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Mister Schmidt, Tear Down This Database

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 24th, 2010 at 07:43 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Google is trying to ram through Net Neutrality, to give government control over every Internet-connected computer network in the country (which is almost all of them, these days). But now Google is scanning your home networks directly.

Quoth The Register, which cites Der Spiegel we know it’s not something they just made up:

The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users’ unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along.

….But Google’s uniquely cavalier approach to privacy, and its potential ability to cross reference the information raises additional concerns. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said internet users shouldn’t worry about privacy unless they have something to hide. And when there’s nowhere left to hide…?

Made my point for me. Schmidt laughed at us when he was questioned on Google’s shameless data gathering and database creation. And between Google Buzz and the Chinese attacks, none of us has any reason to believe our data at Google is secure.

Chairman Schmidt, if you seek trust, open up your practices. Mister Schmidt, tear down this database.

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COMMENTS

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  • JadedByPolitics

    my husband said he guessed WE would have to start putting up fake MAC addresses to subvert them however for the uniformed that is going to be hard to do and really why should ANYONE have to worry about what level of CRAZY would know where they are based on their blogging if they don’t want to be known.

    This is totalitarianism at its worst and should be ILLEGAL at best!

  • eastbaylarry

    I know you are very anti when it comes to Google and their management, but what is it about a MAC address that warrents this post?

    For the non-geeks out there, a MAC address is the unique number build into any hardware that can communicate on a network. It’s sort of a permanent IP address, but still requires an actual IP address to be linked to it for internet communications.

    Storing a MAC address along with the IP address does not really gain Google anything except, maybe, being able to tell when somebody changes/sells/upgrades their wireless router.
    So what’s the big deal?

  • JadedByPolitics

    the MAC travels with the computer, it can say Jaded is in her house, now she is in a cafe in Fairfax, now she is at her work and WHY would Google or ANYONE for that matter need to know where Jaded is at any time of the day? I don’t allow Twitter to peg where I am at and it was my choice to opt out of that feature and yet Google has not told anyone nor offered for anyone to EXEMPT themselves from that tracking and I certainly don’t want Google tracking my whereabouts. It is BIG BROTHER and it is WRONG!

  • eastbaylarry

    I don’t travel with a wireless PC, so this aspect did not occur to me. But, still, their tracking is not ‘real time’, so what they get is where a MAC is when they do their ‘Street View’ scans, right?

    So they may pick up Jaded’s MAC while they cruise by Starbucks, (along with Starbucks router and other customers), this year and catch it again next year in a cafe, but so what?

    Please don’t get me wrong. I DON’T want anybody to know where EastBayLarry is any time of the day or night either, but your IP address tells a LOT more. That will pinpoint you at Starbucks or at home much more reliably and it IS a 24/7/365 thing they can do.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    So predictable. You amazingly agree with everything Google does.

    Funny.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    There is no legitimate reason to gather the data.

  • JadedByPolitics

    that there is no reason for a Company the size of Google to be entertaining let along actually collecting large quantities of information on people without their consent. The bottom line is that Google has shown a propensity towards a BIG BROTHER operation instead of just enjoying their position in the market place and providing services. They are really making people wary of their practices and procedures and their desire to USE politicians to further their goals is very untoward to a Conservative like myself and obviously Neil which is why he calls attention to their attempts at TOTAL CONTROL!

  • NeoKong

    ” Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said internet users shouldn’t worry about privacy unless they have something to hide.”

  • rbdwiggins

    A Google/Government Partnership, and the installation of real-time scanners in conjunction with a major city’s security/surveillance cameras or franchised broadband connections?

    “Big brother is watching” becomes all too real.

  • http://www.laborunionreport.combrand/brhttp://www.laborunionreport.blogspot.com LaborUnionReport
  • discerningconservative

    and the other is a crime.

  • Doc Holliday

    Americans have been quiet, the Euros have objected. btw, you can opt out. But it should be an opt in, not an opt out scenario. I didn’t even realize the ip thing, is that just for WAN networks or whatever those new fangled things are called?

