Posted on 04/26/2010 9:22:12 AM PDT by ConservativeMind
Google's roving Street View spycam may blur your face, but it's got your number. The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users' unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along.
Germany's Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar says he's "horrified" by the discovery.
"I am appalled… I call upon Google to delete previously unlawfully collected personal data on the wireless network immediately and stop the rides for Street View," according to German broadcaster ARD.
Spooks have long desired the ability to cross reference the Mac address of a user's connection with their real identity and virtual identity, such as their Gmail or Facebook account.
Other companies have logged broadcasting WLAN networks and published the information. By contrast Google has not published the WLAN map, or Street View in Germany; Google hopes to launch the service by the end of the year.
But Google's uniquely cavalier approach to privacy, and its potential ability to cross reference the information raises additional concerns. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said internet users shouldn't worry about privacy unless they have something to hide. And when there's nowhere left to hide...?
This should post looking okay this time. The Firefox add-in I used in the prior thread posting (now deleted) didn't work as I had wanted.
Enjoy.
Google CEO on privacy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6e7wfDHzew
Let's take a second to LEARN before you go chasing the Black Helicopters.
Skyhook and how it works.
In case you weren't aware of it, those airwaves your Router uses, are PUBLIC. It's not a case of someone hacking and monitoring you - it's a case of using your Wifi to help refine and make GPS locations easy, fast and accurate for everyone else.
And yup, this included Police and Emergency Vehicles too.
Eric Schmidt has got to be the most dangerous man alive.
That’s about the same thing as someone knowing your street address because they can see it as they go by ... LOL ...
I mean, if someone is concerned about that (a street address) there’s really not too much anyone can do about it since it’s public... And it’s the same thing with a WiFi device you have in your house — because you’re “broadcasting” to anyone who goes by ...
I guess someone could put a house on the middle of many acres of property and prevent someone from picking up a home WiFi signal, if you wanted, but it’s stupid to try and limit information about yourself that is clearly available to anyone who happens to wander by and use their eyeballs (or a computer ... ) ...
What are you going to do, put covers on the license plates of your cars in the driveway. If so, what are you going to do when you leave with your car and drive onto the streets (cover them so no one can see you driving the car?) LOL ...
They’re probably trying to get the “density” of wi-fi coverage. If it were me doing the counting I’d log the MAC addresses just to weed out the duplicates.
Uh..How are they going to gain your Mac address if your network is secured. I mean is google cracking your network?
It's just that the average citizen is not supposed to be able to find out the name and phone number of a person by their license plate number.
You've never been stalked, have you?
Guys, it’s not the same as “knowing the street address.”
On wireless routers, everyone’s MAC address for the WAN/Internet is only an increment of one number greater than that being advertised for the LAN in your house. So, now the external address you show them on the internet is specifically coming from this now known internal address that is being broadcast at your location (give or take a few homes).
With their never-deleted knowledgebase on all of your traffic to Google properties and to even Free Republic (Free Republic uses Google’s page hit counter) is brought together.
They have more information on your private lives than the FBI does with access to your credit card statements. Blend them both together (after all, 0bama’s IT advisers are from Google) and you’ve got the ability to undermine all conservatives, everywhere.
It is the same as a street address... because it’s being broadcast to public and it’s wide-open to anyone who comes by.
If you don’t something like that broadcast to the public... “don’t broadcast” ... that’s all. Use wires...
Your LAN MAC address is being broadcast even if your SSID is not.
That’s how a wireless card can identify the address to attach to. Encryption and hidden SSIDs don’t stop that.
It’s impossible to not broadcast a wireless router’s MAC address when using the wireless option in any form.
This never could create a problem until you could tie the external MAC address back to this LAN/Local MC address.
This information should not be collected in the first place, Star. People don’t understand what the “powers that be” are doing around them.
This information should not be collected in the first place, Star. People don’t understand what the “powers that be” are doing around them.
I understand what companies and people and governments can do with the technology we have available today... that's not the problem I have ... LOL...
I'm saying that no one is going to be able to stop anything like that when it deals with information that you "give out" to people (indiscriminately and to the "public"). If you don't want "information" given to the public -- then "don't give it" -- which in the wireless case means -- "don't have wireless" ... simple ...
If you have wireless you're "giving information out freely and to the public" -- that's just the bottom line of it...
Your MAC address is still broadcasting, even then. You need the SSID to connect further, but you still see the MAC address, just with an unnamed network.
“Many access points allow a user to turn off the broadcast of the SSID. With many network client devices, this results in the detected network displaying as an unnamed network and the user would need to manually enter the correct SSID to connect to the network.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSID
LOL, the vast majority of people are not aware of this issue, and I doubt you were aware of this sort of “reverse” tracking of your own wireless router.
Get over yourself. There are people who need to be made aware of this.
You RTFM Wiki’ed me! LOL!
True, but most concerns can be resolved via not broadcasting your SSID and using encryption. Lock it down further if you wish with MAC filtering.
If you broadcast, they will come. ;-)
LOL, the vast majority of people are not aware of this issue, and I doubt you were aware of this sort of “reverse” tracking of your own wireless router.
Get over yourself. There are people who need to be made aware of this.
From what I've seen, it's not that people are simply not aware -- it's that people simply "don't care" and it doesn't matter in the least... LOL ...
And sure I was aware of it...
I'm in the don't care and doesn't matter group... and I do a lot of war-driving too ... :-) and you can log a lot of address and GPS coordinates that way, too...
No, but your plate number is public information. Anyone can eyeball it. The MAC address your WiFi transmits is also public information. Anyone with a WiFi card can receive it. The ability to link plate numbers to names comes from the state's registry of motor vehicles. No comparable registry exists for MAC addresses.
What Google is apparently doing is compiling a registry that links MAC addresses to latitude and longitude (not name and phone number), with a view to supplementing the accuracy of their Android phones' geolocating ability. GPS is best, but not always available. Triangulation from towers is next best. Using MAC addresses with known fixed locations would help further.
BTW, MAC addresses can be handy. In the past, I've used them to get into unknown routers (accessed over a VPN, not physically accessible). The method is simple enough. You google the first three octets to find the router's manufacturer. Then you download the manual, find the default userid / password, try it, and you're in (a lot of the time).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.