Police Credit Google Street View For Helping Catch Drug Ring

from the you're-on-google-camera dept

Following on our recent story of police using Google Street View to give them a lead in a stolen car incident, comes another report, sent in by Joshy, of a heroin dealing ring in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who was dealing on the streets out in the open -- and also were caught on Google Street View images: It's a little unclear from the article just how useful the Google Street View image was to the case, but it certainly seems like it could be useful as corroborating evidence...

Filed Under: drug ring, street view
Companies: google

Did Google Street View Catch A Car Thief In The Act?

from the to-catch-a-thief dept

I'll be the first to admit that I think many of the privacy concerns over Google's Street View are totally overblown, and the calls for things like blurring houses are silly and misguided. However, I was initially quite skeptical of this story, sent in by Richard, suggesting that Google Street View was useful in spotting a car thief.

The guy had a caravan that was stolen, and a year or so later, his son was looking at Google Street View, and noticed that the image of their house showed a strange man with an unrecognized SUV in the driveway. They began to suspect that this was the thief. The police were contacted, and they've now started to pass around the Street View images, asking for information on the man.

So, perhaps Street View isn't all evil?

Of course, due to the standard privacy concerns, Google blurs the license plates of vehicles, so the license plate on the SUV is blurred out. You can see it below: It's not clear why they can't just ask Google for an unblurred picture -- though, perhaps law enforcement has forced Google to destroy the original images? Good thing the family didn't ask for their entire house to be blurred, huh?

Filed Under: street view, thieves
Companies: google

FCC Apparently Not Satisfied With FTC's Google WiFi Investigation, Opens Its Own Investigation

from the over-what-exactly? dept

So the FTC concluded its investigation of Google's Street View WiFi data collection screwup with no actual penalties. Since then, there's been a lot of pressure from Congressional reps who have a long history of complaining about Google to get the government to reopen the investigation. So, it should make them happy to know that the FCC appears to be picking up where the FTC left off and is opening its own investigation. Of course, I'm not quite sure what Google did here that's under the FCC's mandate. Did it violate the FCC's Part 15 rules in some way? I can't see much that Google did that would fall under the FCC's purview, so I can't imagine this investigation ending with any serious consequences for Google but it seems like this is one political football that just won't go away.

Filed Under: data, investigation, street view, wifi
Companies: fcc, google

Google Begins Blurring German Houses In Street View On Request

from the second-blur-on-the-left dept

In one of the more ridiculous overreactions to screams of "privacy," Germany recently required Google to agree to "blur" any Street View images at the request of property owners. That anyone could just drive/walk/fly by and view the same property perfectly clearly, didn't seem to register with those making the rules. Apparently 3% of homeowners have demanded their homes be blurred, and Google has now blurred the images. Chris Matyszczyk, over at CNET, took the following screenshot: I'm trying to figure out how this helps anyone. Is it really protecting anyone's actual privacy to have the image of their house blurred in this nature? Is there really so much info in such an image that it was a serious concern pre-blurring?

Filed Under: blurring, germany, street view
Companies: google

FTC Concludes Investigation Into Google's Street View Data Collection Without Penalties

from the not-such-a-big-deal dept

For all the hype about Google's Street View data collection, it appears that the FTC now agrees that it was an accident, where Google didn't even realize it was collecting the data. Even with the recent revelation that some of the data included emails and passwords, the FTC has now concluded its investigation of Google, and won't be punishing the company. It appears the FTC is satisfied that Google did not realize it was collecting this data and that the company did nothing with it. Combined with the company's new policies to try to avoid such things in the future, the FTC appears to believe no further action is necessary.

Filed Under: privacy, street view
Companies: ftc, google

Focusing On Google Getting Emails & Passwords Via Data Collection Misses The Point: Anyone Could Have Done It

from the total-overreaction dept

Back in May, we were among those who pointed out that it was incredibly bad that Google had accidentally collected data from open WiFi networks with some excess code in its Street View WiFi mapping efforts. A look at what they were doing highlighted how it was almost certainly accidental and no one has shown any evidence that Google did anything nefarious with the data at all. In fact, by all indications, Google didn't even realize it had collected the data until right before it admitted it.

Today, Google put up a blog post detailing some of the steps it's taken to better protect privacy, and at the bottom (on a Friday post, no less) the company tries to sneak past the "admission" that in finally going through the data (highlighting, again, that it was really unaware it had this data before) that while it was mostly fragments, in a few instances it did have full emails and passwords. This should not be a surprise. If you understand the technology of what was happening, it would collect mostly useless fragments of info, but if it was passing by at the time that someone was transmitting something like that in an unencrypted format, then of course it would collect that bit of info.

