6 ms·

Google offices raided by Korean police

56 points by fiaz 16y ago

po 16y ago
So I imagine a bunch of police rush into a google office… what exactly do they do? Do they jump on someone's desktop and start searching for evidence? Do they say "nobody touch nothin' ya hear?" and take over as sysadmin? I mean they seized hard drives… Do they think that the data is on the hard drives laying around in the office? This never makes sense to me.
- nysauhem 16y ago
  Agreed, but I wonder what kind of red tape you would need to go through to raid a data center instead (if there did happen to be a data center in Korea)
- draebek 16y ago
  > Do they jump on someone's desktop and start searching for evidence? Do they say "nobody touch nothin' ya hear?" and take over as sysadmin? Do they use Google Desktop search or the local office's Google search appliance to search for the incriminating evidence?
  - po 16y ago
    If you've ever used Google's search appliance, you already know that wouldn't work.
jacquesm 16y ago
Google is facing the same accusations in Germany (they've been cleared in the UK) and in other countries, I think the raid may have to do with them stonewalling investigators like they did in Germany. After all, the Korean police can read the news just fine and they must have tried to get a feeling for how google would respond if they asked. The not-so-smart element here is that I presume google learned a lot from their previous encounters with the law in Italy, France, the UK and Germany and would not have left any relevant data lying around their offices for investigators to find. What bothers me about googles' behaviour in all this is that they behave as though they're above the law in terms of privacy and on top of that they had no business collecting this information in the first place. Saying you're going to photograph the streets but actually adding a wardriving module to your data collection vehicles is not something that you can claim you did 'accidentally'. http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0515/google-streetview-vans-accidentally-spied-private-wifi-data/ http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0515/google-streetview-vans-acci... I find that extremely hard to believe and I think google has some public explaining to do about how such a thing could ever happen 'by accident'.
- yellowbkpk 16y ago
  If I were spending millions of dollars sending cars + drivers out on every street in the world I would want to collect as much data as possible. I imagine they had cell radios, wifi radios, probably even FM and AM radios all collecting data in conjunction with highly-accurate GPS readings. If their software to collect WiFi signal strength was based on a packet capture system (perhaps by interfacing with Wireshark or one of its libraries), I could see how it might be a mistake to save this data while attempting to collect other data. However, I imagine that they simply wanted to collect as much data as possible, including WiFi traffic (that should really be considered public, anyway...).
  - weego 16y ago
    If I were going on holiday or on business to a city, it would be incredibly useful if I could see a public/free wifi overlay (showing the radius of a decent strength signal) on top of the city map. The only way to do that of course would be to scan and record all available wifi networks at every step and then group the signals based on the ssid. That will obviously hit all networks, but if it cant access anything what is the problem? If the ssid is visible and your network is available then everyone with a wifi card is doing what Google did every time they turn their laptop or smartphone on anyway.
    - jcl 16y ago
      It's one thing to record the signatures of open wireless networks in a given location. But, from what I hear, Google was also recording the payloads of the packets it intercepted. I can understand people being upset by this, especially if carried out on a large scale.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Privacy laws are applicable to companies storing data, not on individuals that incidentally use someone's open network. Also, they weren't just scanning for availability and signal strength, they were snooping the traffic and saving it.
    - natrius 16y ago
ck2 16y ago
I think they just wanted to see in general what google is doing and this was as good an excuse as any.
quant18 16y ago
Hilarious timing by Yonhap (S. Korea's public news agency) --- they reported this morning, just as the raid was about to begin: "Google ranked #1 as foreign company people want to work for" (in Korean): http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/economy/2010/08/10/0302000000AKR20100810050700003.HTML http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/economy/2010/08/10/0302000000AKR... "According to the results of job portal JobsKorea's research on 814 university students on August 10, the foreign-invested company most desired to work for was Google, in first place with 23.1% of respondents. Afterwards were 9.0% for Yuhan Kimberly (a Kimberly-Clark JV), 5.3% for Citibank, 4.8% for IBM, and 3.2% for Sony." As for this incident ... well, Internet privacy in Korea was always a crapshoot anyway, seeing as you have to send your citizen's id and real name to sign up for social networking sites, random forums, online shopping and games, or to verify your age so you can search for "breast cancer" or "genital warts" on Naver. Not to minimise the very real concerns over what the hell Google is doing, but this raid smells of some ambitious young public prosecutors who want to make a name for themselves by taking on a big foreign company (and ignoring all the domestic companies whom I highly doubt have been entirely on the up-and-up about what they do with their 100% personally identifiable data about the members of their own sites). Incidentally, remember that last year, Google explicitly chose to disable Youtube comments and uploads from Korea rather than comply with the real name registration requirements ... http://www.pcworld.com/article/162989/google_disables_uploads_comments_on_youtube_korea.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/162989/google_disables_upload...
nkassis 16y ago
This sounds like a me too by the korean police. I mean, what's the point, most of that data won't be held on korean servers, much less google's korean office. I'd like to know if google employees even use their desktop as thick or thin clients.
- Ardit20 16y ago
  Well its on BBC news. I am sure it adds pressure on Google and probably sends them a clear signal.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    A clear signal to do what, be less transparent and pull their office out of Korea? (Remember, Korea has no great firewall. Google can profit from Korean users without having an office there.)
    - Ardit20 16y ago
      To be more careful with privacy. I am sure Google would not want to be prevented to provide a service - personally I think a great service - of viewing the streets of Korea.
      - sorbus 16y ago
        No, the message they are sending is that, when you confess to a mistake and say that you're going to fix it, everyone starts attacking you. Keep in mind that Google announced that they made a mistake by storing packets from wifi networks; it wasn't leaked by an employee who thought it was unethical.
moxiemk1 16y ago
It still puzzles me that people feel like their legal privacy was violated by the info gathering. The wifi was broadcasting, they were in public, they recorded some data. If this is illegal, I don't think it should be. Its analagous to taking pictures of people in public. Its in public. They're just standing there with an antenna. Granted, it seems a bit creepy, and I don't fault people for feeling violated. But legal action seems silly. (I know that laws may be different in these various countries - I'm saying that this _shouldn't_ be illegal if it is)
- quant18 16y ago
  Its analagous to taking pictures of people in public. Its in public . .. I know that laws may be different in these various countries - I'm saying that this _shouldn't_ be illegal if it is Well, since you bring up the photography analogy ... average Koreans are a lot more sensitive than Americans to being randomly captured in others' photographs/videos, especially if those photos will later be published/broadcast in mass media. And Korean law backs them up on their desire for privacy, to certain extent (not as much as commonly believed, though). One photographer's take on it, including translation of some of the relevant sections of Korean laws and various anecdotes of the troubles it's caused him in his work: http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/01/korean_photo_pa.html http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2...
- ewams 16y ago
  I don't understand why I was arrested for driving off with a new BMW that was parked in the street. It even came with a baby in the back! Lucky for me the keys were in the ignition and the door was open.
  - sorbus 16y ago
    Stealing a car is not the same as recording a conversation.
  - moxiemk1 16y ago
    Passively standing in the vicinity of a BMW doesn't let you drive it. Passively standing in a Wifi network space lets you transcribe the traffic. You don't change the system (in a loose sense) by recording the signals or not, while stealing the BMW, you do.

