@Turtle
"And you think that hashes of hardware strings are more "personal" than emails, passwords, and whatever communications and data packets Google intercepts?"
Where did I ever say that? Where? Kindly keep your straw men to yourself.
---
" "That's theft. However a stranger walking through said door is would hardly a surprise would it?"
An irrelevant point."
Nup, that's exactly the point - as far as you analogy goes anyway.
" "The stranger having to kick the door down is a different matter."
Another irrelevancy. You are on a hot streak!"
It is also relevant. Theft is theft, we can agree on that I hope. Kicking down the door is akin hacking the WiFi crypto. Walking through the open door is simply listening to what gets blasted into the air. No more. Although I repeat, IRL analogies rarely work.
---
"there are judges in various jurisdiction and government and law enforcement officials in various countries who think that Google's data theft *is* a serious matter."
I never said it wasn't, but I don't think it's theft and I would not class it as intercept because*the data was not encrypted and was sent into a public space*. I said below that does raise very interesting issues that society and the law need to address.
---
The whole *POINT* I was trying to make was that MS are using this as an excuse for a PR stunt to try and paint themselves in glory "we place a priority on privacy". But they have a past history of invading privacy and cannot be trusted. And to make the point clear, one cannot trust Google either!