Of course, the press immediately pounced on that one key point, and all the articles this afternoon are trumpeting the fact that Google collected emails and passwords and making that the lead of the story.

But here's the important point that none of them seem to be pointing out: Anyone could have gotten the same information. I could open up my network connections where I am right now, and see half a dozen or more open WiFi networks. I could connect to any of them, just sitting here, and snarf down any open data for however long I wanted, and I'm sure sooner or later, I'd pick up some emails and passwords from some users who didn't bother to encrypt and who were using websites that weren't encrypted. That's the thing: this data is out in the open for anyone to take. Google didn't "hack" anything, or do anything particularly different than what tons of people could easily do this very second.

The problem isn't that Google got an occasional bit of openly transmitted info, it's that people are still transmitting such data in the open anyway. In an age where so many people think that just having encryption on your computer is a sign of evil, the real problem is that people aren't being taught to encrypt all of their communications. If that was standard, then Google never would have been able to do what it did... and neither could anyone else.

So for everyone slamming Google for this bit of data collection, why are you not complaining about the fact that someone who actually had nefarious intent can sit at the corner store right now and do the same thing without anyone ever realizing it?

Filed Under: encryption, privacy, street view, wifi
Companies: google

German Photographer Plans To Add Back In Buildings That Opt-Out Of Google Street View

from the proving-the-ridiculousness-of-the-situation dept

We've never quite understood the general fears about Google Street View's photographs, since they're photographs of public places. However, many still seem somewhat freaked out by it all, and especially in Europe, they've continually put new rules and restrictions on Google's Street View operation. Apparently, in Germany, people can specifically request that Google remove images of certain buildings. Of course, this is silly, and to prove that point, a German photographer is going to go photograph all of those buildings that have been excluded, then upload them to Google's Picasa image hosting service, link them up to their GPS coordinates, and then "re-connect" them with Google Maps.

He's basically doing a good job of pointing out how incredibly silly it is to say that you can't photograph something that's in public view. Anyone can photograph it, and with today's technology, those photographs will likely end up online. Pretending that opting out of Google's Street View protects any sort of privacy is folly, so congrats to Jens Best, for coming up with a simple and effective way of showing that.

Filed Under: buildings, germany, jens best, photography, privacy, street view
Companies: google

Did Korean Officials Really Need To Raid Google Offices Over Street View WiFi Sniffing?

from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept

It's been a few months since Google admitted that its Street View vehicles were collecting some data from open WiFi networks. Those familiar with the basic technology involved have explained why this was almost certainly an accident, and there's no evidence whatsoever that anything was even done with the data. However, there have been a whole bunch of lawsuits filed, and it's difficult to find a government that hasn't said they'd investigate the issue.

To date, it seems that Google has bent over backwards to work with every government investigating this issue, no matter how varied their requests were on the matter. So far, the UK's investigation has found that the WiFi sniffing didn't appear to collect any sensitive data, though others are still investigating. More recently, Google agreed to allow Germans to opt-out of Street View.

Given Google's clear willingness to help out, it seems a bit odd that South Korean officials -- many months after the news of this came out -- suddenly decided to raid Google's Korean offices over this matter:

A police statement said they suspected Google has been collecting and storing data on "unspecified internet users from wi-fi networks"

Brilliant police work there, guys. It only took you three months to "suspect" what Google admitted in May.

Filed Under: korea, raids, street view, wifi
Companies: google

Google WiFi Data Caught In Legal Limbo

from the can't-destroy,-can't-share,-can't-have dept

As governments around the world continue to go overboard in their condemnations of Google's (admittedly bad) collection of open WiFi data via its Street View cars, much more interesting than the political grandstanding is the legal limbo mess that the collected data has been placed into. After realizing that it had accidentally collected this data, Google announced that it would stop collecting and begin deleting the data it collected (Update: more specifically, it said it wanted to delete the data, but would discuss with regulators before doing so). But that raised alarm bells from some, who worried that doing so would be deleting evidence for a possible lawsuit against Google. Then, governments started demanding that Google share the data with regulators, so they could determine how serious a privacy breach this really was. However, Google is noting that sharing the data would be a violation of privacy rights in many countries, pissing off regulators who put those privacy laws in place in the first place.

So... Google can't collect this data, but it can't delete the data it accidentally collected. Regulators want to see the data to see if it's okay for Google to delete it, but they can't see it, because that would violate privacy regulations. But, regulators feel they need to see it, to see if Google violated privacy regulations. So, basically everyone's stuck in a state of limbo.

Filed Under: data, evidence, privacy, street view
Companies: google