Re: yeah, right.

[Robert Graham <robert_david_graham () yahoo com>]

> From: Dave Dennis <dmd () speakeasy org>

> > http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/WiFi-data-collection-update.html
>
> How does one mistakenly store gigs worth of data for 3 years?  And then do
> nothing with it?

Because the only thing Google can use to accomplish its goal is something called a "packet-sniffer", which records all 
packets.

Every wifi device is assigned a unique serial number (often called the "MAC address"). This serial number is put into 
every packet the device sends. Google records the location of devices by recording the packets sent by that device, and 
their GPS location.

This means that even without a GPS, you can look at the list of nearby wifi access-points, and figure out your probable 
GPS location by querying the Google database.

A "packet-sniffer" is nothing special. When your computer is turned on, it is receiving all the wifi packets anyway (on 
that channel). If the packet doesn’t belong to you (doesn’t have the right serial number), your computer immediately 
discards it. The way a packet-sniffer works is by suppressing this bit, causing ALL packets to be captured, even those 
not destined for your computer.

Presumably, Google also wrote software on top of the packet-sniffer to limit the data collected (like "slicing" packets 
to the first 64-bytes). However, it quite easy to make a mistake and capture more than is intended.


      

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