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> They seem to be behaving like a good citizen here. They didn't look into the issue until forced by a (German) government investigation and then denied wrongd

• carbocation 16y ago
  Based on their fairly extensive explanation, this actually seems like an accident to me, so I don't see the need for scare quotes. Do you not agree? I would like to better understand the alternative point of view.
  • alain94040 16y ago
    The alternative is why in the first place, for three full years, they recorded wifi traffic? Who coded this function? What does the function do with the data? Where do they store that information? For how long do they keep it? Where did they do this, worldwide? When their car is stopped at a traffic light for a minute, does it stop recording wifi traffic? I'm hoping it's illegal in the US to wiretap a phone, so how does this compare?
    • wmf 16y ago
      They recorded beacons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_frame http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_frame) for the purpose of mapping access point MAC addresses to locations (several other companies such as Skyhook also do this BTW). But it sounds like they accidentally logged all packets, not just beacons.
    • SoftwareMaven 16y ago
      Since we are in hypothetical conjecture land, I'll give a guess: My guess is that the code was originally written for a completely different purpose. When they decided to start gather wifi data, somebody said, "Hey, I think Bob wrote something like that. Maybe we can use it." Next came a quick rush to get the thing into their street view cars without doing a deep analysis on the code. And, yes, wiretapping without a search warrant. Electronic communications don't generally fall under the same laws as far as I know (IANAL!).