Maps was caught wardriving [2] with Google Streetview, linking Wifi access point names to physical locations early on. After getting caught, they settled for $13 Million last year.
Now Google Maps and even location services on all Android devices uses wifi scanning and bluetooth scanning as part of location triangulation. This is a constantly updating map of every SSID in existance, including unique radio devices in a given location.
Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, now heads up the DoD's advisory board on new technology [3]
[1] https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/tech/google-street-view-priva...
[3] https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2016/03/02/go... ||| https://innovation.defense.gov/Media/Biographies/Bio-Display...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#History
Google Maps stems from an Australian company called Where2, which AFAIK was not funded by spooks.
This was the moment I got afraid of every single Android device that's already on the market, sniffing around for everything they can find.
If private people do this, they get jailed. If google does it, nobody gives a damn about it.
There is no privacy, as everybody around you is compromising it without themselves knowing.
The issue was that they captured data from open APs, and that collection of data was deemed illegal wiretapping.
The mapping of WiFi networks to physical locations was not.
The statement also linked to a third-party analysis of the relevant code which concluded: [2]
“Gslite is an executable program that captures, parses, and writes to disk 802.11 wireless frame data. In particular, it parses all frame header data and associates it with its GPS coordinates for easy storage and use in mapping network locations. The program does not analyze or parse the body of Data frames, which contain user content. The data in the Data frame body passes through memory and is written to disk in unparsed format if the frame is sent over an unencrypted wireless network, and is discarded if the frame is sent over an encrypted network.”
[1]: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection...
[2]: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...
I mean, there are several books about it such as Surveillance Valley, or these two sister pieces
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo...
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/why-google-made-the-...
The government didn't create Silicon Valley, Robert Noyce and the rest of the Traitorous 8 did. They did however bankroll semiconductor fabs here and in Texas for a few years but the world is better for it.
I have no evidence other than the sheer obviousness of it, but the ties still continue to this day. I have no doubt it is kept hidden from most employees due to the general political leanings of most Valley engineers. For instance, my work does a ton of work for the DoE and you hear them mentioned all the time. The DoD is also a customer and you never hear their name.