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U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#61

Post by woodman »

tim333 wrote: post #55
woodman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to reverse this. Trying to cage this with paperwork will just lead to more of the same creative interpretations à la NSA. So the rulers don't feel the rules apply to them, big surprise. With that in mind, the futility of fighting the tide, what is the next step? As the ideal solution of reversal is unavailable, we need to go with harm reduction - but what is the harm that we would reduce? Most would s…

In principle it could be reversed politically by the government just saying no. In practice no one seems that bothered though.

Yeah, and in principle the NSA can't dragnet domestic signals, but here we are. Relying on the honor system has led us to something right out of Gulliver's Travels, with government bureaucrats advancing through a game of leaping and creeping...

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#62

Post by delbel »

IvyMike wrote: post #29
ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I 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.

Its extremely unfortunate that if you were to use an arc welder near your tires, the RFID tag may no longer work properly.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#63

Post by woodman »

isho wrote: post #51
woodman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to reverse this. Trying to cage this with paperwork will just lead to more of the same creative interpretations à la NSA. So the rulers don't feel the rules apply to them, big surprise. With that in mind, the futility of fighting the tide, what is the next step? As the ideal solution of reversal is unavailable, we need to go with harm reduction - but what is the harm that we would reduce? Most would s…

+1, I totally agree. Easier said than done though.

I remember when NIST was force to release the source code to NBIS. [0]

We just need a lot more of that and we'll be good :)

[0] http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/ig/nbis.cfm

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#64

Post by alexqgb »

woodman wrote: post #47
stegosaurus wrote: post #6

Same deal in the UK with the national ANPR system (Automatic Number Plate Recognition). Ostensibly to reduce the amount of uninsured/untaxed drivers on the roads. Don't want to sit around in databases? Well, here's a nice list of just a few of the things you can't have: Bank account; Car/motorcycle; Mobile telephone; Internet-connected computer; Credit/debit card; Visible face (oh, we might be safe there, for a few y…

There is no way to reverse this. Trying to cage this with paperwork will just lead to more of the same creative interpretations à la NSA. So the rulers don't feel the rules apply to them, big surprise. With that in mind, the futility of fighting the tide, what is the next step? As the ideal solution of reversal is unavailable, we need to go with harm reduction - but what is the harm that we would reduce? Most would s…

Well, there is a way actually. But first you need to restore the power of the vote so that legislators are accountable to the people and the people alone.

This means dismantling the five main pillars that are used to nullify, misdirect, or otherwise diminish the power of the vote - both a a signaling mechanism that members of the electorate can use to unify themselves, and as a reliably severe punitive tool that the electorate can use to avenge themselves when their "representatives" betray their interests. Listed in no particular order, they are

1. Gerrymandering (aka partisan redistricting) 2. Closed primaries 3. Private campaign finance 4. The "revolving door" that allows private industry to offer well-paid sinecures to public "servants" who have systematically betrayed the public's trust. 5. Myriad restrictions on ballot access.

It's important to recognize that while each of these pillars diminishes the power of the vote, the really insidious effect comes from their interaction. But those knock-on effects can all be stopped by addressing the fundamental - and fundamental anti-democratic - structures at their roots.

Eliminating any one of these abominations tilts the balance back in favor of the good guys. All of them together can be lethal to the ambitions of people who's own ambitions are anathema to a self-governing republic.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#65

Post by acveilleux »

ryan-allen wrote: post #30
ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I 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.

Owners of commercial vehicle fleet trying to manage the timely replacement of tires would welcome the ability to scan their vehicles and know the serial numbers of the tires. That would let them track age and make sure they're all replaced in a timely manner. Or switched to winter tires where it makes sense to do so (like Quebec, where it's the law to have winter tires after Nov 15.)

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#66

Post by yaddayadda »

kxo wrote: post #35
ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I 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

TPMS sensors or RFID tags?

According to the linked article - RFID. They are physically embedded in the tires during the production process and intended for inventory management.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#67

Post by navait »

woodman wrote: post #58
joliv wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things the public should not be able to spy on. Using the example of the DEA, we can't have cartels knowing the identities of the DEA's informers, or when and where they're planning to make a bust. We can't have our citizens' tax records getting out of the IRS. And public relations would break down if we can't keep our allies secrets, either. Our military's plans shouldn't be made known to the enemy, of course.…

Security through obscurity? No doubt a great deal would need to change, but we've tried the method of giving a select group of individuals an immense amount of power and hoping for the best. It hasn't worked out that well. So I'd recommend that you consider the present situation, because the prospect of you knowing my tax information, by comparison, doesn't seem so bad.

If security through obscurity is having secrets at all, all security is obscurity.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#68

Post by pokstad »

Get rid of license plates. They can also be used by private parties to track car movements. They aren't safe anymore in this time and age. Once someone builds a proof of concept of a real time car tracker using crowd sourced license plate trackers, we'll realize that.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#69

Post by treelovinhippie »

ryan-allen wrote: post #31
treelovinhippie wrote: post #15

It's happening in Australia too. I spoke to a CEO of a company here a few years ago which provides software and services to the government and RTA/RMS. There are cameras setup under overpasses which automatically take photos of each individual car and it's passengers. In this particular incident their company was tasked with processing all of those photos to identify/track a guy who had murdered his wife and was on t…

Which murder case was this in particular? Do you have a link to the news article?

No idea sorry. I was just chatting with this CEO at a networking event back sometime in 2011-2012. I'd been playing with the face.com api for facial recognition and he was interested in using it to automatically blur faces in these photos of car passengers. Being told that those cameras under overpasses were taking and storing photos of every car that passes by really stuck with me.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#70

Post by woodman »

alexqgb wrote: post #64
woodman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to reverse this. Trying to cage this with paperwork will just lead to more of the same creative interpretations à la NSA. So the rulers don't feel the rules apply to them, big surprise. With that in mind, the futility of fighting the tide, what is the next step? As the ideal solution of reversal is unavailable, we need to go with harm reduction - but what is the harm that we would reduce? Most would s…

Well, there is a way actually. But first you need to restore the power of the vote so that legislators are accountable to the people and the people alone. This means dismantling the five main pillars that are used to nullify, misdirect, or otherwise diminish the power of the vote - both a a signaling mechanism that members of the electorate can use to unify themselves, and as a reliably severe punitive tool that the…

Well that would certainly be a preferable situation to where we presently find ourselves, but I don't know that the root cause is addressed in that. The root cause being the fact that one entity (government, class, group, whatever) is exempt from the rules. That exemption, no matter how apparently small, ruins everything. It is like drinking water from a reservoir where across the way you see a dude with his pants down taking a dump into the water. Oh, and the exemption can't be fixed - because it defines a state: the monopoly on violence. It is a logical flaw. I'm not that thrilled with everybody in the voting population having some small amount of ownership of my life either, especially when 42% of them believe in ghosts.
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