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John Williams wrote:
Your wifi mac address is not going to be the one your searching sends them. They 'may' be linked, it may be a friend using your network.On Fri, 2010-04-30 at 23:40 +0100, Michael Mortimore wrote:On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:42:03 +0100, Roland Tarver <roland.tarver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18844-innovation-the-wifi-database-that-shamed-google.html Sneaky! best wishes roly :-)I don't see what the problem is.I can't imagine Google hasn't considered linking this data to their advertising activities. When serving up ads they can accurately target you with very specific advertising to your locale and based on the other data they already gather on you/us from browsing/search.
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I think individually wifi data IS public because you transmit it out, but when it is being collected for a large database it suddenly gets worrying. I have been moderately careful with my personal data online, this database blows that out of the water to a degree as google don't need to know *who* I am, they just bypassed that and sorted out exactly *where* I live. It would be trivial to then establish my ID if they were inclined, or court ordered (Heaven knows what future me might do to upset the police/govt.. probably fart they way the UK laws are going) One of my jobs today, see if my wifi signal extends to the road. Trouble is I won't know if Google had some far more sensitive antenna in their cars :(
I'd be more inclined to worry about military aircraft flying overhead. I guess they can pick up activity at great heights. Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html