Hackers see "sheeple" sheared by Google wireless data grab

Long before Google online mapping service cars snatched data from private wireless hotspots there was the Wall of Sheep. The Wall, created by Aires Security, has long been a mainstay of the infamous Def Con gathering of hackers that ended Sunday in Las Vegas. Designed as a "security awareness tool" and refined over the years, the Wall captures data sent wirelessly by smartphones, laptops or other gadgets and then finds information unguarded by encryption or tough passwords. Wall builders have long branded folks careless about what they send wirelessly as "sheeple" vulnerable to wolves who can eavesdrop on transmissions as easily as one can overhear a chat in a coffee shop. Those behind the Wall see what Google did by sucking up unprotected wireless data with Street View vehicles as perhaps unethical but perfectly legal. "If you overhear a conversation in a public place, a Starbucks for example, you are not doing anything illegal," Aires chief Brian Markus said as private data of "sheeple" was projected on a wall behind him. "For wireless, if you are monitoring it passively and you don't have to break into anything that should be legal."

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