Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
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Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#2Now that I think of it, I'd be surprised if there aren't a few lists of this kind already made by an agency/company or two.
Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#3Isn't it not really possible to uniquely identify most modern bluetooth devices this way? Specifically to prevent things like this.
Unless they're hoping my AirPods are in pairing mode all of the time and they're going to track the name "mikeocool's AirPods."
Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#4This feels illegal. If it's not, it probably should be.
Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#5Isn't it not really possible to uniquely identify most modern bluetooth devices this way? Specifically to prevent things like this. Unless they're hoping my AirPods are in pairing mode all of the time and they're going to track the name "mikeocool's AirPods."
They just need to link a cluster to you in the first place - say at a toll booth or drive-thru - where ANPR is already commonly deployed.
Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#6Privacy is no more if that is true
Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#7Isn't it not really possible to uniquely identify most modern bluetooth devices this way? Specifically to prevent things like this. Unless they're hoping my AirPods are in pairing mode all of the time and they're going to track the name "mikeocool's AirPods."
They just need to link a cluster to you in the first place - say at a toll booth or drive-thru - where ANPR is already commonly deployed.
I thought most modern Bluetooth devices essentially randomize the Bluetooth MAC address periodically, specifically to prevent this sort of tracking? And random MAC addresses too on WiFi.
Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#8Isn't it not really possible to uniquely identify most modern bluetooth devices this way? Specifically to prevent things like this. Unless they're hoping my AirPods are in pairing mode all of the time and they're going to track the name "mikeocool's AirPods."
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Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
They just need to link a cluster to you in the first place - say at a toll booth or drive-thru - where ANPR is already commonly deployed.
I thought most modern Bluetooth devices essentially randomize the Bluetooth MAC address periodically, specifically to prevent this sort of tracking? And random MAC addresses too on WiFi.
If someone has a half dozen BT devices on their person/in their car and they randomize MACs hourly (but not all at once) I bet you could still track people pretty accurately.
Re: Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to ALPRs
#10I was in the space 10 years ago with a product. Primarily Bluetooth, later BLE and WiFi. At that time most consumer devices were constantly discoverable. About 3-5% of traffic would have a disoverable MAC. These days not so many. iPhones never are discoverable unless you are in pairing mode. BLE broadcasts beacons much more consistently and generates a lot of data to filter, but they also change MACs.
Most WiFi chipsets use hardware based MAC layer, so promiscuous monitoring / sniffing is not possible on virtually every embedded module. There were a few chipsets, known as SoftMAC where linux drivers did the MAC layer, in which you could truly sniff the air for all traffic and capture a whole lot of MAC addresses. That was much more useful, but requires more CPU and specific older hardware. If you have a permanent power source like in a ALPR that isn't as much of a concern. I don't know of any companies that really did this though. Almost all our competitors used solutions that only supported the usual device discovery, which relies on BT being discoverable, or AP mode WiFi in order to track a MAC address. It's really easy to market though, it sounds great on paper. In practice the results are less than stellar and with time got even worse as vendors stopped being discoverable by default, and handsets started using used dynamic MAC addresses