How long til THEY (big brother)

[akarunway 1]

Control every aspect of our lives. Thank god I'll be dead and gone before it gets REALLY ugly++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Wireless World: Chips track license plates
By Gene J. Koprowski
Aug. 12, 2005 at 10:04AM
A controversial plan to embed radio frequency identification chips in license plates in the United Kingdom also may be coming to the United States, experts told UPI's Wireless World.
The so-called e-Plate, developed by the British firm Hills Numberplates, is a license plate that also transmits a vehicle's unique identification via encryption that can be read by a small detector, whose output can be used locally or communicated to a distant host.
"RFID is all the rage these days," said Bradley Gross, chairman of Becker & Poliakoff, a law firm in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., "but my fear is that this use of the technology is tracking at its worst."
The reason for the concern in the legal and privacy-rights communities is that e-plates may expand the ability of police to track individuals by the movement of their vehicles.
A single RFID reader can identify dozens of vehicles fitted with e-plates moving at any speed at a distance of about 100 yards. The e-plate looks just like a standard plate, but it contains an embedded chip that cannot be seen or removed. It is self-powered with a battery life of up to 10 years.
"Police will be able to track your every move when you drive," said Liz McIntyre, an RFID expert and author of the forthcoming book, "Spychips: How Major Corporations and the Government Plan to Track Your Every Move With RFID" (Nelson Current, October 2005). "What if they put these readers at a mosque? They could tell who was inside at a worship service by which cars were in the parking lot."
Indeed, the makers of the technology boast that the e-plates can furnish access control, automated tolling, asset tracking, traffic-flow monitoring and vehicle crime and "non-compliance." The chips can be outfitted with 128 bit encryption to prevent hacking.
The problem is people other than the vehicle's owner quite often are at the wheel.
"Will this, ultimately, stop terrorism?" Gross asked. "The occupants of cars change continuously. Terrorists can steal cars."
Similar technology already has been used in the United States, experts said.
"The technology side of this is readily available, as it is used in the high-frequency battery-powered transmitters in the toll road systems like Fastrak," said attorney Dave Abel, with the international law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP, who was an engineer before coming to the bar. "To use the toll road, a user signs up -- providing name, address, billing info, et cetera, which is stored in a database. Each time they drive past the reader station they are billed or a credit is deducted from an account."
Security access points could justify the expense, but placing them even at key intersections may not be very practical, according to lawyers at Pittiglio, Rabin, Todd & McGrath in Costa Mesa, Calif., a spokeswoman said.
The cost of roadside readers is significant -- although the price per chip is estimated to be only 20 cents.
Some experts said governments already are using the chips embedded in tollway access cards without heed to privacy rights. In Texas, for example, tollway authorities have been "making printouts of the records of every time you pass through a toll booth, what time you passed through," McIntyre said. "The government hasn't established a privacy policy for this, and people are not being informed that they are doing this. This is an instance of Big Brother on the highway."
--
Gene Koprowski is a 2005 Lilly Endowment Award Winner for his columns for United Press International. He covers networking and telecommunications for UPI Science News. E-mail:sciencemail@upi.com

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[TomAiello 26]

Quote

Control every aspect of our lives. Thank god I'll be dead and gone before it gets REALLY ugly

No way, dude. It's already REALLY UGLY.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[akarunway 1]

You're right Tom. I should have said UGLIER

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[slug 1]

Hi AKA

Big Brother Some times truth is stranger than fiction

I'm just hoping that there are two many of us and to few of them. As long as we keep our nose clean "they' won't have a reason to look where we've been, when etc, and if they do who cares we can't do anything about it..

With computers, credit cards, cell phones, "They" already have a good idea, of what, when, & where. Damn almost forgot about the security camera's in every business, etc.

If a persons doing base off a antenna, bldg or bridge, they could be on video so "don't look up".

Tough being a bad person these days, DNA and all that stuff but all that that stuff is only good after the fact.

R.I.P.

