[vectorpush]

I agree that trusting google with wifi passwords is about as benign as it gets (especially if you already trust them with everything else) but the reason we encourage password encryption isn't because we don't trust the service provider, it's because we don't trust hackers or unethical employees. There are a lot of people who would love to get their hands on that data.

[babesh]

Not benign at all. Read the story about how some Facebook administrator challenged Facebookers to hack into Facebook. The way they did it was to drive by his home and impersonate his home wireless router. My understanding is that once you do that, you can do man in the middle attacks.

Example: Oh you thought you were accessing Facebook, bank, stock, tax... oh you are... but first you are passing along your password to a third party.

Also, once you gain access to the network, what percentage of networks allow administrator access over wi-fi? I would bet a good percentage. What percentage of these have the default password? Again, a good percentage. So basically, you can hijack quite a few networks this way. Do you know what most routers keep a log of? Your entire browsing history. Do you know what else you can do to the network? Open up inbound ports.

Note: The impersonation attack may work even without passwords. Figure out what his/her network name is. Give your network the same name. Scramble the signal coming from the other router. Have him/her enter in a password to your network. Voila.

[vectorpush]

Fair enough; it's not really benign, only in comparison to all the other data google stores and aggregates regarding its customers (imagine a map of Google Now data)