Many people consider RFID technology to be a substantial threat to privacy and liberty, especially if
it appears that remotely-readable RF tags will be incorporated into
a National ID Card, passport or
some other form of mandatory identification — an ID card that you will be
required to present when opening a bank account, entering a federal building, or
buying an airplane ticket.
I'm a little surprised that the people who are so vocal
about domestic surveillance haven't
said much about this issue.
There are thousands of Texas motorists who have already unwittingly opened the door to government
surveillance by participating in TollTag, TxTag, or EZ Pass, programs that allow the use
of toll roads and airport parking garages without having to stop and deposit coins at a toll booth.
Each participating motorist attaches an RFID tag to his or her car's windshield, and a device at the
toll booth detects the card as the motorist zooms unimpeded through the toll plaza.
In other areas of the country, similar programs have names like SunPass, Cruise Card, EXpressToll,
Fast Lane, Fastrak, K-Tag, MnPass, PalmettoPass, Pikepass, Smart Tag, I-Pass — and the
best name for such a device — eGo.
A serious problem, from the standpoint of privacy protection, is that not all of the RFID tag readers
are on toll roads. In Dallas, TollTags can be used to pay for parking at Dallas Love Field and
DFW International Airport.* In
Houston, plans are under development to allow the use of EZ TAGs at both Hobby and Bush
Intercontinental airports.*
The Dallas North Tollway was the first toll road in the world to use electronic toll collection when the technology became available
in 1989.*
A newer variation called TxTag allows access to toll roads throughout
Texas.*
So the major airports have RFID tag readers, along with the tollways, as a matter of
convenience. But there is no reason that TollTag readers could not be placed at other points all over
the state. This would make it easier to locate a stolen car, for example, if it had an RFID tag.
More recently, a more mysterious development has taken shape: these square white modules have
appeared on TXDOT poles along the freeways in the Dallas area. They are usually mounted on the same
poles as the traffic surveillance cameras, but in some locations they stand alone.
This mysterious roadside antenna is on Spur 408 in
southwest Dallas. The writer knows an antenna when he sees one, and the peculiar thing about this one
is that it is tilted downward, about 20°, toward the traffic.
This specimen is located
at 32°41'52.0" N., 96°56'10.1" W.
An inquiry to the Texas Department of Transportation produced this reply:
The
units are Smart Sensors manufactured by Wavetronix. The Smart
Sensor is a digital wave radar used for vehicle detection. The Smart
Sensor measures vehicle volume, occupancy, speed and classification.
The information gathered is NOT used for law enforcement purposes. We
use the information to generate the speed map shown on our web site and
to generate the travel times displayed on the dynamic message signs on
the freeways.
That's interesting. The system is sensitive enough to measure occupancy of
each passing vehicle? Even more interesting is the claim that the information is
not used for law enforcement purposes. Why not? If their system shows a steady stream of
people driving at 90 mph on the freeway, or driving on the shoulders at 60 mph, isn't TXDOT
obligated to notify the police?
These sensors aren't cheap, and I do not believe TXDOT
invested in them just to compile statistics about highway usage.
SmartSensor is
a 10.525 GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW)
radar.*
Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored. To some extent, it is necessary to retain
this information in the event of a billing dispute. But there's no way to know whether the data is
retained, archived, or sold to the highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government
agencies in real time.
If the SmartSensor devices are accompanied by TollTag readers, and (someday soon) they could easily be, the
technology is in place to track the movements (and speed) of people all over town, not just on the toll
roads. This could be a good thing — for example, if the police are looking for a
stolen car — or it could be very bad, depending on Big Brother's use of the information.
Yes, but what if you don't have a TollTag on your car? Can you travel anonymously and blend
in with the crowd, without being electronically followed? No, because the state is using
license plate readers as well.
Highway
121's new lanes to open in July, sans toll collection. Once collections begin, [Texas
State Highway] 121 will be the first toll road in the nation without tollbooths. Motorists will be able
to use their North Texas Tollway Authority TollTag in addition to the transportation agency's TxTag stickers
and the Harris County Toll Road Authority's EZ TAG. People who don't have toll
tags, though, won't have to stop at a booth. Instead, video cameras will capture their license plate
number and send them a bill, though that will cost about 33 percent more than toll tag users will have
to pay.
The Editor says...
I went up the Dallas North Tollway several months ago and never saw a toll booth,
so I didn't pay the toll. Nor did I ever get a bill in the mail. I hope there's not a
warrant out for my arrest!
Texas
Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars. New inspection stickers will "contain
a tamper-resistant transponder, and at a minimum, be capable of storing: (1) the
transponder's unique identification number; and (2) the make, model, and vehicle identification
number of the vehicle to which the certificate is affixed."
The Editor states the obvious:
This would render Toll Tags obsolete. It would also make it fairly simple to locate a stolen
car, and might be an easy way to enforce the speed limits on the open highway. For example, if your
car is detected in Dallas at noon and in Houston at 2:30 p.m., you were obviously
speeding on I-45.
Electronic Vehicle Registration Picks Up
Speed. In South Africa, at least 500,000 RFID tags are now being affixed to metal license plates
to automatically identify vehicles and verify they are properly registered. Within the next two years,
10 million cars in that country are expected to sport electronic license plates. In Bermuda,
meanwhile, more than half of the island nation's cars and trucks currently have RFID-enabled registration
stickers attached to their windshields, and all of its trucks and cars — nearly 25,000 — are
expected to have them by June of this year. Other countries — including Brazil, China,
Dubai, India and Mexico — have either already begun implementing or are currently eyeing
RFID-enabled vehicle identification and registration systems.
Georgia
400 To Upgrade Cruise Card eGo Tags. Georgia's State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA), which
operates the GA 400 toll road in Atlanta, will be the first toll facility within the continental United
States to upgrade their radio frequency identification (RFID) toll collection technology to TransCore's
paper-thin eGo® tags, a lower-cost, battery-less windshield sticker tag. Almost a million eGo tags
are already deployed in transportation applications, including toll roads in Puerto Rico and Brazil.
TxDOT
selects TransCore RFID for tracking and tolling throughout Texas. The Texas
Department of Transportation (TXDOT) selects TransCore's eGo® Plus radio frequency
identification technology for use in the area's Central Texas Turnpike Program, a $2 billion
transportation initiative. The multimillion-dollar contract allows for the initial
release of 500,000 eGo Plus tags, branded locally as TxTag, with a total of 2 million
tags over two years. The Central Texas Turnpike Program was designed to increase mobility
by adding capacity and reducing congestion in the region.
Trusted traveler toll road system means
the government will decide if and where you travel.
NAFTA
Superhighway RFID Card For US Citizens. US citizens will be forced to adopt a de facto
national identification card and have their freedom of mobility defined by behavioural fielty to the
government under proposals set to derive from NAFTA superhighway toll road systems and the implementation of
the American Union. Existing toll road systems operational at US borders such as SENTRI/NEXUS and the
FAST program mandate that passing vehicles are enrolled in RFID passive tracking and identification programs
linked to central databases.
Did
someone mention the NAFTA Superhighway?
Pike
needs to play fare: Tolls for all or no one. So now the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is
thinking about setting up something called "open-road tolling," which means that instead of robbing you at
tollbooths, they would record every driver's license-plate number and then rob them with monthly bills.
This raises a couple of interesting questions.
Highway Tolls Key to New Jersey Debt, Spending
Reform Plan. In his January State of the State address, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) unveiled
a long-awaited plan to capture the value of the state's toll roads. The state would receive approximately
$38 billion in cash financed by the sale of bonds backed by toll increases. According to the plan,
the cash would be used to significantly pay down New Jersey's $32 billion bonded indebtedness and finance
transportation projects.
RFID: A Brief Technology
Analysis. Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have been deployed in limited numbers for
years. Two of the most predominant have been in the form of toll road collection transponders and security
badges. Toll road authorities around the country have equipped drivers with a transponder that is connected
to their credit card. This allows them to pay their tolls at 40 miles-per-hour rather than stopping to
throw quarters into a basket and slow the flow of traffic.
Skymeter: Skymeter's satellite data aggregation and
price matching takes all of the pain out of getting a GPS billing feed [which] can be used for Road Use Charging, Pay as
you go Insurance, Parking, and any application requiring payment for vehicle use.
National
RFid Center General Newsletter 09/02/2006: The roadway, known as the "Golden Corridor" is the
first in the country to install all-video toll collection. Using license plate information photographed
by cameras, money will be deducted from customer accounts. Those without toll accounts will have bills
sent to their address, based on information from their license plates.
This license plate-scanning technology has been around for a few years already, and is in use on side streets
as well as freeways. The following commentary was written in 2004:
License Plate "Guns"
and Privacy: New Haven police have a new law enforcement tool: a license-plate
scanner. Similar to a radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars and links
with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner. Right
now the police check if there are any taxes owed on the car, if the car or license plate is
stolen, and if the car is unregistered or uninsured. A car that comes up positive is towed.
Even the most gung-ho devotee of big government would have to be a little concerned about the potential for
totalitarianism at this point, even if privacy is not guaranteed. Wholesale monitoring of motorists
on the streets and freeways is legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has said in two cases,
U.S. v. Knotts and U.S. v. Karo, that
Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they're driving on a public
street.* "Our
commuting to and from where we live and work is not done clandestinely". [Webb v. City of
Shreveport, 371 So. 2d 316, 319 (La. Ct. App.
1979).]*
It is interesting that, at least for now, TollTag users can (and do) drive at speeds considerably in
excess of the posted speed limit, and even though the TollTag system recognizes those drivers as they
enter and exit the highway (and many points along the way), the system is not used to generate speeding
tickets. This, I suspect, is to avoid making the TollTag into an unpopular snitch, and to avoid revealing
that capability before some appointed hour yet to come -- perhaps after TollTags are mandatory.
Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored, at least for billing purposes. It
is necessary to retain this information for some number of months, to resolve potential billing
disputes. But there's no way to know whether the data is retained, archived, or sold to the
highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government agencies in real time.
Incidentally, TollTags are vehicle-specific -- they can't be shared, even between two cars owned by the
same person.* There are now over 1,000,000 of
these electronic transponders in operation in the North Texas
area.*
The use of the TollTag may seem to be sheer luxury, but there are places around Dallas where a vehicle
without such a tag must stop and pay a toll two or three times. This results in a little more
risk, more gas consumption, and more wear and tear on the brakes at every stop. TollTag users
are rewarded with a discounted toll rate as well. If I needed to travel on the North Dallas Tollway
every day, I would probably get a TollTag for my car. But I think I would find a way to wrap the TollTag
in aluminum foil when I wasn't on the tollway. That might not keep Big Brother from following me
around, but there's no reason to make that kind of surveillance any easier.
Other Related Information:
Toll road cameras looking beyond scofflaw
drivers. Harris County Toll Road Authority cameras are now on the lookout for more than just those
drivers who blow through EZ Tag lanes without paying. County authorities promise new, upgraded cameras
can help catch murderers and other violent criminals. The cameras have the capability to search their databases and
issue alerts to county dispatchers when a wanted criminal crosses their lenses. ... The system, which has been operating
for about a month, has proved so promising that the Houston Police Department wants a piece of the action.
For Whom the Booth Tolls. Angry lawyers and privacy
advocates argued that the Smart Tag system could be used against customers by law enforcement. The Virginia Department
of Transportation promised in several public statements that the system would be used only for toll collection purposes.
That promise turned out to be a lie. Recent court actions forced the state to reveal that the Smart Tag system had been
used by law enforcement for surveillance.
No Place to Hide. Government agencies have been
collecting tolls forever at bridges, some highways, and on ferries. Until the early 1990s, the vast majority accepted
only coins and currency. The point was to collect money. Now the role of tollbooths is evolving. More and
more, they're also becoming a matter-of-fact part of a security and law enforcement infrastructure as digital checkpoints.
Cameras are often pointed at drivers' faces and their license plates. When drivers use an electronic transponder such
as E-ZPass to automatically pay the tolls, they're also handing over information about themselves.
There's
one set of laws for us, and another set of laws for them.
Special license plates
shield officials from traffic tickets. It's 1:45 p.m. on a Wednesday in February and a Toyota Camry is
driving west on the 91 Express Lanes, for free, for the 470th time. The electronic transponder on the
dashboard — used to bill tollway users — is inactive. The Camry's owners, airport traffic
officer Rudolph Duplessis and his wife, Loretta, have never had a toll road account, officials say. They've never
received a violation notice in the mail, either. Their car is registered as part of a state program which hides
their home address on Department of Motor Vehicles records. The agency that operates the tollway does not have
legal access to their address.
Illinois deploys Captain Tollway. Illinois Tollway has
rolled out a goofy looking icon-figure they're dubbing Captain Tollway. Musclebound, in some kind of boxing attire
plus cape in a Superman allusion, the Captain is supposed to help instruct motorists on profound stuff like planning your
summer journey by checking on road conditions, the location of service plazas and the standing of your transponder account
before setting off.
US Court rejects TransCore complaint against ETC on open road
tolling. US District Court in Dallas has dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit by TransCore against ETC
alleging infringement of open road tolling patents in the E-ZPass area. TransCore alleged in their suit that ETC
improperly used methodologies they owned through patents for open road tolling with the IAG's Mark IV transponders and
readers. The case arose when ETC gained the contract to convert some 20 mainline toll plazas on the Illinois Tollway
system to open road tolling in mid-2005. TransCore maintained that ETC should have negotiated a license agreement
with them.
Editor's note:
Apparently ETC means Electronic Transaction Consultants.
Wholesale Automobile Surveillance Comes to New York City.
New York is installing an automatic toll-collection system for cars in the busiest parts of the city. It's called
congestion pricing, and it promises to reduce both traffic and pollution. The problem is that it keeps an audit log
of which cars are driving where. London's congestion pricing system is already being used for counterterrorism
purposes -- and now for regular crime as well. The E-Z Pass automatic toll collection system, used in New York
and other places, has been used in both criminal and civil trials: in one case to prove infidelity in divorce court.
Electronic Toll Collection and Violation Enforcement.
Whether created by a legislature or an agency, any toll enforcement and data system in the United States operates under two
primary constitutional and statutory restraints: (1) the separation and limitations of executive, legislative, and judicial
powers under federal and state constitutions and (2) the preservation of individual liberty and due process rights.
Electronic Toll Readers & Traffic Surveillance
Cameras. Electronic toll readers, such as the EZ Pass system, gather account information about drivers who use
toll roads. … In fact, most people do not know that electronic tolling is only a small part of a much larger Department of
Transportation Intelligent Transport System. The EZ Pass technology can be used not only for toll collection, but
for automated vehicle registration and identification.
In Australia...
Separate fast lane for
rich — bridge toll plan. A former NSW transport chief wants to sell spare capacity
in a Sydney Harbour Bridge bus lane to wealthy drivers in a hurry. Former Roads and Traffic Authority
director Ken Dobinson has proposed opening the bridge's southbound bus lane to drivers who would pay a special
staggered toll of $5, $10 or as much as $20 for a faster crossing, Fairfax reports today. The rate would
go up as more regular cars joined the flow of buses and taxis.
Efkon Announces HOT Technology for
Electronic Tolling. Some tolling agencies have begun converting high-occupancy vehicle (HOV)
lanes into high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes. HOT lanes allow multiple-occupancy vehicles free access
during off-peak times of the day, while charging all vehicles during peak-usage hours to maximize traffic
flow and encourage ride sharing.
The real toll is your privacy.
In the 12 states in the Northeast and Midwest that are part of a regional turnpike authority, if the traveler
uses what is termed an "E-Z Pass," the state highway authorities have a far more robust record of the
motorists' driving histories. The governments in those states would have a record of the dates and times
the motorist entered and exited the toll road, as well as the speed at which they drove (easily calculated
based on distance traveled and entry and exit times).
Toll data nabs unfaithful
spouses. Adulterers, beware: Your cheatin' heart might be exposed
by E-ZPass.
EZ-pass evidence and the law: A
woman accused of killing her husband was convicted after New Jersey prosecutors reconstructed her movements.
Examining E-ZPass records, investigators pieced together the driving route of a missing Baltimore federal
prosecutor who later turned up dead. Prosecutors in a New York City murder trial discredited a
suspect's alibi.
The Fourth Amendment and the Reasonable Expectation of Privacy:
How does one establish whether, in a given instance, one's expectation of privacy is "reasonable"? The
criteria are as follows: 1) general legal principles; 2) the vantage point from which the
surveillance is carried out; 3) the degree of privacy afforded by certain buildings and/or places; and
4) the sophistication and invasiveness of the surveillance technology employed.
"The
makers of our Constitution … conferred, as against the government, the
right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most
valued by civilized men. To protect, that right, every unjustifiable intrusion
by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed,
must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment."
German rubbish piles up due to due to toll-system
problems. After a shaky and expensive start, it seems as if the automatic toll-collection system
for trucks on the German Autobahn (freeway or turnpike, depending on if you are a car or a truck) is more or
less working. Unless you happen to be the Ferdinand M?nnich Waste Disposal company in Lippstadt.
Our local newspaper, the Neue Westfalische Zeitung, reported on the 10 July 2007 that their truck fleet
was immobilised, pretty much from one second to the next, as the newspaper put it, at about 10 am on
19 March. At that point, the company received phone calls from six of its drivers who were
somewhere in Germany on the Autobahn. Their on-board toll machines were turned off, because the
company's credit limit was exceeded.
RFID in British License Plates.
The British government is testing a scheme to put active — the kind that are independently powered —
RFID chips in automobile license plates. They can be read at least 300 feet away, and probably much,
much further.
Toll
enthusiasts can hit the road. If Pennsylvanians want to charge tolls on the roads they built
with their own money, such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that's none of my business. But I-80 was built
with my tax dollars under a program begun by the esteemed Republican president Dwight Eisenhower. Now
this Democrat [Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell] wants to use the road as a cash cow.
Toll lanes on
fast-track as planners plot L.A. freeway demise. Transportation planners are moving quickly to
take the "free" out of Los Angeles freeways. Toll lanes on three freeways during morning and evening
commuter rush hours could become reality by spring 2009 if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority gets
a $648 million federal grant.
Big
Brother is keeping tabs on satnav motorists. A secret 'Big Brother' operation is allowing
officials to pinpoint the exact location of thousands of vehicles with satellite navigation systems. The
controversial scheme is built into the small print of a contract between the Department for Transport and the
satnav company Trafficmaster. Currently the 'spy in the sky' system is limited to some 50,000 drivers
who have Trafficmaster's Smartnav system.
GPS helps cities catch goof-offs.
GPS tracking devices installed on government-issue vehicles are helping communities around the country reduce
waste and abuse, in part by catching employees shopping, working out at the gym or otherwise loafing while on
the clock. The use of GPS has led to firings, stoking complaints from employees and unions that the
devices are intrusive, Big Brother technology. But city officials say that monitoring employees'
movements has deterred abuses, saving the taxpayers money in gasoline and lost productivity.
Drivers to see major
toll hikes. From the Golden Gate Bridge to the New Jersey Turnpike, the nation's
toll booths are getting dramatically more expensive to drive through. … Big toll hikes are
planned for most of the nation's signature toll roads, bridges and tunnels. The increases
would add dollars, not cents, to the cost of passing through many toll booths.
Toll lanes set for freeways by 2010's end. Days
of free and open roads are dimming in Los Angeles after the federal government offered $213.6 million to launch a
one-year toll road pilot program by the end of 2010 in an effort to boost speeds on three sluggish freeways. … The toll
lanes are designed to enforce congestion pricing, a strategy that aims to make driving freeways more expensive during peak
traffic times so noncommuters will stay off the roads during rush hours.
[In other words, the highways now belong only to the rich, except in off-peak hours.]
Congestion problems are solved! Matthew
Kitchen … was the main author of the Puget Sound Regional Council study that stumbled on the solution to
all our traffic issues. Ready? Tolls. Tolls on every freeway. Tolls on just about every
major arterial, just about everywhere. It's genius. Simply put an end to congestion by making it
too expensive for people to drive!
License
plate recognition tools led to abduction arrest. The swift arrest of a San Jose
man in the abduction of a 12-year-old girl this week was aided by an eye-opening gadget that
can scan the license plates of a street full of cars and instantly alert police to which vehicles
have been reported stolen. It was a breakthrough moment for license plate recognition, a
technology that is spreading to law enforcement around the Bay Area — and is
prompting privacy concerns.
Texas Turnpike now NTTA recognized as pioneer in transponder tolling
History. [RFID] tags were sufficiently developed to be adopted in the closed environment of freight
railroads by the mid-1980s but they always foresaw the main application being in eliminating the need for cash handling on
tollroads. Jerry Landt, the only one of the original five pioneers still at TransCore — he is chief
scientist — recalls that the only way they could get transponders adopted by a toll authority was to offer
the first one a no-risk/no-investment deal.
Stopping cars with microwaves:
The system, which can be attached to an automobile or aircraft carrier, sends out pulses of microwave
radiation to disable the microprocessors that control the central engine functions in a car. Such
a device could be used by law enforcement to stop fleeing and noncooperative vehicles at security
checkpoints, or as perimeter protection for military bases, communication centers, and oil platforms
in the open seas.
Toll
equipment double-billed 50,000 times. A glitch in the equipment on three Austin roads
has caused about 50,000 double-billings since charges began in January, Texas Department of
Transportation officials said Monday [10/8/2007]. The problem has occurred one of every
600 times a car passed one of the roads' tolling points.
[For some informative commentary on the story above,
read this.]
French speed camera saboteurs
demand ransom to halt attacks. French anti-terrorist police are hunting a "guerrilla" organisation
that is blowing up speed cameras and demanding a ransom from the State.
The Editor says...
I wouldn't recommend such violence in this country. If you like explosives so much, join the Army.
Fast and Safe. New Zealand traffic management has been
controlled by our one-eyed Land Transport Safety Authority — claiming to be focused solely on safety
but in practice captured by the police and other suppliers of enforcement services and equipment. The LTSA
celebrated lowering average speeds and removing flexibility by making all traffic travel at the same speed —
usually at the lowest common denominator. It continually increased costs for travelers both indirectly through
time-wasting and directly through charges and fines. … Bureaucracies don't care about costs, value,
efficiency or freedoms. They seek control and power.
Shockwave
traffic jam recreated for first time. Traffic that grinds to a halt and then restarts for no apparent
reason is one of the biggest causes of frustration for drivers. Now a team of Japanese researchers has
recreated the phenomenon on a test-track for the first time. The mathematical theory behind these so-called
"shockwave" jams was developed more than 15 years ago using models that show jams appear from nowhere on
roads carrying their maximum capacity of free-flowing traffic — typically triggered by a single
driver slowing down.
Toll Road Checkpoints to Deal
With Dissenters. Tony Blair's toll road surveillance and taxation grid is to be enforced by a new
cadre of jackbooted inspectors who will be given powers to stop and search vehicles where owners are suspected
to have removed their tracking tags. Arguing with the officials will be punishable by a 6 month
prison sentence, according to a leaked government memo.
Nissan GT-R sports car recognizes racetrack
coordinates. The onboard navigation system watches your speed via GPS and recognizes popular
racetrack locations. You must scroll through a series of menus and agree to disable the 180 kph
(111 mph) speed limiter. Then after thrashing it on the track, you must take it for a $1000 Nissan
High Performance Center safety check or the warranty is void.
Taking a toll on the people. Once I
escaped — and, yes, it really does feel like an escape — the bounds of northeastern
road-policy cruelty, well … ah. I'd just have to get beyond the $6.45 New Jersey Turnpike toll (which
NJ's "Governor" Corzine aims to raise precipitously), $3.00 Delaware Memorial Bridge toll, $4.00 Delaware
Turnpike toll (35.7 cents per mile), and it was smooth sailing. Oh, I know I may be forgetting a toll,
and I should also mention that on the return trip I could look forward to the $5.00 John F. Kennedy
Memorial Highway toll and $6.00 GWB fleecing.
10 Mass Pike collectors charged with toll theft.
The AP is reporting that Massachusetts state police are charging ten current and former toll collectors of the
Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with theft of tolls. A Suffolk District Attorney is quoted as saying
that the charges are the result of a seven month long investigation. The toll collectors were
taking … between $20 and $150 per shift.
TxDOT gives up on toll financing for Trans Texas Corridor
69. In a further retreat before anti-road activists and a hostile legislature Texas Department
of Transportation (TxDOT) has abandoned Trans Texas Corridor 69, acknowledged there will be no significant
toll financing, and abandoned consideration of any new routing. Only existing surface arterial roads
will be upgraded. TxDOT is increasingly dropping use of the prefix TTC (Trans Texas Corridor) and
using the term I-69 for the road, though much of the road will never meet interstate standards.
OnStar:
Sci Fi No More: Cars That
Fight Thieves. Say some clown steals your car from the parking lot while you are hard at work.
If it's equipped with General Motors' OnStar service, he could be in for a big surprise and you could get a little
revenge — and even see your car again. Starting with about 20 models for 2009, the service will
be able to slowly halt a car that is reported stolen, and the radio may even speak up and tell the thief
to pull over because police are watching.
The Editor says...
I've read a lot of rumors on the internet about the capabilities of the OnStar system, and
"certain restrictions" that apply when you use the service. Apparently OnStar can do a lot
more than the company wants the customers to know, but for the moment that's all I'm
saying. Well... I'll say this: I would never purchase a car with OnStar
installed.
Stalling Cars Via OnStar: A Hacker's Dream Come
True? Ready to turn over the keys of your vehicle to the cops, or that clever hacker in the
next lane? How about that creepy guy following you on a lonely country road? GM apparently plans
to perhaps make this all possible. It's been announced that they'll be equipping nearly two million
of their 2009 model vehicles (that have OnStar installed), with the capability to be remotely shut down to
idle via OnStar commands at the request of law enforcement.
Device can remotely
halt auto chases. Police will be able to remotely halt high-speed pursuits with technology being
unveiled Tuesday that aims to cut chase-related deaths. General Motors (GM) plans to equip 1.7 million
of its 2009 model vehicles with the system that allows pursuing officers to request that engines of stolen
cars be remotely switched off through the OnStar mobile communications system.
OnStar
Stolen Vehicle Slowdown hits the brakes on jacked cars. Although OnStar has offered Stolen Vehicle
Location Assistance to its subscribers since 1996, the firm is getting set to add a snazzy new enhancement for
2009 vehicles. The feature, dubbed Stolen Vehicle Slowdown, can use GPS to pinpoint a vehicle once it
has been reported as stolen, and after OnStar confirms with local police that it has the vehicle within
sight, it can then be slowed down remotely.
The Editor says...
"Slowed down remotely" means it can be controlled through the use of OnStar's built-in cell
phone. Therefore, this feature is useless if the well-equipped car thief
has jammed the stolen car's cell phone.
OnStar: Big Brother's
Eye in the Sky. OnStar is a telemetry system providing a central data bank with real-time data
on virtually every system in your car, including GPS. OnStar's computer knows where you were, when you
were there, and how fast you went. It knows if and when you applied the brakes, if and when the air bags
deployed, and what speed you were going at the time. It knows if and when your car was serviced.
OnStar operators can determine if you have a passenger in the front seat (airbag detection). All
interactions with OnStar's operators are automatically recorded (hence the commercials). By the same
token, under certain conditions, OnStar can switch on your GM car's microphone remotely and record any and
all sounds within the vehicle (i.e. conversations). But wait, there's more….
OnStar to help stop car theft. Message to car
thieves: if you're thinking about stealing a General Motors car or truck in the future, think again.
Doing so could be a one-way ride to jail, thanks to a new technology introduced here this week by GM's OnStar
division. The company is making OnStar standard, with one year's free service, in almost all its models
for 2008.
This
Car Can Talk. What It Says May Cause Concern.. For [Curt] Dunnam, the more he learned about
his car's security features, the less secure he felt. A research support specialist at Cornell University,
he is concerned about privacy. He has enough technical knowledge to worry that someone
else — say, law enforcement officers, or even hackers — could listen in on his phone
calls, or gain control over his automotive systems without his knowledge or consent. Any
gadget that can track a carjacker, he reasons, can just as readily be used to track him. "While
I don't believe G.M. intentionally designed this system to facilitate Orwellian activities, they sure
have made it easy," he said.
Somebody may be tracking your vehicle and you don't know about it!
Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems … let on-board vehicle computers measure air pressure in the tires.
If you purchased a new vehicle in the last two years, it is very likely that it came with TPMS.
If you live in the Unites States, your next vehicle will contain TPMS whether you like or not — in
April 2005, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a rule requiring automakers to install
TPMS sensors in all new passenger cars and trucks starting in September 2007. … Here is where
privacy problems become obvious: Each wheel of the vehicle transmits a unique ID, easily readable
using [an] off-the-shelf receiver. Although the transmitter's power is very low, the signal is
still readable from a fair distance using a good directional antenna.
Court to FBI: No spying on in-car computers.
The FBI and other police agencies may not eavesdrop on conversations inside automobiles equipped with OnStar or
similar dashboard computing systems, a federal appeals court ruled. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said
Tuesday [11/18/2003] that the FBI is not legally entitled to remotely activate the system and secretly use it
to snoop on passengers, because doing so would render it inoperable during an emergency.
Welcome to OnStar. How
May We Invade You? GPS systems in your car or telephone can track the adresses you visit — the
doctor's office, the liquor store, your lover's house. At the moment, the companies that can collect
this data are under no legal obligation to protect your privacy. They may sell a permanent record of
your movements to marketing firms, your employer, your wife, your bitterest enemies.
Boycott All GM Vehicles with OnStar. The purpose of
this website is to encourage you not to purchase any GM vehicle that is equipped with OnStar or any other type
of spyware that you cannot easily remove and disable on your own, without additional cost and without seeing
your dealer.
Big Brother on Board: OnStar Bugging Your Car.
Would it surprise you to find out that the FBI might be able to monitor private conversations in your car? A recent
court case revealed that the FBI used the popular OnStar system to do just that. GM cars equipped with OnStar are
supposed to be the leading edge of safety and technology. … However, buried deep inside the OnStar system is a feature
few suspected — the ability to eavesdrop on unsuspecting motorists.
FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool.
The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely
activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. The technique is
called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a
New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect
or wiretapping him.
Court to FBI: No spying on in-car computers. The
FBI and other police agencies may not eavesdrop on conversations inside automobiles equipped with OnStar or similar dashboard
computing systems, a federal appeals court ruled. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday [11/18/2003] that the
FBI is not legally entitled to remotely activate the system and secretly use it to snoop on passengers, because doing so
would render it inoperable during an emergency.
The Editor says...
The court made the right decision, but for the wrong reason, placing more value in safety
than either liberty or privacy.
Court limits in-car FBI spying.
An appeals court [in 2003] put the brakes on an FBI surveillance technique that turns an automobile driver's on-board vehicle
navigation system into a covert eavesdropping device, after finding that the spying effectively disables the system's
emergency and roadside assistance features.
OnStar Off. When I purchased a new
vehicle in September 2004, I wanted side impact airbags, but they only were available as part of a "Safe and Secure" package
that also included OnStar which I did not want. A salesman tried to convince me that I was getting a year of OnStar
service "free", but obviously part of the price of the S&S package paid for the OnStar subscription. The emergency
services of OnStar are appealing to me. But the privacy implications are not. Now that my year of "free"
service is over, I have disabled the system by pulling the fuse that powered it.
OnStar information at Wikipedia: [Scroll down]
Concerns have also been raised about what could be done with the data collected and stored by a vehicle's
MVEDR, which is analogous to the "black box" recorder on airplanes, although an MVEDR is not as sophisticated
and does not currently function as a digital audio recorder. For example, privacy advocates worry that
auto dealers could use data to suggest that the user engaged in reckless driving and therefore violated the
terms of the vehicle's warranty, or insurance companies could use said data as the basis for denying claims.
Living Under Surveillance: Upwards
of 1.5 million automobiles can now be tracked and located anywhere in the United States — or
in fact anywhere on Earth — using OnStar, General Motors' onboard car-to-mobile-phone-network
communications system.
The Editor says...
Well... it works anywhere there is a clear view of the sky and reliable cellular phone service. Not
quite "anywhere on earth."
See also Privacy Compromised by Big Government.
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