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Google bought Keyhole (now Google Maps) from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's VC firm [1] -- this was when Eric Schmidt was CEO. Maps was caught wardriving [2] with Google

Google bought Keyhole (now Google Maps) from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's VC firm [1] -- this was when Eric Schmidt was CEO. Maps was caught wardriving [2] with Google Streetview, linking Wifi access point names to physical locations early on. After getting caught, they settled for $13 Million last year. Now Google Maps and even location services on all Android devices uses wifi scanning and bluetooth scanning as part of location triangulation. This is a constantly updating map of every SSID in existance, including unique radio devices in a given location. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, now heads up the DoD's advisory board on new technology [3] [1] https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/tech/google-street-view-privacy-lawsuit-settlement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/tech/google-street-view-priva... [3] https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2016/03/02/google-executive-schmidt-to-head-new-dod-advisory-board/ https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2016/03/02/go... ||| https://innovation.defense.gov/Media/Biographies/Bio-Display/Article/1377390/dr-eric-schmidt/ https://innovation.defense.gov/Media/Biographies/Bio-Display...

sitkack 6y ago
Schmidt also _visited_ Assange, https://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 https://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-27...
birdyrooster 6y ago
Allegedly, Schmidt also games politics, albeit unsuccessfully, he spent millions on The Groundwork trying to prop up Hillary's 2016 campaign only charging them ~$700k (at one point they had 70 SWE/SRE on staff with most focusing on her campaign's needs for an entire year, they were only a couple blocks away in NYC from Hillary HQ). The company he invested in, Timshel, folded the same year as Hillary lost the election. I'd bet anyone money he wrote off his illegal in-kind contributions as 1099 losses. Check out his emails with Robby Mook.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Coincidentally, it was his daughter who pushed for Cambridge Analytica's parent company to connect with Palantir while she was an intern.
wololo 6y ago
Regarding [2], the sensationalized, alarmist way the media reported this was not remotely accurate, nor would the conspiracy theory angle on this story make any practical sense.
- jazzyjackson 6y ago
  Sorry, what's not practical about Google increasing their location accuracy for the benefit of both the consumer and the government?
  - square_usual 6y ago
    The second link isn't about that, it's about Google stealing information from insecure WiFi using Street View vehicles.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  Is there a solid source on what was actually collected?
  - divbzero 6y ago
    Google’s official statement admitted to collecting payload data from unsecured WiFi networks but said it was a mistake from including a library with extraneous code. [1] The statement also linked to a third-party analysis of the relevant code which concluded: [2] “Gslite is an executable program that captures, parses, and writes to disk 802.11 wireless frame data. In particular, it parses all frame header data and associates it with its GPS coordinates for easy storage and use in mapping network locations. The program does not analyze or parse the body of Data frames, which contain user content. The data in the Data frame body passes through memory and is written to disk in unparsed format if the frame is sent over an unencrypted wireless network, and is discarded if the frame is sent over an encrypted network.” [1]: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection... [2]: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//googleblogs/pdfs/friedberg_sourcecode_analysis_060910.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...
cookiengineer 6y ago
Remember the Google I/O when the presentation included a mom waiting in a queue inside a park ride and maps calculated that it's enough time to have another ride and then go somewhere else? This was the moment I got afraid of every single Android device that's already on the market, sniffing around for everything they can find. If private people do this, they get jailed. If google does it, nobody gives a damn about it. There is no privacy, as everybody around you is compromising it without themselves knowing.
9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
Correction: Keyhole became Google Earth. (Fun fact: the K in KML is Keyhole.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#History Google Maps stems from an Australian company called Where2, which AFAIK was not funded by spooks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Acquisitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Acquisitions
- cpeterso 6y ago
  More history about Google's mapping products is available in Bill Kilday's book "Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality". Kilday was a founder at Keyhole, the startup acquired by Google to become Google Earth.
oarsinsync 6y ago
> Maps was caught wardriving [2] with Google Streetview, linking Wifi access point names to physical locations early on. After getting caught, they settled for $13 Million last year. The issue was that they captured data from open APs, and that collection of data was deemed illegal wiretapping. The mapping of WiFi networks to physical locations was not.

sitkack 6y ago

Schmidt also _visited_ Assange, https://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 https://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-27...

birdyrooster 6y ago

Allegedly, Schmidt also games politics, albeit unsuccessfully, he spent millions on The Groundwork trying to prop up Hillary's 2016 campaign only charging them ~$700k (at one point they had 70 SWE/SRE on staff with most focusing on her campaign's needs for an entire year, they were only a couple blocks away in NYC from Hillary HQ). The company he invested in, Timshel, folded the same year as Hillary lost the election. I'd bet anyone money he wrote off his illegal in-kind contributions as 1099 losses. Check out his emails with Robby Mook.

luckylion 6y ago
Coincidentally, it was his daughter who pushed for Cambridge Analytica's parent company to connect with Palantir while she was an intern.

wololo 6y ago

Regarding [2], the sensationalized, alarmist way the media reported this was not remotely accurate, nor would the conspiracy theory angle on this story make any practical sense.

jazzyjackson 6y ago
Sorry, what's not practical about Google increasing their location accuracy for the benefit of both the consumer and the government?
- square_usual 6y ago
  The second link isn't about that, it's about Google stealing information from insecure WiFi using Street View vehicles.
9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
Is there a solid source on what was actually collected?
- divbzero 6y ago
  Google’s official statement admitted to collecting payload data from unsecured WiFi networks but said it was a mistake from including a library with extraneous code. [1] The statement also linked to a third-party analysis of the relevant code which concluded: [2] “Gslite is an executable program that captures, parses, and writes to disk 802.11 wireless frame data. In particular, it parses all frame header data and associates it with its GPS coordinates for easy storage and use in mapping network locations. The program does not analyze or parse the body of Data frames, which contain user content. The data in the Data frame body passes through memory and is written to disk in unparsed format if the frame is sent over an unencrypted wireless network, and is discarded if the frame is sent over an encrypted network.” [1]: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection... [2]: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//googleblogs/pdfs/friedberg_sourcecode_analysis_060910.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...

cookiengineer 6y ago

Remember the Google I/O when the presentation included a mom waiting in a queue inside a park ride and maps calculated that it's enough time to have another ride and then go somewhere else? This was the moment I got afraid of every single Android device that's already on the market, sniffing around for everything they can find. If private people do this, they get jailed. If google does it, nobody gives a damn about it. There is no privacy, as everybody around you is compromising it without themselves knowing.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago

Correction: Keyhole became Google Earth. (Fun fact: the K in KML is Keyhole.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#History Google Maps stems from an Australian company called Where2, which AFAIK was not funded by spooks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Acquisitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Acquisitions

cpeterso 6y ago
More history about Google's mapping products is available in Bill Kilday's book "Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality". Kilday was a founder at Keyhole, the startup acquired by Google to become Google Earth.

oarsinsync 6y ago

> Maps was caught wardriving [2] with Google Streetview, linking Wifi access point names to physical locations early on. After getting caught, they settled for $13 Million last year. The issue was that they captured data from open APs, and that collection of data was deemed illegal wiretapping. The mapping of WiFi networks to physical locations was not.