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And in addition to that they have the audacity to not make them accessible to the user! No way to look up your own wireless password in your phone, i.e. to tell a guest, thats just ridiculous.
On (jailbroken) iOS there is an app which displays all saved WIFI passwords. I am sure there are something similar to Androids.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they didn't have to design it in such a way as to share the passwords with google. All your data could be encrypted with your google account's password (or some other secret derived from it) on the device and backed up encrypted. When you enter your account password on a new device, it then downloads the encrypted data and decrypts and restores it. Same user experience without exposing private data.
Do we know that's not happening? The article says "they can decrypt them, given only a Gmail address and password" which implies that it would be encrypted with your password.
Google also knows all the secrets of General David Petraeus, or anyone else that uses Gmail. And everything you've (secretly) searched for. Google's business model is based on aggregating that information and gaining value out of the data, mostly in the form of advertising. As soon as it lets a major secret out, even just once, it's game over, and no-one will ever trust a secret to Google again. This is why they publ…
There are belated efforts by google to encrypt the traffic between its data centres, but its basically too late.
Google also knows all the secrets of General David Petraeus, or anyone else that uses Gmail. And everything you've (secretly) searched for. Google's business model is based on aggregating that information and gaining value out of the data, mostly in the form of advertising. As soon as it lets a major secret out, even just once, it's game over, and no-one will ever trust a secret to Google again. This is why they publ…
I agree that it's unlikely Google as a whole would decide to read/use confidential data. on the other hand, the idea that someone w/in Google might abuse their position is completely plausible. if we know that people at the NSA were passing around phone sex calls by US troops, do you really want to keep trusting that no-one at Google will ever do anything problematic w/ yr data? edit: to be clear, I use Google servic…
To me, that level of naivety with respect to operational security is just baffling. All it takes is one unscrupulous person in the right place at Google and those convenient, "free" services could end up costing millions. It isn't like the people in the finance industry have a reputation for being upstandingly moral either.
Google also knows all the secrets of General David Petraeus, or anyone else that uses Gmail. And everything you've (secretly) searched for. Google's business model is based on aggregating that information and gaining value out of the data, mostly in the form of advertising. As soon as it lets a major secret out, even just once, it's game over, and no-one will ever trust a secret to Google again. This is why they publ…
I agree that it's unlikely Google as a whole would decide to read/use confidential data. on the other hand, the idea that someone w/in Google might abuse their position is completely plausible. if we know that people at the NSA were passing around phone sex calls by US troops, do you really want to keep trusting that no-one at Google will ever do anything problematic w/ yr data? edit: to be clear, I use Google servic…
> if we know that people at the NSA were passing around phone sex calls by US troops, do you really want to keep trusting that no-one at Google will ever do anything problematic w/ yr data?
Already happened: http://gawker.com/5638874/david-barksdale-wasnt-googles-firs...
I wonder if all of this recent Google-bashing is really just a symptom of something larger. People are suddenly waking up to the obvious-in-hindsight realization that simply giving their data to a third party involves a certain amount of trust.
The reason people don't seem to be ganging up on Facebook, Apple, etc. in a similar way is because they never really earned that faith. Take Facebook: from the very start their founder was known to consider their users "dumb fucks" for entrusting him with their privacy.
In my opinion, the fact that Google went out of their to, and generally succeeded at earning that trust is a good sign. It shows they take the matter seriously.
All American companies operate under the same rules. If you've taken the position that all American companies are not to be trusted, fine. But if you haven't, wouldn't Google's history make them one of the more trustworthy ones?
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That's not the problem - choosing to give up your own secrets is fine, but giving up the wifi password of your friend's router because they kindly let you use the network whilst visiting is not cool at all. I personally refuse to allow access by friends with Android devices, and they are shocked to learn what Google does when I explain why...
This has the side benefit that all my devices can connect securely to home resources wherever I am in the world.
google must work with the NSA and must give them access to everything, but all is secret because FISA Laws.