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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

#71

Post by woodman »

navait wrote: post #67
woodman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is secret about a moat, electrified fence or a stated policy of mutual assured destruction?

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#72

Post by bduerst »

mikeash wrote: post #46
robotkilla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also unaware of this. That said, RFID chips are used for inventory systems. The inclusion in a tire is most likely innocuous and doesn't seem that unusual to me.

It's used for monitoring pressure so the driver can be alerted if the tire starts to go flat.

So then they're active RFID chips that broadcast?

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#73

Post by weaksauce »

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…

There was an lapd officer(s) that were murdered within the last few days and the murderer used the waze app that shows the reported locations of speed traps and the government is already asking google to prohibit that information in some form. Knee jerk reactions to current events are never going to end well for openness of data.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#74

Post by woodman »

weaksauce wrote: post #73
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…

There was an lapd officer(s) that were murdered within the last few days and the murderer used the waze app that shows the reported locations of speed traps and the government is already asking google to prohibit that information in some form. Knee jerk reactions to current events are never going to end well for openness of data.

Knee jerk reactions to anything rarely lead to positive outcomes, transparency is no exception.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#75

Post by desdiv »

dnm wrote: post #48

I first encountered these checkpoints in New Mexico and Texas this summer. They're really kind of interesting. It looks like a truck weigh station, except the interstate lanes are closed and everyone is forced to exit. They stop everyone at the checkpoint. They have some kind of terminal under a hood, but the officer (C&BP) looked at the terminal, asked me what country I'm from (USA) and sent me on my way (I'm white,…

What you encountered was probably a C&BP interior checkpoint[0].

Whenever DHS apologists use the "air travel is a privilege, not a right" line, this is what I point them to. Between random C&BP highway checkpoints and TSA patrols on Amtrak, harassment-free travel of any form seems to be a privilege nowadays.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_int...

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#76

Post by javajosh »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #26
javajosh wrote: post #14

The 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…

>how people are going to reconcile what the government is doing now with all of those previous works of fiction?

I don't think we should over-estimate how widely read those works of fiction actually are, so there may not be a reconciliation. This, reality, is literally the first time some people have thought about the implications of mass surveillance with modern technology. SF geeks are, once again, ahead of the curve. :)

Movies like Minority Report are good primers for the concept of a panopticon. But I must have read 10's of stories involving panopticons in Analog and F&SF on all sides of the issue, in all variants. I remember a particularly good one involving how to get away with murder in a panopticon society. Iain Banks' The Culture with it's benevolent, quite desirable panopticons (the Minds).

Oddly, I don't remember any stories that remind me of what's going on now, which is a battle between those who want to protect security at any cost, and those who simply don't trust the government, any government, with the kind of power necessary to even come close to the level of protection they seem to be aiming for, which is total.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#77

Post by kbaker »

kw71 wrote: post #59
mikeash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's used for monitoring pressure so the driver can be alerted if the tire starts to go flat.

No. That is a different mechanism, and part of the wheel, not the tire.

TPMS also transmits a unique code that is traceable. See this:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/04/tracking_vehi...

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#78

Post by jessriedel »

pokstad wrote: post #68

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.

That really only buys you a couple of years, if any. If they can do face recognition, they can do car recognition. Just determine the make/model/year/color/trim, and then look for some individually identifiable marks, scratches, color imperfections, tire type, etc.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#79

Post by m_mueller »

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…

Even though I'm not a US American (where this problem seems to be the gravest in the Western world, partly because of scale, partly because the US' system was the prototypal modern Republic where many lessons haven't been learned yet at time of the foundation), I've been thinking exactly that for quite a while - your list pretty much describes what need to be solved. But I have to ask - how would one go about doing this in the US? How do you change a system with such a momentum? Through the monopoly on violent force and largely complacent mass media the establishment's grip on the system seems to be air tight. And if you just wait until the shit hits the fan (I predict this will happen with enough doubling of damages caused by natural disasters that will almost certainly be coming in the next decades), it could turn both ways - the current system could be replaced with a way more horrible totalitarian regime as well as it could be fixed towards giving the power back to the people - the former is even way more probable when you look at history. The only case I know where drastic change has gone over relatively well is South Africa - everywhere else you look there was a huge struggle, usually war.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#80

Post by blhack »

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…

You could move out of the city.
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