  • Doc Holliday

    damn this country is producing some really dumb people. Not saying that about you east, but people in general are starting to simply not care about their personal rights. See it is ok for you to give Google your blood type, employment history etc because YOU want to, but each citizen should have the right to decide if their privacy has meaning to THEM.

  • Doc Holliday
  • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica Estrada

    And, of course, they can get our emails and anything we have stored off-site.

    http://www.redstate.com/veronicaestrada/2010/04/16/the-obama-administration-trumps-the-constitution-with-ecpa-to-access-emails/

    We’re a social experiment.

    Behavioral scientists in the White House, after all.

    http://volokh.com/2010/04/10/andrew-ferguson-on-behavioral-economics-and-the-obama-administration/

    Where’s my cheese?

  • StandardCandle

    For one, MAC addresses are used for routing and trust relationships in networking, so having YOUR address may pose a security issue if you do remote work.

    Secondarily if they are able to tie a MAC address to your home, they are able to tie EVERY thing you do on a google network i.e. searching, gmail, blogger, picassa, skype, etc, and that becomes very lucrative when building a giant database that can cross reference and trend all interest to individuals at a local level. With that kind of marketing data, the consumer hasn’t got a chance against the market, and that becomes very bad for the middle class and down…

  • eastbaylarry

    Redstate policy is “If you want to claim to be a conservative, then you MUST hate everything Google does”.

    Neil: I am no fan of Google and your claim that I am sheds no light on the issues. My original comment asked for clarification and Jaded provided some, {thanks again Jaded}.

    Doc: Why are insults about dumb people helpful? Sure I have no PHD and I don’t come to RedState thinking I know it all. I come here for information. Name calling is a leftist tactic and seems out of place here.

    I think the whole Google thing would be better served by focusing on their very real issues like supporting Net Neutrality. If we can keep the FCC out of the internet control business we will be way ahead, even if Google has all of our wireless MAC addresses.

  • pragmatic

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/dayton-wants-to-host-a-google-high-speed-network-603673.html

    Saw this article about a month ago. Our nearby metropolis, Dayton, and I’m sure a few others around the country, is apparently going to willingly allow Google to install a high speed network. I questioned their motives at the time. Then I see the story about MAC addresses and realize here’s part of my answer.

  • eastbaylarry

    would not monitor everything about every connection? With or without Google?
    The lefties would insist on full monitoring to ‘protect the children’ or some such ruse.

  • Doc Holliday

    secondly I did not “name call”. I think we are producing a bunch of dump people who know longer care about the right to privacy. Empirical evidence shows people care about their right to privacy less than ever before in our history. I calmly and coldly consider that to be dumb.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    You say this every time, when every single time you stick up for Google.

  • eastbaylarry

    I realize that the comments of individuals should not be taken as site policy and I’m sorry for making that statement.

    But I DO get tired of being attacked and called dumb or worse for asking questions and stating my opinion. If RedState is not about dialog and education and spreading information, well maybe I just got the wrong idea about the site.

  • Doc Holliday

    my advice (not a warning) is to just chill on this. You have your opinion everyone else has theirs. Let it go, no reason to burn bridges over this.

  • eastbaylarry
  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    and thus the web has a MAC address. Your computer, your modem, your router, networkable printer, cell phone. Everything. It’s what makes Schmidt’s actions suspect. My IP address changes every now and then, but the MAC address is what really identifies your device to the network. It doesn’t change.

  • Doc Holliday
  • E Pluribus Unum

    What’s the big deal? Really?

    Google is, in essence, mapping every thing you do on your computer and cell phones. Just because their purposes might not currently be nefarious doesn’t mean it wont be. And I say that RIGHT NOW their purposes ARE nefarious. They are already well-known for being actively left wing.

    You don’t see this government RIGHT NOW targeting individuals, corporations, and businesses? You don’t see Google pushing the so-called net neutrality thing, which is actually more government intrusion into private business and lives?