[Schroeder 0]

RFID is going to be in a lot more places than just your license plate. There are plans to intergrate them into drivers licenses as well ("Scanners" mounted in underpasses could scan the occupants of cars)

The developers of RFID envision a product-net, where everything is tracked and accounted for in some form. It has created quite a stir in my industry (GIS) from ethics perspectives weighed against our love for new technology.

Gillette has RFID in some Mach 3 razor packaging. Imagine for a second the implications of that. You purchase an item the scanner record the RFID and enters it into a consumer database as having been purchased by Mr. John Doe. Sometime later, you dispose of your product. In the evening, some unlucky fellow is going through your garbage, finds a used razor and gets some extra use out of it before tossing in a ditch. Later, your municpality is picking up litter, finds your razor, scans and sends you a fine.

Or, it doesn't wind up in a ditch, but stays instead in your garbage with a mix of other stuff. A curious person drives by with a handheld scanner and learns a lot about your buying habits before the garbage men come around. He collects information for your entire street in a single pass, geocoding the each scan location with your address for future direct advertising, etc.

If I ventured in the slipstream; Between the via-ducts of your dreams.......could you find me?

[ScottishJohn 25]

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A controversial plan to embed radio frequency identification chips in license plates in the United Kingdom

First time i've heard of this.
Does anyone know if it is true ?
Just because the technology is available it doesn't mean that it is being implemented.

Quote

What if they put these readers at a mosque? They could tell who was inside at a worship service by which cars were in the parking lot.

No they couldn't. But they could say what cars are parked outside the mosque and who the registered owner of the car is. |Then again they could also just read the license plate to find out who the registered owner is.

I don't know why you would go to the trouble of develping a system slim enough to install in a license plate when you could install a similar system just about anywhere on a car.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you think my attitude stinks you should smell my fingers

[AlexCrowley 0]

This is a good news bad news sort of situation.

1. The Good News: RFID is a new technology, as such it'll be feared for a little while. RFID is a low range chip, it can't track you like GPS. My friend and I spent time looking into tracking tech and one was to manufacture a chip to be worn, scanning stations at the on transport and at the place of work would generate realtime positional reports.

2. The bad news. You dont have any privacy now. Public companies like Lexis Nexus already aggregate all information thats publicly available, and because they're private they are not limited in the same way that government is. These guys can grab all your retail data on top of all the openly available legal stuff. This is why the Lexis Nexus breakin and exposure of (650k identities was a big deal) - (this is a case I was personally involved in).

In 2002/2003 the US Government ordered a multi-terrabyte RAM disk. This was to allow for high speed data manipulation of various databases, most likely PROMIS or it's replacement. PROMIS is the system that was developed as a commercial database and then the CIA stole and destroyed the company responsible (check public records, there are plenty of good sources on the PROMIS story, including a good article in Wired.

Its easy to think that with the huge volume of data available that 1, there's no way to use it all, 2. if you're not doing anything wrong then why worry?

The 'stop being so egocentric' defense is fine, until you realize that these databases are used to profile everyone. Profiling allows tracking patterns, the problem is that human beings, while quite easy to pigeon hole on the larger scheme, tend to generate a lot of false positive and negatives (so you'll hit innocents and miss the guilty). Many feel that this is acceptable if it helps stop crime, some consider it a violation of their basic rights.

The 'too much data to crunch' defense used to be true, but in the last 15 years technology has leapt forward to the point where anyone can start with a generic profile and zoom down to a single entities records instantly.

More concerning is the fact that while many of these systems are secured, there are a lot that have networks hooked up to the internet. Hackers are so patient that they will perform network scans of possible targets at the rate of one packet per day.

The new laws regarding drivers licenses are so shortsighted technologically that they scare many of us in the computer security field simply because the legislation is hugely flawed. The current model has the DMV scanning in critical identifying documents into the data stripe on your license. It'll also carry more personal information about you. The thought is that this can be used to verify you at bars, by the police...........and by extension, anyone with a card scanner.........including people who want to steal your identity - which used to take a little more than simply scanning your card.

Cars already track a lot of what you do anyway.

Too early to keep rambling.

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.