56 points by fiaz 16y ago

po 16y ago

So I imagine a bunch of police rush into a google office… what exactly do they do? Do they jump on someone's desktop and start searching for evidence? Do they say "nobody touch nothin' ya hear?" and take over as sysadmin? I mean they seized hard drives… Do they think that the data is on the hard drives laying around in the office? This never makes sense to me.

nysauhem 16y ago
Agreed, but I wonder what kind of red tape you would need to go through to raid a data center instead (if there did happen to be a data center in Korea)
draebek 16y ago
> Do they jump on someone's desktop and start searching for evidence? Do they say "nobody touch nothin' ya hear?" and take over as sysadmin? Do they use Google Desktop search or the local office's Google search appliance to search for the incriminating evidence?
- po 16y ago
  If you've ever used Google's search appliance, you already know that wouldn't work.

jacquesm 16y ago

Google is facing the same accusations in Germany (they've been cleared in the UK) and in other countries, I think the raid may have to do with them stonewalling investigators like they did in Germany. After all, the Korean police can read the news just fine and they must have tried to get a feeling for how google would respond if they asked. The not-so-smart element here is that I presume google learned a lot from their previous encounters with the law in Italy, France, the UK and Germany and would not have left any relevant data lying around their offices for investigators to find. What bothers me about googles' behaviour in all this is that they behave as though they're above the law in terms of privacy and on top of that they had no business collecting this information in the first place. Saying you're going to photograph the streets but actually adding a wardriving module to your data collection vehicles is not something that you can claim you did 'accidentally'. http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0515/google-streetview-vans-accidentally-spied-private-wifi-data/ http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0515/google-streetview-vans-acci... I find that extremely hard to believe and I think google has some public explaining to do about how such a thing could ever happen 'by accident'.

