Google wants to patent technology used to 'snoop' Wi-Fi networks - wi-fi, security, privacy, networking, Google. Google's secret Wi-Fi snooping was powered by new sniffing technology that the company wants to patent, court documents filed Wednesday alleged.
A just-amended complaint in a class-action lawsuit first submitted two weeks ago claims that a patent Google submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in November 2008 shows that the search giant purposefully created technology to gather, analyze and use data sent by users over their wireless networks. The lawsuit, which was filed by an Oregon woman and a Washington man in a Portland, Ore. federal court May 17, accused Google of violating federal privacy and data acquisition laws when its Street View vehicles snatched data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks as they drove up and down U.S. streets. Google acknowledged the privacy issue May 14, but said it had not known it was collecting data from unprotected wireless networks until recently.
The advocacy group Privacy International has had similar thoughts. Google plans to patent WiFi snooping technology? - Techworld. By Gregg Keizer | Computerworld US | Published: 15:10 GMT, 04 June 2010 Google's secret WiFi snooping was powered by new sniffing technology that the company wants to patent, court documents filed Wednesday alleged.
A just-amended complaint in a class-action lawsuit first submitted two weeks ago claims that a patent Google submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office in November 2008 shows that the search giant purposefully created technology to gather, analyze and use data sent by users over their wireless networks. The lawsuit, which was filed by an Oregon woman and a Washington man in a Portland, Oregon federal court May 17, accused Google of violating federal privacy and data acquisition laws when its Street View vehicles snatched data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks as they drove up and down streets.
Google acknowledged the privacy issue 14 May, but said it had not known it was collecting data from unprotected wireless networks until recently. Image credit: by byrion on Flickr. Encryption Software for encrypting databases, files, columns, credit card numbers. Google wants to patent technology used to 'snoop' - SKAPadmin-Security, Hacking, Tech Support Forum. 0100020776. Wireless network-based location approximation Abstract The invention pertains to location approximation of devices, e.g., wireless access points and client devices in a wireless network.
Location estimates may be obtained by observation/analysis of packets transmitted or received by the access point. For instance, data rate information associated with a packet is used to approximate the distance between a client device and the access point. This may be coupled with known positioning information to arrive at an approximate location for the access point. Related U.S. Claims 1. 2. Google wants to patent technology used to 'snoop' Wi-Fi networks. Computerworld - Google's secret Wi-Fi snooping was powered by new sniffing technology that the company wants to patent, court documents filed Wednesday alleged.
A just-amended complaint in a class-action lawsuit first submitted two weeks ago claims that a patent Google submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in November 2008 shows that the search giant purposefully created technology to gather, analyze and use data sent by users over their wireless networks. The lawsuit, which was filed by an Oregon woman and a Washington man in a Portland, Ore. federal court May 17, accused Google of violating federal privacy and data acquisition laws when its Street View vehicles snatched data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks as they drove up and down U.S. streets.
Google acknowledged the privacy issue May 14, but said it had not known it was collecting data from unprotected wireless networks until recently. The advocacy group Privacy International has had similar thoughts. Lawyers Claim Google Wi-Fi Sniffing ‘Is Not an Accident’ Lawyers suing Google claimed Thursday they have discovered evidence in a patent application that Google deliberately programmed its Street View cars to collect private data from open Wi-Fi networks, despite claims to the contrary.
“At this point, it is our belief that it is not an accident,” said Brooks Cooper, an Oregon attorney suing Google in one of several class actions lawsuits around the country arising from Google’s disclosure that its Street View cars intercepted Wi-Fi traffic around the world. Google has described the sniffing as a coding error.
The evidence, the relevance of which Google disputed Thursday, is a 2008 Google patent application (.pdf) describing a method to increase the accuracy of location-based services — services that would allow advertisers or others to know almost the exact location of a mobile phone or other computing device. The so-called “776″ patent application, published by the U.S. Photo: Byrion/Flickr See Also: