Did Google Street View cars spy around the world?
The story of the illegal WiFi sniffer installed in the Google Street View car in Germany continues to unwind and takes a rampant scale.
The Governor of Connecticut announced yesterday that the authorities had launched an official investigation into the illegal collection of WiFi data by Street View cars. Moreover, according to the governor, similar investigations began in more than 30 (!) States of America. Earlier, a number of European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Czech Republic, announced the beginning of the investigation in the same cases.
On May 15, Google officially acknowledged the fact that it collected traffic in Germany and apologized for this programming error, dated 2006. Due to a technical glitch, cars registered not only MAC addresses and SSID identifiers of networks, but also accidentally recorded private traffic that passed through open WiFi networks. Eric Schmidt said that one programmer was to blame.
Now representatives of the company continue to apologize and add that they are cooperating with law enforcement agencies and "hope that they have not violated any American laws."
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Judging by the last quote, WiFi sniffers were installed not only in Germany, but also in other countries. Perhaps it was a full set of all Google Street View cars in all countries of the world where these cars were shooting the terrain. Since 2007, they have traveled to virtually all US cities.
Most likely, in the near future, claims from all states will be merged into a class action lawsuit , and the hearings will be transferred to the federal court of California, where Google headquarters are located. About combining lawsuits asks Google itself, which does not have the resources for simultaneous proceedings in dozens of courts.
The Governor of Connecticut announced yesterday that the authorities had launched an official investigation into the illegal collection of WiFi data by Street View cars. Moreover, according to the governor, similar investigations began in more than 30 (!) States of America. Earlier, a number of European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Czech Republic, announced the beginning of the investigation in the same cases.
On May 15, Google officially acknowledged the fact that it collected traffic in Germany and apologized for this programming error, dated 2006. Due to a technical glitch, cars registered not only MAC addresses and SSID identifiers of networks, but also accidentally recorded private traffic that passed through open WiFi networks. Eric Schmidt said that one programmer was to blame.
Now representatives of the company continue to apologize and add that they are cooperating with law enforcement agencies and "hope that they have not violated any American laws."
')
Judging by the last quote, WiFi sniffers were installed not only in Germany, but also in other countries. Perhaps it was a full set of all Google Street View cars in all countries of the world where these cars were shooting the terrain. Since 2007, they have traveled to virtually all US cities.
Most likely, in the near future, claims from all states will be merged into a class action lawsuit , and the hearings will be transferred to the federal court of California, where Google headquarters are located. About combining lawsuits asks Google itself, which does not have the resources for simultaneous proceedings in dozens of courts.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/97123/
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