yellowbkpk 16y ago
If I were spending millions of dollars sending cars + drivers out on every street in the world I would want to collect as much data as possible. I imagine they had cell radios, wifi radios, probably even FM and AM radios all collecting data in conjunction with highly-accurate GPS readings. If their software to collect WiFi signal strength was based on a packet capture system (perhaps by interfacing with Wireshark or one of its libraries), I could see how it might be a mistake to save this data while attempting to collect other data. However, I imagine that they simply wanted to collect as much data as possible, including WiFi traffic (that should really be considered public, anyway...).
- weego 16y ago
  If I were going on holiday or on business to a city, it would be incredibly useful if I could see a public/free wifi overlay (showing the radius of a decent strength signal) on top of the city map. The only way to do that of course would be to scan and record all available wifi networks at every step and then group the signals based on the ssid. That will obviously hit all networks, but if it cant access anything what is the problem? If the ssid is visible and your network is available then everyone with a wifi card is doing what Google did every time they turn their laptop or smartphone on anyway.
  - jcl 16y ago
    It's one thing to record the signatures of open wireless networks in a given location. But, from what I hear, Google was also recording the payloads of the packets it intercepted. I can understand people being upset by this, especially if carried out on a large scale.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Privacy laws are applicable to companies storing data, not on individuals that incidentally use someone's open network. Also, they weren't just scanning for availability and signal strength, they were snooping the traffic and saving it.
  - natrius 16y ago

ck2 16y ago

I think they just wanted to see in general what google is doing and this was as good an excuse as any.

quant18 16y ago

Hilarious timing by Yonhap (S. Korea's public news agency) --- they reported this morning, just as the raid was about to begin: "Google ranked #1 as foreign company people want to work for" (in Korean): http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/economy/2010/08/10/0302000000AKR20100810050700003.HTML http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/economy/2010/08/10/0302000000AKR... "According to the results of job portal JobsKorea's research on 814 university students on August 10, the foreign-invested company most desired to work for was Google, in first place with 23.1% of respondents. Afterwards were 9.0% for Yuhan Kimberly (a Kimberly-Clark JV), 5.3% for Citibank, 4.8% for IBM, and 3.2% for Sony." As for this incident ... well, Internet privacy in Korea was always a crapshoot anyway, seeing as you have to send your citizen's id and real name to sign up for social networking sites, random forums, online shopping and games, or to verify your age so you can search for "breast cancer" or "genital warts" on Naver. Not to minimise the very real concerns over what the hell Google is doing, but this raid smells of some ambitious young public prosecutors who want to make a name for themselves by taking on a big foreign company (and ignoring all the domestic companies whom I highly doubt have been entirely on the up-and-up about what they do with their 100% personally identifiable data about the members of their own sites). Incidentally, remember that last year, Google explicitly chose to disable Youtube comments and uploads from Korea rather than comply with the real name registration requirements ... http://www.pcworld.com/article/162989/google_disables_uploads_comments_on_youtube_korea.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/162989/google_disables_upload...

nkassis 16y ago

This sounds like a me too by the korean police. I mean, what's the point, most of that data won't be held on korean servers, much less google's korean office. I'd like to know if google employees even use their desktop as thick or thin clients.

Ardit20 16y ago
Well its on BBC news. I am sure it adds pressure on Google and probably sends them a clear signal.
- jrockway 16y ago
  A clear signal to do what, be less transparent and pull their office out of Korea? (Remember, Korea has no great firewall. Google can profit from Korean users without having an office there.)
  - Ardit20 16y ago
    To be more careful with privacy. I am sure Google would not want to be prevented to provide a service - personally I think a great service - of viewing the streets of Korea.
    - sorbus 16y ago
      No, the message they are sending is that, when you confess to a mistake and say that you're going to fix it, everyone starts attacking you. Keep in mind that Google announced that they made a mistake by storing packets from wifi networks; it wasn't leaked by an employee who thought it was unethical.

moxiemk1 16y ago

It still puzzles me that people feel like their legal privacy was violated by the info gathering. The wifi was broadcasting, they were in public, they recorded some data. If this is illegal, I don't think it should be. Its analagous to taking pictures of people in public. Its in public. They're just standing there with an antenna. Granted, it seems a bit creepy, and I don't fault people for feeling violated. But legal action seems silly. (I know that laws may be different in these various countries - I'm saying that this _shouldn't_ be illegal if it is)

quant18 16y ago
Its analagous to taking pictures of people in public. Its in public . .. I know that laws may be different in these various countries - I'm saying that this _shouldn't_ be illegal if it is Well, since you bring up the photography analogy ... average Koreans are a lot more sensitive than Americans to being randomly captured in others' photographs/videos, especially if those photos will later be published/broadcast in mass media. And Korean law backs them up on their desire for privacy, to certain extent (not as much as commonly believed, though). One photographer's take on it, including translation of some of the relevant sections of Korean laws and various anecdotes of the troubles it's caused him in his work: http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/01/korean_photo_pa.html http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2...
ewams 16y ago
I don't understand why I was arrested for driving off with a new BMW that was parked in the street. It even came with a baby in the back! Lucky for me the keys were in the ignition and the door was open.
- sorbus 16y ago
  Stealing a car is not the same as recording a conversation.
- moxiemk1 16y ago
  Passively standing in the vicinity of a BMW doesn't let you drive it. Passively standing in a Wifi network space lets you transcribe the traffic. You don't change the system (in a loose sense) by recording the signals or not, while stealing the BMW, you do.