its Street View vehicles following an inquiry by German regulators.
In a letter to three key members of the U.S. House Commerce Committee, the company apologized for collecting fragments of e-mails, search requests and other online activities over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks and said it never dissected or used any of the rogue code it acquired while collecting data about public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries.
As reported in last week's Surfin' Safari column, Google said it was trying to gather information about the location, strength and configuration of Wi-Fi networks so it could improve the accuracy of location-based services such as Google Maps and driving directions. Going further and collecting snippets of information traveling over those networks "was a mistake," Pablo Chavez, Google's director of public policy, wrote in the letter.
Google is "almost certain" to face prosecution for collecting data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks, according to Privacy International. "This is equivalent to placing a hard tap and a digital recorder onto a phone wire without consent or authorization."
***
Not even close to wiretapping.
If you broadcast the information unencrypted, it’s not the same as a physical tap.
This would be more synonymous to recording phonecalls broadcast over speakerphone and amplified with outdoor speakers.
Not that I condone the logging, but some responsibility for data security should fall either on the router manufacturers or *gasp* the network owners and users.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2865714#post2865714
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