It says the unnamed engineer wrote computer code to collect "payload data" including personal email, text messages, passwords, Internet-usage history and other personal information that was moving through unencrypted Wi-Fi networks within range of the Street View vehicles between 2008 and 2010.

WSJ: Google Engineer Told Others of Data Scoop

It joins other account-recovery features such as the ubiquitous "forgot my password" and security questions, as well as less conventional methods, like identifying friends' faces in pictures or recovering passwords via text message.

CNN: Mark Milian,

After making a copy of the file, the hacker ran it through a code-breaking program that exposed the passwords as plain text.

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