Google Takes Wi-Fi Snooping Scandal to the Supreme Court

The biggest US Internet wiretapping program outside the National Security Agency may be headed to the Supreme Court. Google is asking the high court to rule on the legality of the company’s past sniffing of unencrypted Wi-Fi traffic in neighborhoods around the country as part of its Street View program. If the Supreme Court hears the case and eventually rules that unencrypted Wi-Fi sniffing is legal, that might be seen as a boon to criminals who eavesdrop on public access points to sniff out passwords or credit card numbers. But Google ingeniously argues that the 9th Circuit’s ruling is actually bad for computer security, because it could bar legitimate security scanning.