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I don't understand why so many people are defending Google here. The reality is that the vast majority of these so called "public" access points are going to b

by bstar77 15y ago

I don't understand why so many people are defending Google here. The reality is that the vast majority of these so called "public" access points are going to be unassuming users that have unwittingly been added to Google's public wifi grid that basically invites people to use their wifi as a public service. Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong. This feels like an incredible invasion of privacy. It's one thing for a user to ignorantly leave their wifi unprotected and have a few people take advantage, but it's another to look at it as an untapped resource and build a business model around it.

brlewis 15y ago
My understanding is that Google's servers keep the wifi location data. An app sends in nearby SSIDs, and Google sends back a probable latitude/longitude. I don't think they keep a database of public access points.
elisee 15y ago
The mapping is not done so people can find your WiFi and connect to it. It has nothing to do with whether your access point uses encryption or not. It's just a way to do triangulation using known anchor points. Suppose there's 3 access point advertising their existence around you (most access points do by default). If you know their coordinates on earth and their relative signal strengths, you can pinpoint a pretty accurate position of yourself. Kinda like GPS. Google screwed up by collecting more data than they should, and now they are doing a little dance to appease the lawyers. The solution is indeed a joke, because there's no problem. It makes no sense to not want people to pinpoint an access point on a map, when it's actively advertising itself. The way I see it, there's no privacy breach whatsoever. The real problem (Google collecting too much personal data) has already been fixed.
Angostura 15y ago
Is your argument that this is an invasion of privacy? If so how. Or is your argument that Google is using the 'untapped resource' of Router location to build a business. If the latter, do you have the same issue with atlas publishers who without my permission put my road into their big printed books - indeed mapped out the whole of London without a city-wide referendum to check whether this was OK.
jacobwil 15y ago
That isn't the least bit of what's happening here. Google's streetview cars simply map your router's SSID (actually, as far as I can tell, it's the MAC address) to coordinates that the car's GPS provide. They allow for devices to determine their location more quickly than acquiring a GPS lock and more accurately than relying on cellular tower triangulation. When you combine all three, you get phones that can figure out their current location quickly and accurately. At no level is google telling people where to find free WiFi. They simply provide a correspondence between MAC addresses of nearby routers and latitude-longitude.
interlagos 15y ago
Your assumptions are completely wrong. This is nothing to do with whether an access point is public, private, encrypted or not. It is not used to populate a database of public wifi points. Instead it's used to correlate publicly transmitted SSIDs with longitude and latitude. Such a database allows wifi-capable devices (including your laptop's browser) to somewhat reasonably geolocate without GPS (or, more common, more quickly but less accurately before a GPS fix is available). Anyone outraged about this needs to extend the same outrage to Apple, Skyhook, among many others doing exactly the same thing. With no mechanism of opting out at all (because, really, opting out is ridiculous anyways). HN, to some degree, is hijacked (including its own administration that hellbans people who hold contrary opinions). Somehow this useless rant by Siegler -- about a complete non-issue -- sits at #4. Another useless article, quoting Gruber, hit the front-page yesterday. If I could exclude the votes of anyone who hit up arrow on either of those, HN would be a much more interesting site.

by bstar77 15y ago

brlewis 15y ago

My understanding is that Google's servers keep the wifi location data. An app sends in nearby SSIDs, and Google sends back a probable latitude/longitude. I don't think they keep a database of public access points.

elisee 15y ago

The mapping is not done so people can find your WiFi and connect to it. It has nothing to do with whether your access point uses encryption or not. It's just a way to do triangulation using known anchor points. Suppose there's 3 access point advertising their existence around you (most access points do by default). If you know their coordinates on earth and their relative signal strengths, you can pinpoint a pretty accurate position of yourself. Kinda like GPS. Google screwed up by collecting more data than they should, and now they are doing a little dance to appease the lawyers. The solution is indeed a joke, because there's no problem. It makes no sense to not want people to pinpoint an access point on a map, when it's actively advertising itself. The way I see it, there's no privacy breach whatsoever. The real problem (Google collecting too much personal data) has already been fixed.

Angostura 15y ago

Is your argument that this is an invasion of privacy? If so how. Or is your argument that Google is using the 'untapped resource' of Router location to build a business. If the latter, do you have the same issue with atlas publishers who without my permission put my road into their big printed books - indeed mapped out the whole of London without a city-wide referendum to check whether this was OK.

jacobwil 15y ago

That isn't the least bit of what's happening here. Google's streetview cars simply map your router's SSID (actually, as far as I can tell, it's the MAC address) to coordinates that the car's GPS provide. They allow for devices to determine their location more quickly than acquiring a GPS lock and more accurately than relying on cellular tower triangulation. When you combine all three, you get phones that can figure out their current location quickly and accurately. At no level is google telling people where to find free WiFi. They simply provide a correspondence between MAC addresses of nearby routers and latitude-longitude.

interlagos 15y ago

Your assumptions are completely wrong. This is nothing to do with whether an access point is public, private, encrypted or not. It is not used to populate a database of public wifi points. Instead it's used to correlate publicly transmitted SSIDs with longitude and latitude. Such a database allows wifi-capable devices (including your laptop's browser) to somewhat reasonably geolocate without GPS (or, more common, more quickly but less accurately before a GPS fix is available). Anyone outraged about this needs to extend the same outrage to Apple, Skyhook, among many others doing exactly the same thing. With no mechanism of opting out at all (because, really, opting out is ridiculous anyways). HN, to some degree, is hijacked (including its own administration that hellbans people who hold contrary opinions). Somehow this useless rant by Siegler -- about a complete non-issue -- sits at #4. Another useless article, quoting Gruber, hit the front-page yesterday. If I could exclude the votes of anyone who hit up arrow on either of those, HN would be a much more interesting site.