by Alan S.
25. October 2010 01:04
Google made a surprise announcement yesterday indicating that it had secretly copied password, web pages, and emails from people’s computers during their “Street View” project.
The camera’s are one thing. They are responsible for what some are calling invasion of privacy by allowing people to view property addresses, license plate information on cars, and people in general. There is even a site devoted to the funny and unexplainable sightings people have made while perusing the streets online.
Google’s claim is that they were ‘accidentally’ recorded. But that seems a little fishy since they had the cars equipped to connect to and capture network packets of unsecured wireless networks. Then they had a team of programmers sift through the data and extrapolate the key data such as emails, web pages, and even by their own admission, passwords. It has gotten to the point where Scotland Yard is already considering whether the company has broken the law. They claim that Google registered the location, name and identification code of millions of networks and entered them into a database to help it sell advertising.
Let this be a warning to home users… make darn sure your wireless network is encrypted and a password (key) is required!
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