Will Google's Wi-Fi Spying Engineer End Up In a South Korean Prison?
Nobody knows the identity of the rogue engineer who "accidentally" programmed Google's Street View cars to slurp up emails, passwords and other data from nearby wi-fi networks. But South Korea wants to find out, and punish them.
South Korea just finished an investigation into the notorious "wi-spy" incident and has found that Google "broke South Korea privacy law" by collecting the data with their Street View cars there. But where England just gave Google a slap on the wrist, South Korean officials want to go after the guy who perpetrated this mass violation of privacy.
A police official told the Korea Herald, "We are looking to penalize whoever ordered and developed the program, but are unsure as of yet who that might be." But don't expect an extradition: "Even after we confirm the identity of the suspect, we believe it will most likely be a U.S. citizen, and it is unclear whether the Korean Police Agency can prosecute those involved." (U.S. officials still haven't been able to figure out how to deal with the breach.)
This does raise the interesting question of an appropriate punishment for the crime, though. Maybe this Google engineer should have to give the entire country of South Korea access to his Gmail account for a year?
