[kwlug-disc] [OT] Google sniffing wifi, collecting emails and passwords.

[unsolicited]

Chris Frey wrote, On 06/21/2010 6:38 PM:
> On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 04:28:24PM -0400, Paul Nijjar wrote:
>> Similarly, is it bad/unethical for Google to record your unencrypted
>> traffic even when there is no digital lock protecting it? Is it the
>> encryption that is supposed to secure your data, or is it the
>> underlying principle?
> 
> Wifi is like walking around with my MAC address on my t-shirt.
> I can't be too upset if people read it.
> 
> If I sold that t-shirt and tried to keep people from reading it
> with some kind of lock, it would be even worse.
> 
> In both the wifi case and the digital lock case, people are sending
> data out into the wild and still expecting to control it somehow.

Interesting analogy, but I don't think quite correct.

If you were selling the shirt, it seems reasonable that nobody else 
should be able to copy the design and sell their own copies. Even if 
they give them away for free.

The idea of copyright, and of no piracy, doesn't seem unreasonable.

I don't dispute that how they're going about it is unpalatable, and I 
doubt that they'll be successful, but that doesn't take away from the 
principle of being the sole benefactor of your own work or investment. 
[Argue the details of how long, etc., elsewhere.]

I wish someone had a better way for them, something that worked for 
everyone. In the absence of that, they have to try and protect their 
'livelihood.' Dispute the nefarious aspects of that livelihood all you 
want, the core remains.

Granted, they don't help themselves, in the court of public opinion, 
in so many ways.

If they could count on effective enforcement, I expect something could 
be negotiated. But I suspect that effective enforcement is impossible, 
no matter how much money gets thrown at it.