The way coding works it would be easy to no notice.
I've been programming since before Microsoft,Apple or Google existed.
It totally makes sense to me how the data was errantly collected and not
noticed for years.
First , consider that Google was attempting to create a database of geolocation
information that would allow one to determine their position based upon
nearby WiFi signals.
So what they were aiming to stick in their database was the device identifiers
broadcast by every WiFi device in every packet they send out, along with the longitude
and latitude where the signals were found with the street view GPS.
In this fashion , a cellphone , iPad or other WiFi enabled device could take those same
device id's all devices harvest and use them to ask such questions as
"where is the nearest coffee shop, rail station, hotel etc."
Since the device id's are in the headers of packets , and devices take packets as a whole
those packets come along with random bits of data.
Those of you who have experienced the frustration involved in the limited range of
your WiFi router , know such signals do not go very far.
The data we would be talking about Google having had collected would be limited
to the amount that their street view cars would see while driving by at speed and
being within range of your WiFi router.
Most programmers try and re-use code from past projects , or leverage
code from various pre-packaged libraries of code when creating new applications.
None of us likes to re-invent the wheel, when we can copy-n-paste ine
from our tool box.
The pre-existing code for processing WiFi packets would as a matter of necessity take
a packet as a whole. The programmer would then record the few random packets
returned by the code libraries as a whole onto the hard drive in the street view car
along with the GPS location where the packet was recorded.
Later back at the office, similar packet processing code would read the whole packet
and pluck out the device identifiers from the header and store those with the geolocation
data into a database to be used in answering those questions of
"where is the nearest coffee shop, rail station, hotel etc."
The random 512 or such bytes of junk data inside the random packets would have been ignored
by everyone.
To here this news item told, one would have you believe that the Google car sat outside
your house for hours siphoning off all your secrets, when in reality it would be more like
spinning the dial on your radio and hearing random utterances as the needle sped past the
stations.
There are firms out there that would benefit greatly by suckering government and citizens into
believing that there was more to this, but if you think about it , the data those cars would have errantly collected in the 1/2 second to 2 seconds they were in range as they drove by
your WiFi router at road speeds could not have possibly amounted to anything truly interesting
except to those who like to make something out of nothing.
Of course one might in realizing that every WiFi enabled device coming in range of
your home is gathering the same information as a part of it's normal operation, consider
taking the 1-2 minutes to turn on the encryption features in your WiFi routers
as unlike Google Street View cars , there are indeed others who would simply
park outside your house to snoop , or attach their computer to your WiFi to get FREE internet service with you left to foot the bill.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
