US plaintiffs can seek damages over Street View data slurp - court A US appeals court has rejected Google's efforts to dismiss a lawsuit over the data it grabbed from Wi-Fi networks while collecting snapshots for use in its Street View program. The Chocolate Factory is being sued by a number of plaintiffs who want to hold it accountable under the Wiretap Act for the data it intercepted from …
"Even if it is commonplace for members of the general public to connect to a neighbour's unencrypted Wi-Fi network, members of the public do not typically mistakenly intercept, store, and decode data transmitted by other devices on the network," Judge Jay Bybee said."
So the judge's infant child would be "baby Bybee"? And when the judge leaves for work in the morning, he says to the infant, "Bye-bye, baby Bybee"?
That would be a happy family!
Doesn't it suck when the tinfoil hat brigade end up being validated?
As usual, Jon Stewart fucking crushes it, months before the NSA scandals even started. Add the NSA shit in and...you know what? You - nor I - nor anyone else gets to mock the tinfoil hatters regarding the US government for some time.
Power corrupts; it seems to have happened with some regularity in the USA. Apathy and denial are absolutely the wrong reactions.
Would have been nice if the court would have said something like "just delete the data and we're happy."
I can see this turning into something similar to PPI and whiplash injury claims, where an increasingly small percentage of claimants were actually mis-sold PPI or really do have whiplash. Really, you just shouted your unencrypted username and password into the street with a megaphone, and it's Google you want to sue for it?
To anybody that does: Get a brain.
"Would have been nice if the court would have said something like 'just delete the data and we're happy.'"
And that would prove what, exactly? That, as usual, a corporation does a misdeed (violate the wire tap laws) and gets only a slap on the hand because you don't feel that anyone should be held responsible.
Corporations only understand one thing: MONEY. I hope they sue the pants of Google and get a nice big paycheck out of it - it is the ONLY way to prevent (the equivalent of) corporate spying in the future.
And if you don't believe that...I feel sorry for your naivete.
See that would assume that I regard wardriving as inherently wrong in some way. I really don't see what they did that's so awful. Drove around with a boatload of cars running Airodump? Well fuck me, lock 'em up, throw away the key.
Or alternatively, lern 2 WPA2. It'll stop Google from snarfing your passwords, AND the hackers that are probably already raping your unencrypted connection.
Except this isn't a house being burgled. It's a router that has been left in public mode.
Surprise surprise, the public used it. Victim my arse. Encrypt your router. No ifs, no buts, get it done. Why the hell should the courts back you up because you've thrown your network open to the public to use and they've used it?
What is it with crap analogies?
It isn't a car. It isn't a house. It's a router. Lots of routers in fact. That were left in public mode. The public used them. This is not difficult to understand.
You want another crap analogy? You just bought a bus, stuck "10A Liverpool" on the front of it, painted it up in Arriva's livery, stopped at the bus stop, opened the door, shouted "don't worry everyone, it's free today", and now you're acting all surprised that you got a boatload of passengers expecting to find themselves in Liverpool City Centre via Rainhill.
Unencrypted routers are public routers. Get that through your skull, and encrypt yours if you don't like that. It's not hard. As for exploits, that's a different kettle o' fish, and quite clearly a case of trespass if you've done anything more than ping the thing and ask for its capabilities (which is, duh, just what Google did). Encrypted routers are private routers.
Why the hell do idiots make things so much harder than they need to be? And why are so many supposedly smart people acting like complete fuckwits over this? Kick Google because it's Google? Yeah, real smart move, that.
In the U.S. anyone can file a lawsuit aka "seek damages". To actually obtain any form of monetary compensation the plaintiff must prove that they suffered real, not perceived damages or financial losses. That's going to be a very tall hurdle in these cases and even if some low level court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, more than likely an appeals court would reverse the decision and the plantiff is SOL.
I mean the real fault here is un encrypted Wifi.
Also it's worth pointing out that the street view car would have to have been driving by at the EXACT moment that a private document was being sent across an unencrypted connection.
Quite clearly there are two faults the end user is responsible for.
1/ They left their wifi unsecured.
2/ They sent something private on a open http connection.
Google just happened to be driving by at the time, but that's really the least of their worries....
Google didn't browse their hard drives as this article seems to imply. "Google's Street View cars collected data from unsecured wireless networks in 30 countries, including emails, user names, passwords, pictures and documents." That's utter nonsense.It just captured wiresharks of stuff in the air at the snapshot in time.
Try to pay attention to what you are reading:-
"Even if it is commonplace for members of the general public to connect to a neighbour's unencrypted Wi-Fi network, members of the public do not typically mistakenly intercept, store, and decode data transmitted by other devices on the network," Judge Jay Bybee said.
So rather than just happening to record a busload of incidental data, Google decoded it.
Members of the public are not required by law to encrypt anything or secure their wi-fi but Google and others are required by law not to snoop and decode and record private information no matter how poor the security is.
Peeping Toms looking through uncurtained windows are breaking the law, so is Google.
The U.S. judicial system is about paid liars making money. All the players get paid money for pushing paper no matter who wins or loses. In class action suits the paid liars reap windfall compensation because they get millions in legal fees while a plantiff gets some meaningless meager settlement. It's always about the money for the paid liars.
Your honour, not only do I reject this so-called noise complaint, I'd also ike to sue those who complained because they were listening to my "private" music files. The fact that I was broadcasting said files both unencrypted and loudly enough to be heard across the street is immaterial. I feel so violated.
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