But the analogy only works in so far as there are a limited number of rabbits to be had and hunting on a systematically large scale depletes the populations. Meanwhile, systematic capturing of broadcasted, unencrypted network traffic does not decrease the availability of that traffic (although if it did - it'd probably be a Good Thing... security awareness).

The analogy would be different if having a large amount of rabbit from various locations easily accessable would be an issue.

I think the real issue here isn't that Google was able to record this information (any wifi device does this as the most basic level). The problem is that Google didn't realize the significance of the junk traffic and systematically scrub / destroy it (where wifi devices differ is comitting data to long-term storage). It appears that Google won't continue that particular behavior.

You don't write your own software. You use a common off-the-shelf app that provides a data dump with everything you need. It's called Kismet. You should take a look at it.

Not if your discussion is being done via bullhorn.

I've used Kismet to do site surveys before. By default, it's dumping packets for anything it can find. I could probably go through my laptop and find old caps with fragments of data from neighboring networks that had nothing to do with the entity that I was surveying. With that in mind, it's not particularly shocking that Google has done something similar. But do keep trying to push this as an intentional, malicious, or at least "dumb" act. Because everyone likes ignorance if it's packaged in snark.

So what you're saying is that you've never used off-the-shelf software to do something and you have absolutely no experience using Kismet.

So what you're saying is that if I whip out my phone in the streets of NYC, snap a shot of traffic, and fail to then photoshop out all the license plates before posting that shot on the web, I'm being morally indefensible?

Right. And some people don't know what they're talking about and like to put words in other people's mouths. If you're going to quote someone, quote them.

What was actually said in the oft-misquoted Schmidt interview:

"I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important to remember, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." -- Eric Schmidt

Note that isn't a paraphrase. That's a real, gen-u-ine quote. I don't agree with him that the desire to maintain privacy is any way linked to whether I should or should not be doing something. But what I find even more interesting is that in the same breath, we're being warned about the Patriot Act. We're being told without actually being told (because that would be illegal) that Google is being served with Patriot Act requests. Nobody ever seems to key on that though.

Back on topic - nowhere does Schmidt say that privacy isn't important. I understand and share the concern over how much data and meta-data Google has access to. I'm even more concerned over the possibility of Google changing hands or Government access to data (i.e. Patriot Act). But let's limit criticism and concerns to real issues. The real issues are enough without making crap up.

Unless, of course, making crap up is part of a larger agenda.

I thought it was more interesting when you did this post the first time. But I guess you can now copy and paste this in to anything Google related from here on out, right?

Now I'm wondering. Where does this copy-and-paste come from? When has an agent of Google said "privacy is not important"? And when does Google+, a "social network" service that not only features but stresses limiting communications to user-customizable groups and therefore controlling how public any given communications are, represent an example of privacy not being important?

It's just espionage with new tools. Look at 1982 Siberian Pipeline incident. No Internet required. We already have some history to work with and extrapolate from.

Here's the rub. If we assume that the logs are accurate, Manning seems to feel that he's really uncovered an amazing amount of corruption. Revealing such a thing would not be treason. It would, in fact, be a very heroic thing to do.

My take on it is that he didn't deliver what he thought he had. And if anything, we was an emotionally compromised individual who's clueless actions will have negative impact on people's lives... none the least of which includes his own. That makes him more fool than traitor.

Keep in mind that mistakes are made. Unfortunately, in the military those mistakes tend to cost lives. We don't accuse treason against those who're involved in friendly fire incidents where there is no evidence of intent to kill friendlies (though we may accuse them of negligence if appropriate).

Which is actually a rather wonderful bit of bait-and-switch. The basic focus of the video is intact - the horrific deaths of a news media crew. But there's some background that gets edited out. Instead, what is always linked to is the edited and editorialized version.

There's this thing called Google.... maybe you've heard of it (but of course, we can't assume that you have)...

This was my reaction too (steepled fingers, "well played, Mr. Zuckerberg. Well played."). A bit of G+ chatter / press went to Zuckerberg being the most followed on G+. He gets some attention. Then throws his hands up and goes "never-mind how I said that the age of privacy is over... G+ is too scary!"

Or it shows that lumbering bureaucracies have fundamental disadvantages that can not be overcome by bolting on additional layers of bureaucracy (read: compliance).