I kind of assumed this technology had always existed. Nearly every crime movie I've ever watched included a scene where they mentioned picking up the criminal's plates on the highway.
U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
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Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#22So the mailman remembers everyone you've ever sent or received mail with. The DOJ remembers every time your car pulls in front of a police vehicle with a LPR. The NSA is tracking what people you call, when, how long, and where you are when you call them. For the life of me I do not understand why both major parties aren't having conniption fits right now. Are these the same parties that, on a bipartisan basis, told N…
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Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can use ref control to make it look like your the Google news bot https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/refcontrol/ .
Isn't it illegal according to Google to serve different content based upon the Googlebot's User-Agent ?
Only if the content is different for people who got there by clicking a link in Google search results, apparently.
Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#24So the mailman remembers everyone you've ever sent or received mail with. The DOJ remembers every time your car pulls in front of a police vehicle with a LPR. The NSA is tracking what people you call, when, how long, and where you are when you call them. For the life of me I do not understand why both major parties aren't having conniption fits right now. Are these the same parties that, on a bipartisan basis, told N…
The "problem" is that it is increasingly easy to assemble these databases and to update them in real time. If a government agency isn't doing it, a corporation could be (and some are, for certain pieces of data), and soon (if not now) an individual or loose collection of individuals could achieve nearly the same results.
We might need to embrace it, make everything transparent and collaborative, and figure out how to make use of the information to create a state that is better than what currently exists.
Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#25I've been mulling ideas to defeat ANPR without breaking state laws. The simplest may be to use a tilted/warped surrounding frame that interferes with the skew correction of the captured plate. Another thought is to project bright infrared patterns to disrupt unfiltered B&W cameras.
In the UK, some police cars have the technology integrated so that officers can pursue uninsured drivers.
I suspect if your plate failed to read you may well end up being pulled over - not sure on the punishment.
The obvious solution of using another car's plate is defeated by noticing that a car appears to be driving on opposite ends of the country simultaneously :D
Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#26The USA is automatically photographing millions of cars and putting the data in a giant database used by all law-enforcement. It reads like the premise of a dystopian science fiction novel. I can't help but guess that the reaction is going to be a big shoulder shrug, because, to but it bluntly, things aren't that bad for most people. If you are white, have a good job, follow the law, and make sure to richly kiss ass…
You may be on to something there. I wonder, however, how people are going to reconcile what the government is doing now with all of those previous works of fiction? It's going to have to add up to something -- a narrative must be formed. Were those just the halcyon days of yore? And now we've somehow "grown up" to face the realities of a scary world?
Even more troubling, people are people, and when this is seriously abused -- and my money says it'll happen within the next 20 years -- how are people going to explain it all away?
I am left with the troubling thought that we are creating for ourselves a dystopian society never dreamed of even by sci-fi writers. Rome had nothing on this, nor does North Korea. The attention a known dissident would receive in former East Germany is a cakewalk compared to the kind of surveillance we're giving each citizen who's guilty of nothing. The only thing we're waiting for is the logical and natural corruption of large systems of people to take place.
Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#27I had thought that ALPR data would be quite a very tool for detectives, but a related article [1] is quite disparaging about their use in Vermont. Apparently in 2013, for a ~$1m investment, 106 queries were made resulting in just 3 cases of useful information.
I think combining each states' databases as described in the WSJ will actually improve this number and is actually a prudent decision.
1: http://digital.vpr.net/post/license-plate-scanners-raise-pri...
Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#28I've been mulling ideas to defeat ANPR without breaking state laws. The simplest may be to use a tilted/warped surrounding frame that interferes with the skew correction of the captured plate. Another thought is to project bright infrared patterns to disrupt unfiltered B&W cameras.
Another way is travel by other means, eg taxi, bus, subway, train, bike, etc.
Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#29I always found it much more interesting to consider that smart stop light sensors could read the RFID tags that are required for tires [1]. You can change your plates but how often do you change your tires? [1] http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?10880
I dunno if I'm gonna change my tires but I imagine if I didn't want to be tracked it would be not too difficult to smash/electrocute/burn the tags into nonfunctionality.
Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars
#30I always found it much more interesting to consider that smart stop light sensors could read the RFID tags that are required for tires [1]. You can change your plates but how often do you change your tires? [1] http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?10880
Tyres have RFID tags in them??! What an unusual thing to put RFID tags in. I wonder what other common items could have tags in them that people are generally unaware of.
I'm quite in to cars and I had NO IDEA this was a thing.