When people first started whining about privacy issues when Google’s Street View cars started capturing “interesting” images in public, my first thought was to get over it. If you’re doing something in public, it’s for the whole world to see. And in this era, that’s a literal interpretation.
If you don’t want to be seen doing it, do it inside.
But now, it seems Google is invading our inside spaces as well!
Did you know that as well as still images, Google was also capturing private Wi-Fi network data like Mac (Media Access Control) addresses and SSIDs?
That’s pretty effed if you ask me.
It gets better. For whatever reason, Google plans to publish this information when the German Street View service debuts at the end of the year.
I’m not sure what gives Google the right to toss out our private Wi-Fi info out on the internet, but there it is.
It’s one thing when some surreptitious ahole comes across your network and tries to attack it, but now Google is going to help that hacker by publicizing everyone’s home Wi-Fi info. Now we’re giving hackers a list to program into their web-bots, so they can automatically come after you.
Nice. Thanks for thinking of us Google.
They say they’ve only collected info that has been publicly broadcast, but how can a wireless network in someone’s home NOT broadcast publicly? That’s the function of the thing… to broadcast a signal so I can sit in my backyard and work on my articles there.
I’m not broadcasting with the intent of sharing my information. I’m broadcasting via necessity for only MYSELF to be able to connect to the internet on my own property and I have no real control over how far it transmits.
Never mind the premise of being anonymous on the internet being destroyed via this database, we now need to take our wireless networks seriously and pay attention to locking them down.
I don’t usually mind Google’s antics but they’re getting right up there with Microsoft on some of the stunts they’re pulling.
Remember when MS Office tried updating our core OS a few years back? Right now, I’m in a wrestling match with GOOGLEUPDATE to keep it from freely doing with it wants on my personal property, my PC. And it’s awesomely insidious! No matter how many times I pull it out of my scheduler or kill the process, it just keeps showing up.
Well, I think this little Wi-Fi record keeping trick definitely trumps my little issue!
What this means is that for at least half of you out there, you need to consider learning how to lock down your wireless routers.
When ever I boot up somewhere near homes or apartments, I can count about 1/2 the networks that I can just stroll into. I used to live in an ant-farm… well, an apartment complex that had over 2,000 residents within a very small space and I had to run my wires in my place because of the interference. But more importantly, almost everyone’s network that I could see, were unsecured.
Figure it out folks and save yourself some potential trauma.
In the meantime, check out the source article for this tirade, over on The Huffington Post!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Have you heard of Flash cookies yet? And you thought you only had your browser to worry about.
LOL… actually Windstorm, the various types of web page scripts, the web page html themselves, the ads in the web pages and my personal anti-favorite are image files that track behavior and my most least favorite (did I just invent a word?) of them all, are the 1-pixel image files that add nothing to your experience, but lurk in the corners waiting, like a big brother!
“Do no evil” isn’t that Google’s mantra?
^
Or is it, “Everything, all of the time..?’
^
Or perhaps, “You will be assimilated, resistance is futile?”
^
How bout my favorite, “Peace through total surveillance.” Mankind is almost at the point where its collective humanity is more then happy to walk off the technological cliff.
^
We are Borg, and everyone thought Janeway defeated them.