Google to provide (your private), data to European authorities

[simonm]

Perhaps relevant to the original gist of this discussion: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10850875

[kgun]

Quoted from that article

Mr Kamkar detailed the attack during a presentation at the Black Hat hacker conference. In 2005, Mr Kamkar created a worm that exploited security failings in web browsers to garner more than one million "friends" on the MySpace social network in one day.
Prosecuted for the hack, Mr Kamkar was given three years probation, did 90 days of community service and paid damages. He was also banned from using the net for personal purposes for an undisclosed amount of time.

So the reason for the penalty was not telling how it could be done, but for doing it.

Like the current news media discussion releted to WikiLeaks all over the world, it is wrong to attack the messenger. Large news companies like our state Tv station and Cnn give WikiLeaks free Ad.

Again quoted from the above article:

He then coupled the ID information, known as a Mac address, with a geo-location feature of the Firefox web browser. This interrogates a Google database created when its cars were carrying out surveys for its Street View service.

The attack uses data gathered by Google's Street View cars
This database links Mac addresses of routers with GPS co-ordinates to help locate them. During the demonstration, Mr Kamkar showed how straightforward it was to use the attack to identify someone's location to within a few metres.

If it is true, what will the concequences be?

[TrafficProducer]

Is there any point in:
having passwords, having a paper shredder, looking doors, etc....

Perhaps relevant to the original gist of this discussion: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10850875

[TrafficProducer]

Can Google change the content of your web pages... Yes but... ( another post by me at WPW )