Google admits copying computer data

[Quillan]

Google admits copying computer data

I remember reading something in Computer Weekly about this a couple of years back. As the photo suggests it was while they were doing their street level mapping thing and the kit was installed in every car they used regardless of country.

[AnOther]

Your link was there but invisible Q, well for me anyway !

Google admits copying computer data

Re the comments on the piece: Google were legitimately looking for genuine publically available WiFi access points, free or otherwise, during which they would have inevitably captured those which were accidentally or unwittingly unsecured but to be honest there is no real excuse theses days for people not to know that they should be aware of the risks and secure their WiFi or suffer the potential consequences of neglecting to do so.

[Quillan]

I think there are two things here, find unsecured Wifi networks and capturing data. Firstly its not difficult to find unsecured Wifi networks, a Wifi enabled laptop or mobile phone is all that needed, if they pick up any Wifi signal either will tell you and they also tell you if its secure or not, you don't need any extra software for this. The second is capturing actual data. If you go 'out and about' with your laptop or visit say McDonald's who have open Wifi you still can't capture any data with the Laptop or phone unless you go and get software to do so. If you do that which means you can effectively capture data from anyone else in the room then that is hacking. So like some others who replied to the article have said Google clearly did go out of their way to capture data from unsecured Wifi networks.