    Let me tell you something that you seem to be blissfully (or perhaps wilfully) ignorant of. First they catalog, then they start taking away privacy, then they take away freedom. That’s what oppressive dictatorships do.

    We stop them here, or we don’t stop them. THAT is the big deal.

  • jackhammer

    And I am glad they are….when I heard that the streetview trucks were also scanning for WLAN, cell phone towers and the like, I got really freaked.

    The thought of a company using a conglomerate fo public and “private” data to have a database with the ability to :

    1) know my name and phone number (via the reverse directory they already offer on phone numbers)
    2) know what methods of communication are available at what strength in that given location

    If I decided to sign up for thier gmail system (which was billed as a beacon of privacy)

    3) from whcih places anyone logs in from, and where they are located…

    I don’t want to get into a tinfoil cap sort of situation…I never really worried abotu that whole tin foil cap, because I never thought the government could get its act together enough to actually get most of that conspiracy stuff worked out…..but a private company might actually be able to get all of that together….

    The germany are doing a pretty good job of fighting them and facebook for their major infringements on privacy.

  • USNJIMRET

    Not that there is anything wrong at all with being a geek, heck there’s a lot of money to be made in tech, if you know your stuff.
    That said…
    I first saw the story about Germany’s government having ‘concerns’ with Google a day or so ago. I didn’t know then, and still don’t now-even after several posts by folks who DO know, exactly why the idea of Google, or anyone else for that matter, collecting and keeping this kind of data bothered me so much.
    I guess it’s a trusted sense of vulnerability, that has served me well over the years. There are times that something just ‘feels’ out of kilter, fundamentally flawed, wrong.
    This strikes me as one of those, without having a clear explanation/understanding of the why.
    Maybe it’s just the idea that in a world where the personal data about everyone is already so documented, cataloged, referenced and maintained by God knows who, the “why” becomes a very important issue.
    Being pushed aside with a smart assed line about not worrying if not breaking the law, dismisses an honestly arrived at concern about the potential negative consequences.

  • deanayer

    If you use gmail from a laptop or a google android phone and they have the MAC address they copied from your house’s router they know where that device lives and who owns it. Every time you send email from a wireless network (whose location they know) or use your phone they know where you go. They will know who your friends are, where you work, etc. They will know if you travel internationally for example. They can match up your movements and location with what you search for using google. They can mash up data like your homes location and value with the city you work in and what your interests are in general or specifically to you the individual.

    They are able to create a mosaic of datapoints around you that tie together to create a very specific profile of who you are and what you do. Its not about you doing something you shouldnt its about someone collecting every concievable breadcrumb you drop. An indivodual breadcrumb may not be so telling and they can argue its minor but when they have them all along with where and when you dropped them trust me its invasive.

  • ambris

    Put protection on your wireless network. If you do that, they can’t get any information about what’s on the network. If you don’t do that, you are literally broadcasting the information and don’t deserve to whine about privacy.

    This isn’t like in Mexico where the government has disallowed unregistered phones, to the point of turning them off. This is a fairly innocuous action by a company that specializes in data collection. If it wasn’t Google, it would be some other company, so long as data collection remains profitable. That’s just how the market works.

  • eastbaylarry

    You are misguided on this point. You seem to equate encryption with privacy, but even with encryption enabled some ‘packets’ must be exchanged to initiate a connection and these contain IP addresses and MAC addresses.

    I agree with your second point that “If it wasn?t Google, it would be some other company…”, but don’t expect brownie points on this site for that. (Few agree with me on this).

  • southernilpat

    I don’t use plastic. I don’t have any “valued shopper” cards at any store. I will not buy a car with OnStar or similar equipment. I won’t buy a cell phone with GPS. When I used to live where I had to take the tollway to work I chose to pay twice as much paying cash rather than get an I-Pass. I won’t have Tivo or a DVR box from my satellite company. I refuse to make it easy for them to know everything about me. I’m going to be really ticked if I have to give up my internet.