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PhotographyThe project Google Street-View is very well known by now: Google-cars – equipped with cameras in a heigth of around 2.5 metres – drive through the world’s big cities, creating digital copies of the street fronts.
Many privacy issues have been raised since the project was launched – an example being that people could be identified on the pictures.
Recently, another “big thing” has happened. Something so severe that I want to publish it here.
The cars used WLAN to actually connect to open networks and copy private data. They logged MAC-adresses, parts of emails, names of the stations (SSID) and other information. For weeks, maybe months. All over the world.
Now, how did Google react when this became public? They apologized and stated they “accidentally” used the “wrong software”!
Of course!! Sorry for hacking into your bank and transferring a couple of million dollars to my private bank account. I used the wrong software. I merely wanted to play Tetris …
The good news: the department of public prosecution in Hamburg has taken this issue to court, and demands from Google to hand over the hard drives with the data, until the 26th of May.
Update, 4th of June 2010:
There seems to be some evidence that it was not an accident.
– Sources: tagesschau.de (1), tagesschau.de (2) FAQ, NDR
