john_k - 6:26 pm on May 15, 2010 (gmt 0)

(from ken_b) What has recording this info got to do with taking pictures for street view? I don't get it. Did their cameras not work unless the sniffed out wifi signals?

Exactly. There is no way that this was a mistake and there is no way that each individual driver didn't know that this was happening. The equipment needed to take pictures and sync them with GPS info would not be sufficient to also sniff and record wi-fi mac addresses and data packets. Additional hardware and software would have been needed and the operators would have had to know about it.