NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Google's Wi-Fi Crucifixion, an Open Mike, and Public Is As Public Does
Google's Wi-Fi Crucifixion, an Open Mike, and Public Is As Public Does
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000720.html
Greetings. As I noted recently in "'Highly Illogical': The Hysteria
Over Google's Wi-Fi Scanning," the unseemly and opportunistic
attacks, lawsuits, and now perhaps even criminal prosecutions of
Google over their accidental recording of unencrypted Wi-Fi payload
data seem to call into question the overall rationality of our
species ( http://bit.ly/9680wb [Lauren's Blog]).
After all, these were unencrypted transmissions being broadcast on
public airwaves, and Google's accidental capturing of data snippets
can hardly compare with the risks to those Wi-Fi owners of bad guys
purposely collecting that data to actually use for evil purposes (but
even then, we're only talking about data that wasn't protected above
the Wi-Fi layer by mechanisms such as SSL/TLS).
On the other hand, it's obviously to be expected that Google's
adversaries (including some governments with somewhat irrationally
conflicted views over public vs. private data, imagery, etc.) would
seize on any slip to try stake Google out for the wolves.
But ultimately, public is public. Information that is disseminated in
unencrypted forms is always going to be vulnerable to purposeful or
accidental interception, and the solution to this situation is
encryption, not legislation.
I had an interesting personal incident occur recently that may be at
least a bit illuminating in this "what is public?" discussion.
For several years, I've sometimes dictated the initial drafts of
particularly long papers or reports into an inexpensive hand-held
digital recorder. I blab my thoughts into this thing wherever I am,
later dump the audio data files via USB, then run them through
speech-to-text software (usually "Naturally Speaking") --
typically with highly satisfactory results.
Brief Aside: Speech recognition systems have long been one of my areas
of interest. The availability of speech-to-text systems today always
strikes me as a true science fiction concept brought to fruition.
(Here's a one-minute video clip I threw together featuring two 20th
century science fiction TV show concepts of "futuristic voice
dictation" - from 1979's original "Battlestar Galactica," and -- a bit
more tongue-in-cheek -- from "Star Trek" in 1968:
http://bit.ly/cV5bJg [YouTube])
Anyway, one day a few months ago when I examined the automatically
transcribed results of the last week's dictation dump, I was startled
to find (sometimes garbled, sometimes intelligible) snippets of
conversations in the resulting text, that had nothing to do with what
I had dictated!
What the ...? I went back and listened to the original audio files,
which I normally didn't do (my standard protocol is to simply upload
the audio data files and later inspect the resulting text).
The problem's source was immediately apparent. There were other
voices in the background of some recordings, that had been picked up
in the vicinity of where I had been dictating in stores, fast food
eateries, and so on. Many of these voices were clear enough that the
speech software had tried -- often successfully to a considerable
degree -- to transcribe these along with my intended verbiage. I
deleted the original audio files as is my standard practice, and
edited out the erroneously collected text snippets.
The "foreign" remarks were all pretty much meaningless bits and
pieces -- a few words here and there -- but why had this suddenly occurred
and how had it gone on for days unnoticed? After all, I've been using
this recorder for years, often in public places, and it had never
picked up anything from other conversations before.
I found the reason. On the back of the recorder is a tiny little
flush switch, that I had never knowingly altered, that selected
between high and low microphone sensitivity. I had always left it on
the "low" setting, which caused the unit to effectively ignore all but
my own voice. Somehow that switch had moved to the "high sensitivity"
position, causing the unit to pull in surrounding voices as well as my
own. There was no obvious indication of this, and I didn't even
notice the switch since I carry the recorder in a small case.
You know where I'm going with this. The accidental recording of very
short ambient background speech snippets doesn't represent a real risk
to anyone, just as Google's accidental recording of unencrypted Wi-Fi
payload snippets was an unfortunate oversight, not an evil plot.
We need to understand the fact that unless we take steps to protect
what we consider to be "confidential data" in public spaces, that data
is vulnerable to be overheard not only accidentally as in both of
these cases described above, but also by bad actors who truly have
nefarious goals -- and it's the latter group that we really need to be
concerned about.
This holds true in the world of Wi-Fi, and in the more mundane
environs of the local burger joint ordering queue.
Trying to treat public spaces as if they were somehow legislatively
"private on demand" is ultimately a fool's game.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein