NYC Is Tracking RFID Toll Collection Tags All Over the City 314
In the northeast U.S., most of the tolls people encounter when driving make use of a system called E-ZPass to let them pay the tolls electronically. Drivers are given small RFID transponders that are scanned in tollbooths, at which point the toll is automatically deducted from a pre-paid account. One hacker got curious whether the RFID tags were being scanned elsewhere, so he tweaked his E-ZPass to blink a light and make a noise every time it was read. He tested the streets of New York City, and wasn't surprised to see it light up in plenty of places where there were no tollbooths to be found. From the article:
"It’s part of Midtown in Motion, an initiative to feed information from lots of sensors into New York’s traffic management center. A spokesperson for the New York Department of Transportation, Scott Gastel, says the E-Z Pass readers are on highways across the city, and on streets in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island, and have been in use for years. The city uses the data from the readers to provide real-time traffic information, as for this tool. The DoT was not forthcoming about what exactly was read from the passes or how long geolocation information from the passes was kept. Notably, the fact that E-ZPasses will be used as a tracking device outside of toll payment, is not disclosed anywhere that I could see in the terms and conditions. When I talked to the E-ZPass Inter-agency Group — the umbrella association that oversees the use of the pay-toll-paying tags in 15 different states — it said New York is the only state that is employing this inventive re-use of the tags. ... 'If NYDOT can put up readers, says [the hacker], 'other agencies could as well.'"
Trending political procedures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do a lot of tracking of everything a person does and only come clean when someone calls 'em out...
I hope this "hacker" is anonymous... Otherwise he's headed for a jail cell...
It used to be okay to point out when your government was being shady...
Not anymore!!
Yay!
Welcome to 1984!
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To me, it was worth the little extra they charged to keep from being tracked every time I crossed the bridge, etc.
Re:Trending political procedures... (Score:4, Interesting)
You could actually use this the other way.
Remove the tag before you go do something naughty but keep it in your car other times.
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"That's like painting a big red X on your vehicle when you go to do something naughty, because you and your vehicle is also tracked other ways, such as your cell phone location, tracking of your license plate. Correlating records will make them want to know why you decided to drive downtown without your transponder."
It would probably never happen.
Bureaucrats learn to rely on their tools. If the vehicle shows up at certain checkpoints, it would probably never occur to them to spend the hundreds of man-hours necessary to check things like traffic cameras to see if they could find it running without the tracker.
Possible, but unlikely.
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Man-hours? The tools the bureaucrats have include:
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Re:Trending political procedures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Toll roads (Score:2)
eventually it will be illegal to drive without EZPass, and you will be billed for driving all over the place. All roads will be toll roads.
We already are billed for driving all over the place. It's called taxes and it requires no special equipment for your car.
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Yes and I pay money in taxes that covers city services, and when I call to have those services performed they close the ticket and say "alleyway cleaned, debris removed" and I go back and see they have removed zero of the trash bags, tires, or abandoned building materials. Call again, they remove... most of it, leave some building materials and concrete around. I pay for this shit in taxes you know. And people tell me, "Do it yourself and pay a junk company to remove it, you freeloader!"
Do you really
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Well, I don't know about you, but I'm already paying sales tax, gas tax, property tax and other taxes to pay for roads. Personally I'm fine with that. Nothing wrong with using taxes to maintain infrastructure.
I'm more worried about what other uses the data is being used for. I find the idea of faceless individuals continually knowing everywhere I'm going sort of creepy and worrying from a civil liberty standpoint.
Of course the obvious solution is to put your EZPass in a Faraday cage of some sort when you
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And so you take your EZ-Pass, iPass, or whatever, and put it into its metal box after you're past the toll-whatever.
Some of the tollbooths now take RFID-based credit cards. Same answer. These are radiological tokens. Kill the radio by putting it into a metal can, box, or even most ashtrays.
That it's tracked isn't surprising. I'm looking at your cam right now. Stop picking your nose.
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So, how exactly does this work for people from out of town/state? Don't they have to take cash for situations like that?
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Its simply not worth the effort to chase a 50cent or 2 dollar toll, especially if the plate readers indicate an out of state plate.
Locals might get their plate read by automated plate readers and sent automated bills in some jurisdictions.
Washington State tolls at highway speed, none of those silly easy-pass cattle chutes, and it was found by scoff-laws who refused to sign up for a pass, that they read your plate at speed as well.
Still, they aren't going to chase you across the country for 2 bucks.
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the last time i drove to the Bronx Zoo i bet some government worker had an alert flash when i paid my toll via ez-pass
he jumped up and screamed, we got him. we got him. he's driving to the bronx
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The problem with cash is the number of places that accept this form of payment is shrinking rapidly. I see a day in the near future where your only 2 options for Highway/Bridge tolls are Tolltag and Pay-By-Mail (They photograph your plates and mail you the bill).
But no matter how you pay, you are still being photographed, not only as you approach and depart, but also while you pass the toll booth. Check out those vertical cameras at ALL of the SF Bay toll plazas.
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Here in my neck of the woods, there are plenty of toll roads, and none will accept cash. One uses a TXTag transponder, or it will snap a pic of the license plate and mail a bill. No cash booths since January.
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I've rarely lived anywhere that had toll roads or toll bridges, but when I have and had to use them (like when moving all over creation after Katrina), I just paid cash.
To me, it was worth the little extra they charged to keep from being tracked every time I crossed the bridge, etc.
Next time you pull up to the toll plaza, pay attention to the license plate readers.
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Re:Trending political procedures... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has never been secret.
Except for:
- where the RFID detectors are.
- if they store the ID of the EZ-Pass tag.
- if they store the geo-location data.
- how long the keep the data.
- who has access to the data.
- if they sell the data.
So you're right, no secrets here.
Re:Trending political procedures... (Score:4, Insightful)
This should have been in the agreement. Most would have no problem with it -- as long as it wasn't secretly used for law enforcement.
Lawyers started supoenaing driver self-cams used in driving safety research, and volunteers dried up.
Of even greater concern is illegal NSA type stuff. I suppose more people will put in these read-detectors to map them all out and force government to explain them all. This is a good thing.
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And this is why my version of the easy pass sits in the glove box when I'm not near toll booths. How do I know it works? I forgot to take it out once, and blew right through the toll booth without a beep anywhere.
On that thought: as soon as I renew my passport, I'm getting one of the aluminum card/passport holders/wallets. Having RFIDs about all kinds of data available out in the open is nuts. Yes, I'm aware of LPSs, facial recognition from video, but those are still a lot harder to do than just reading an
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Do you carry your passport on a daily basis?
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On that thought: as soon as I renew my passport, I'm getting one of the aluminum card/passport holders/wallets. Having RFIDs about all kinds of data available out in the open is nuts. Yes, I'm aware of LPSs, facial recognition from video, but those are still a lot harder to do than just reading an RFID.
The State Department says [state.gov] your RIFD enabled passport can't be read unless the passport is opened:
Skimming.” We use an embedded metallic element in our passports. One of the simplest measures for preventing unauthorized reading of e-passports is to add RF blocking material to the cover of an e-passport. Before such a passport can be read, it has to be physically opened. It is a simple and effective method for reducing the opportunity for unauthorized reading of the passport at times when the holder does not expect it.
With any Android phone having NFC capabilities, and a free app from the Google Market ,you can prove that to be another government big lie.
So the shielded holder might be a good idea.
But Which LPSs [wikipedia.org] are you aware of?
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Myself, I already know the transponder # is thrown out, making the trip anonymous. These anonymous trips are used to plan transportation improvements. That's all.
You know this how?
Because they told you that was what the plan said 10 years ago when they set it up?
What about that telephone call from the Police Commissioner to the head of DOT that never made it to the files?
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That's what they give you.
That's not necessarily what they collect. In fact its almost certain that they collect everything the transponder can deliver.
You get anonymous data. The police and state patrol probably get ALL the data, and they may save it for a lot longer than you might imagine. Unless you wrote the software handling the readers you aren't in a position to know what is happening.
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Myself, I already know the transponder # is thrown out, making the trip anonymous.
f paying tolls were the primary motive for these things, they'd be available anonymously with pre-paid cards sold at 7-11 to refill them.
Re:Trending political procedures... (Score:5, Insightful)
initiative to improve traffic flow in Manhattan
If your goal is to improve traffic flow, you don't use EZPass, you use traffic counters that get laid down on the street (or use the pole-mounted radar counters) that are probably cheaper than the RFID devices they're using. Those don't identify each individual vehicle's path, but they do make it really clear where people are going (e.g. "the exit ramp has a count of 400 per hour, and and there's 350 more just to the right of that ramp than there was coming from the other way you can get to that spot.").
Alternately, you can ask yourself how many major construction projects have occurred in Manhattan to improve traffic flow in response to the data from this program. I'd be really surprised if New York City even considered, say, rerouting 5th Avenue.
Ergo, traffic flow isn't the problem NYC is trying to solve.
Traffic counters like the Traf-O-Data? (Score:2)
Traffic counters like the Traf-O-Data? :)
Playing devil's advocate here, knowing the specific flow of multiple vehicles can help with more specifics of popular routes. Using the across-the-road counters won't do that, and snow plows rip them up, so you can't reliably use them for 1/4 of a year.
I don't know about NYC, but at least outside of Boston, the general trend for road planning isn't for throughput but for traffic-causing "traffic calming" measures, designed to make driving slower and push people to m
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Except that the focus of DOTs these days is no longer to improve or increase traffic flow, it is to reduce traffic.
The assumption that no nefarious motivation is in play is quaint and charming, but no longer warranted in the modern era.
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Though I agree, Mayor Bloomberg does not carefully study personal driving habits through his city every day, the information is there for the law enforcement to use. And not just law-enforcement — divorce lawyers, for example, have subpoenaed the EZ-Pass reco
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...is not disclosed anywhere that I could see in the terms and conditions.
You are an idiot. Our governments are ostensibly under OUR employ, since when is it ok for people YOU pay to keep tabs on you without a court order? Unless you're ok with that sort of thing. Idiot.
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Illinois has also been doing this for several years, especially around the Chicago area.
There are some locations where they have signs up stating that "No Toll is Being Taken" and others that are not marked. The transponders they used to use had displays and beeped when accessed, I imagine that's why they put up signs, people used to notice accesses. Of course, the new replacement ones do not have any external indicators that they are being polled so that allows them to interrogate them anytime silently.
T
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Oh, I think I see. So apple trees vote R and people vote D, is that it?
Cup holder (Score:5, Funny)
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Maybe. It's RFID based, could be capable of activating all RFID tags in the vehicle, including ones used by shops to track stock.
Not completely news (Score:5, Informative)
In NJ, buried in the fine print, is a line that reads something like "other information may be obtained by the the Consortium at their discretion", which easily translates to: "We're going to use this to monitor traffic flow, and by doing that, we're monitoring you".
If you're driving on the Parkway (a New Jersey toll highway), there are plenty of places where you can see EZPass pickups buried in the road surface that are nowhere near the toll sites.
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MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
This is, as Binky says, old news. It has come up in
2005 - http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=144771&cid=12124437 [slashdot.org]
2002 - http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=37712&cid=4041961 [slashdot.org]
2003 - http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=53299&cid=5272198 [slashdot.org]
and probably a bunch of other times, too.
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If you're driving on the Parkway (a New Jersey toll highway), there are plenty of places where you can see EZPass pickups buried in the road surface that are nowhere near the toll sites.
Loops in the road surface are a different kind of sensor. Those just count vehicles, and if installed in pairs, measure speed. At least in California, that's where the CALTRANS road data [511.org] comes from. That's been around since at least the 1980s; LA used to have a cable channel which just showed the freeway status map.
Interestingly, the LA area and the SF area have quite different privacy policies. Compare Bay Area Fastrak [bayareafastrak.org], which is quite reasonable, to LA Metro [metroexpresslanes.net], which asks "customers for demographic inform
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The CA fine print has the same info.
If you don't agree, you can can ask the provider for a RF shielding bag. This comes with a warning that you're liable for fines if you forget to take the pass out of the bag before using a toll.
Quick hardware hack (Score:4, Interesting)
Time to put your transponder into a flip-lid Faraday Cage [wikipedia.org] that springs open only when you require it, then closes by default.
Re:Quick hardware hack (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, EZ-Pass devices installed in rental vehicles do EXACTLY this to allow the renter choice of whether to use EZ-Pass or normal tolls.
Re:Quick hardware hack (Score:4, Insightful)
And I'll bet somebody has patented the 1836 technology.
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And I'll bet somebody has patented the 1836 technology.
Patent 1836 technology? Well yes, someone has patented it, including:
Gridirons (cooking)
Circuit breakers
Propellers
Colt's revolver
Sewing Machines
Personally I'm holding out for 1839 - both the bicycle and the hydrogen fuel cell. Of course vulcanized rubber is nothing to sneeze at.
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I don't know how other transponders work, but my Minnesota EZ-Pass turns off when I remove it from the windshield-mounted holder -- there's a pin in the holder that hits a recessed switch.
I remove it when I am using an HOV lane as an actual carpool so I don't pay the toll for using it.
I would assume that this would keep it "off" for all other uses of it, unless the apparent off setting is only valid for HOV lane readers, same with the "beep" it generates when the HOV readers scan it.
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And to make the spring open thing work, you can use the RFID activation signal from the toll booth right? That way you don't have to open it yourself. Then no one is tracking your transponder, just your faraday cage door opener.
I pondered that but non-toll-booth signals could trigger it open too, so probably a manual system is best.
Don’t keep it on the windshield (Score:4, Insightful)
I have never kept my FasTrak (our version of EZPass) stuck to the windshield. It lives in its mylar foil bag in the center console until I’m approaching a toll. Besides, people will break a window and steal it. It can’t be linked to a different vehicle, at least not without me setting that up, so it’s pretty much worthless to anyone else, but crackheads don’t know that.
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I do the same, but I tend to keep it attached to my car if we're going on a road trip. Otherwise, during normal car use, the EZPass is in a bag in my glove compartment.
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It can’t be linked to a different vehicle, at least not without me setting that up, so it’s pretty much worthless to anyone else, but crackheads don’t know that. . . .
Why not? Does the system cross-check against license plate photos or something like that? I've seen friends move turnpike transponders (not called FasTrak, so not in your area) and I didn't know they'd done anything special to use it with a rental or company car, etc. But I never thought to ask, either.
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You could probably use it until it’s reported stolen, but you would be taking a risk every time you went through a toll, not knowing if it had been flagged yet. Toll evasion tickets go to the owner of the plate, not the pass. The only way to legitimately associate the pass with a different plate is to log in to the account on line. Likewise refilling it.
You already have something like this on your car.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called a license plate. With technology that allows license plates to be read by cameras, any government organization could track the movements of every vehicle everywhere in their jurisdiction. Don't think you can't be tracked because you don't have an RFID tag in your vehicle.
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Have fun associating those licence plates with bureaucrats, they figured out this ploy and used "terrorism" as a rational to shield them from discovery. After all we have to protect our bureaucrats from terrorists don't ya know.
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government organizations do track the movements of every vehicle everywhere in and out of their jurisdiction
Fixed that for you.
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Not at all. I just think it's important that people understand that they can be and most likely are being tracked regardless of whether they have an RFID in their vehicle. I think it's likely a losing effort to try and thwart government privacy invasion by avoiding technology. Things like license plate scanners, face recognition, drones, backdoors to hardware, backdoors to service providers, etc. make it really difficult to pratically avoid detection and tracking. It seems like it would be better to cha
Hubris (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a tactical mistake borne of hubris. When the RFID chips came out, people were paranoid they'd be use to track instead of ease on off congestion in toll roads as advertised. Officialdom trotted out the usual assurances. Now they're using them to track cars.. (as if they can't already do that through other means).
The long term effect is to breed distrust of government and technology. To induce a cynical turn of mind .
Seeing as 99% of security relies on public buy in , cooperation, the feeling of a shared purpose and identity and absent those things or if those things are greatly degraded, we have no effective security, this has to be seen as a big security blunder.
Tricking, coercing, forcing, sneaking by people what's needed for security is a bad idea. It was a bad idea when the NSA started doing it whether they were getting away with it or not. It's a bad idea wherever it goes. It works against security in a million ways none of which anyone can control.
The way to security buy in is through more openness, more sharing of the problems and threats we face and above all the verifiable protection of our civil liberties against the abuses which inevitably occur when identity and details of people's private lives are exposed for examination by the state.
You have to firewall international (or national) terrorism from all other concerns. You cannot use this information to, say catch drug dealers or common murders. Neither can you over-define what terrorism IS. Copyright violations aren't terrorism and neither are the activities of organized crime. Mainstream , even violent political protestors aren't terrorists and neither are the Tea Party or anarchists. That's called- regular life, normal criminal deviance that is NOT terroristic; the goal is not to undo Western civilization.
Deniers are of course not terrorists, despite my hyperbolic moniker.
Because that IS a slippery slope and what will happen is there will grow widespread, covert, person to person rebellion ande non-cooperation, subversion and ultimate undermining of security.
People don't want to live in Stasiland, whatever benefits there are to living in Stasiland and it' takes not very much to get people to thinking that they are living in Stasiland.
I am to the right of most people on this forum, (yesterday's rating drubbing) which is to say in the middle of the political spectrum. Even I am creeped out by some of the things that have been going on. It's human nature to abuse power in ways that lead to undue influence by the power wielders and then on to a kind of defacto fascism. That's not a political perspective, that's a historical and psychological fact and moreover instinctive knowledge. It is not possible to talk your way around instinctive knowledge.
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Time to put a shoe box sized faraday cage in car (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/build-your-own-faraday-cage-heres-how/ [thesurvivalistblog.net]
OMG, they are studying traffic patterns (Score:2)
everyone complains how government is so dumb in how they build out the wrong infrastructure in the wrong place
and when they try to study things for future build outs its suddenly a huge violation of privacy
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i'm sure this was a super secret code word only program where you needed the bloomturd level clearance to know what was done
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yep
every day the drones will make a list of the peons driving on 34th street in rush hour and the mass arrests are coming next month
and i'm totally for some kind of congestion pricing in manhattan and i own a car. my wife and i pay for the train. lots of people drive in over free bridges that aren't tolled and paid for by my taxes. there is no reason why there shouldn't be some kind of toll on all the bridges. traffic around these bridges is so bad it takes an hour to drive a mile. charging people for using
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taxes pay for the trains as well, but its not enough to cover the cost of the system
no reason not to have use fees on the bridges for people that use them. and there is a maintenance cost on them every year. not like you build it and its free to maintain
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How hard to pull a "Little Brother" ? (Score:2)
Wouldn't that be true for *ANY* type of RFID? (Score:4, Informative)
yawn. (Score:3)
As others have mentioned, if gubmint wanted to track you, they'd use your license plate because everybody has to have one of those whereas these toll passes are optional... In my city (Calgary, Alberta) the municipal government uses bluetooth ID's to track phones/cars as they travel down the roads to generate traffic information. We have handy signs that report the expected time to various exits. I've found it handy because I know about how long it should usually take to a specific exit and if the reported time is wildly different, I can choose to exit sooner and take an alternate route...
I suppose I could surmise that the municipal government has some way to tie my cellphone to my name and is tracking me... But I think it largely improbable and I can always turn off my bluetooth if I'm doing something nefarious just as NYCers can put their tags in a metal box.
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There is a mall near me that now has license plate scanners on the entrances and exits.
The justification the local police gave was terrorism. Well excuse me but when is the last time terrorists attacked a mall? What kind of idiot terrorist is going to drive his own car to the mall?
http://nj1015.com/freehold-raceway-mall-installs-license-plate-scanners-privacy-intrusion-or-necessary-security-tool-poll/ [nj1015.com]
Future plans outside New York (Score:5, Interesting)
In Florida, we have a toll transponder system too. Recently waves of notices have been going out that the older style transponders are being deprecated for newer ones. I always thought that was kind of silly because the new style transponders are currently compatible with the existing system just like old ones are, so it's not really a "protocol" type change (I'm a software guy, not an EE, so there is likely some RFID stuff I don't know about).
The biggest change? The older transponders would beep when scanned, the newer ones no longer have that functionality. Sounds like perpetual tracking is coming to my state.
Lawsuit (Score:3)
In the conditions of your contract you gave up a specified amount of privacy (your time/location information at toll booths) in exchange for the consideration of the convenience the service provides. They have now taken more privacy than you willingly gave up, providing more value for themselves than the contract gave them, and have provided no further consideration to you.
Classic example of "Give government a tool, and it will be abused."
I'm sure this extends past EZ Pass (Score:2)
Houston has been doing this for years! (Score:2)
There are EZ Tag readers on all the freeways in Houston, and have been for years, to track traffic congestion. Compaq Computer (remember them?) used readers to scan EZ Tags to track who came and went from their headquarters, well before they merged with HP. The Houston airport system, for a while, allowed EZ Tag customers to pay for parking using their EZ Tag.
It could be worse! They COULD use the GPS on your phone to track your every move, to find out who you are with and where you go, even when you aren
and that's why (Score:2)
...I keep my device in a part of the car that can't be read. and I take it out only when I get onto the toll road.
Not at all surprised... (Score:3)
It was obvious from day one, data-collection was at least a secondary objective. Nominally the system is owned by a private company(ies), but with the government-enforced monopoly we get the worst of both worlds — a business' normal desire for profit, with government-style absence of competition.
good job "hacker" (Score:2)
It's a good thing this "hacker" kept his name out of it. The NYPD would be arresting him on a trumped up "hacking" or "terrorism" charge.
That's illegal, right? (Score:3)
Re:Still pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny you mention gay sex and then go on to list the only ones that care about privacy are those doing something "illegal, immoral or otherwise dangerous." Have you not been paying attention to Russia lately? Gay sex recently became illegal again. Just because society and politicians don't care NOW doesn't mean they will continue not caring.
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Have you not been paying attention to Russia lately? Gay sex recently became illegal again.
No, it didn't. Talking about it, however, is a different story.
Have you not been paying attention?
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Every time one of them gets caught with a "rent boy" it warms my heart. Can someone tell me why it is almost always the "Family first" ones that get caught with a male prostitute?
Re:Still pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
My rule #46:
The number of skeletons in [most famous person]'s closet is usually directly proportional to how sanctimonious or pious they act in public.
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Just to be clear, I don't want this trend to stop. It provides me with immense entertainment.
I do think they should be forced to be on a float in the local gay pride parade, with a large banner over their heads explaining their affiliations, and what they were caught doing.
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Just like it warms my Heart when Obama appoints someone he once demonized to some post or another.
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/09/obama-appoints-former-bain-capital-exec-to-top-post-2762156.html [beforeitsnews.com]
Re:Still pissed (Score:5, Informative)
I'm still pissed I was labeled a troll when I mentioned that there was no privacy in the US.
Yea, I'm sure it was because you "mentioned" it; surely you weren't labeled a troll for gems such as:
So give up on the privacy whining.
Or
The only dumbasses who care about privacy are the ones doing something they know to be illegal
Or maybe even
I bet Castro was a privacy advocate.
Now GTF my lawn, you fucking troll you.
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Self-demonstrating (Score:2)
I'm still pissed I was labeled a troll when I mentioned that there was no privacy in the US.
No, I'd bet cash money that's not what you were modded Troll for.
So give up on the privacy whining. You don't have and will never get it back. And the biggest point, WTF do you care for? You think anyone cares you are butt fucking your same sex roommate? Society doesn't care anymore. The poeple who will use that info against you will find out some other way. The only dumbasses who care about privacy are the ones doing something they know to be illegal, immoral or otherwise dangerous. I bet Castro was a privacy advocate.
I'd bet it was this sort of nonsense you got modded Troll for. In a single paragraph, you are hostile & insulting, highly opinionated, dismissive of people with differing opinions or lifestyles, and just flat out wrong on details. You call an opinion other than your own "whining" and tell people to just give up and accept things the way you see them. The Castro thing is just random. Like you wanted to toss in a "you're all as bad as Hi
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The only dumbasses who care about privacy are the ones doing something they know to be illegal, immoral or otherwise dangerous.
Ah! That would be why politicians get so upset when they are tracked.
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"BTW, does the bridge you live under have EZ-Pass?"
http://www.pbase.com/mikep/image/152069058 [pbase.com]
That is one of my newest neighbors. 3 of them WITHIN 1 block. You think I think I have privacy?
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NYC tried to pass london style congestion pricing a few years back but the state killed it. idea was to make people pay to drive in midtown manhattan
Re:Were you expecting anything different (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it probably has no identifying details at all... it's almost certainly just a serial number, and that's it. It may also have a checksum on the device that might be derivable via a one-way hash from personal information that the company has about you, but in general this would not be practical to try to reverse, Such a checksum id could potentially be used to verify at their end that the device was not a forgery.
The company that collects the data on the device has your identifying details and has recorded which device, by serial number, they assigned to you. Whenever they are scanning the device, all they need to do is look up its serial number in their database to get all of your identifying information that they have... unless somebody else had suitable access to that same database, they would not generally be able to identify who you were or anything else about you for that matter.
A third party could, however, potentially use the information even without access to said database to track where it was you were going... although as far as they are concerned, they'd be tracking some anonymous device, with no idea in general who actually has it... only knowing where it was detected by scanners.
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Actually it probably has no identifying details at all... it's almost certainly just a serial number, and that's it.
How is a serial number unique to you not an identifying detail?
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Re:Tin Foil Hat for your car? (Score:5, Informative)
When I received my EZ-Pass, I also received a bag (like those used to protect electronic chips) that I could put my EZ-Pass in when I don't want it to be read. It's my choice.
People were so up and arms of the UUID in iPhones and iPads being used to track their activity...but, the ability to collect this type of UUID in EZ-Pass has been available for years and nobody gave a rat's ass. The difference over license plate numbers (readable via OCR) is that these are easier to read....AEI tags, the tags used on railcars (EZ-Pass on steroids) were designed to be read as trains passed at over 90 MPH.
If you run a GPS such as Waze or another with real-time traffic analysis....it's, likely, reporting your position, speed, direction and...an identifier (maybe just your Waze account ID). All modern cell phones are E911 capable - they know where you are ... if they care. Do you turn your phone off when you drive your the car or go about your daily business? Unlikely.
There are far bigger things to worry about.
That being said, it would be interesting to know how this data was actually being used, stored and shared.
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Re: Cell data used for traffic data:
http://news.verizonwireless.com/news/2009/07/pr2009-07-14.html [verizonwireless.com]
Keywords: Verizon AirSage
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But if you made real driving tests before people could get their driver's license, who would buy all the cars?