6 ms·

License Plate Readers Exposed – How Public Safety Agencies Responded

85 points by reitanqild 11y ago

dang 11y ago
Url changed from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/lprs-exposed-how-public-safety-agencies-responded-to-major-vulnerabilities-in-vehicle-surveillance-tech/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/lprs-exposed-how-..., which points to this.
lazyjones 11y ago
I wish they wouldn't withhold information on locating such devices via shodan.io or other methods. The more people look at such issues, the better - and the victim's privacy has been compromised already, so it's unlikely that disclosure would cause so much more damage to them as to justify obstructing further security research.
Shivetya 11y ago
I am just dreading the day they move from license plate readers to face readers. The technology is advancing fast enough for it to happen
- frgewut 11y ago
  Truth to be told - I'll buy one
  - zo1 11y ago
    I'll buy them too. For every access point to our neighborhood/gated-complex. As long as the privacy implications are solved, and reasonable. I don't see any reason why local communities can't use this to prevent crime by excluding undesirable individuals from gaining access.
    - annnnd 11y ago
      I hope you mean whitelisting instead of blacklisting? otherwise, where would you get the list of "undesired" (whatever that means) individuals?
      - zo1 11y ago
        "Undesired" could mean anything the local community/neighborhood decides it to be. Personally, I would not want anyone with criminal records in my neighborhood/private property. Is that perfect? No, but it's a good start. Whitelisting would also be more difficult to maintain, but is already done in a lot of gated complexes I've seen. Where the individual phones ahead, and get's given a ticket that has a day pass or something. Ultimately, I believe this will get a lot of backlash as it will make a lot of people uncomfortable as to the implications.
        spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        So if you get a traffic ticket or points on your driving license - your run out of town does this also include smiling at white women
        zo1 11y ago
        >"So if you get a traffic ticket or points on your driving license - your run out of town" That's not what I said. >"does this also include smiling at white women" If people choose to be racist and prevent people from going onto their private property, that's their business as long as they're not physically hurting anyone.
        spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        You said criminal record - which driving offenses are. And your housing estate is not private property in the same sense your house is - the public highway is the "public highway".
- Spooky23 11y ago
  Who says it hasn't.
awjr 11y ago
ALPR cameras are interesting. I've been looking at ALPR as a solution for understanding how traffic moves through your city/town. Transport planning feels like it is very much something done in the dark ages and primarily focused around traffic flow. Scheme results are hard to determine and even harder to reverse/tweak. Creating a network of ALPR cameras that enable mapping of major routes and centres of interest (e.g. schools) can also enable Local Authorities to focus money "cleverly". A case in point is Poynton, UK. Where a radical scheme has seen amazing results despite restricting traffic massively. http://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-services/what-we-do/route-design-and-construction/shared-space-busy-intersection-poynton http://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-services/what-we-do/route-des...
- stevetrewick 11y ago
  Poynton seems to have achieved its result without the massively disproportionate act of mass surveillance you seem to be advocating.
  - awjr 11y ago
    Admittedly transport behaviour through the scheme could be measured with cable vehicle counters, however determining the exact speed at which a vehicle travels through the scheme could not be done without ALPR. In the UK, there is a push to implement 20MPH zones throughout most residential streets. Using ALPR you could easily measure the impact of these changes to the average speed of vehicles. Yes you could identify "speeding" drivers but I do not see that as a bad thing.
    - mhb 11y ago
      however determining the exact speed at which a vehicle travels through the scheme could not be done without ALPR Of course it could. One way would be to ask for volunteers (compensated or not) to put stickers on their cars which would uniquely identify them.
      - awjr 11y ago
annnnd 11y ago
Whenever something like this happens I am always left wondering if it would be better to legalize and organize some sort of "locking service" which goes around the (national) IPs, finds the holes, breaks in, fixes the hole and sends a message to owner (if it is possible to determine who it is). I think I am mostly aware of the implications, but I wonder if net effect would be positive...
- oneJob 11y ago
  If that is all it will do why not write and release. Interesting analogy. Viruses are now understood to facilitate horizontal gene transfer. Viruses and the rest of our microbiome are functionally key constituents of the "human" organism. This relationship is not a one off. It is found, to a greater or lesser extent, in many biological systems. Yet, we have only formally welcomed one such distinction into the public discourse surrounding the Internet : Memes. I think there is an argument to be made that, software viruses are not absolutely bad, and that code once release has a life of its own. We should therefore accept, and in some circumstances embrace, such contributions to the code base of the Internet.
- dspillett 11y ago
  Unfortunately I doubt the net positive effect would be enough to bring in the money needed to fend of potential litigation when the service accidentally fixes something in a broken manner.
vgallur 11y ago
This joke always comes to my mind with plate readers: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-URBVGKEBRss/U0GgQetIwEI/AAAAAAAAC20/b0DEdUTSCwo/s1600/i.img.jpe http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-URBVGKEBRss/U0GgQetIwEI/AAAAAAAAC2...
- baseten 11y ago
  Oh yes. little bobby tables we call him. https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/
NullCharacter 11y ago
I can almost guarantee the people against ALPR are most likely the same people who have no problem throwing a camera in somebody's face in your local Starbucks or something, and then when asked to stop recording, they say "but bro it's a public place".

85 points by reitanqild 11y ago

dang 11y ago

Url changed from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/lprs-exposed-how-public-safety-agencies-responded-to-major-vulnerabilities-in-vehicle-surveillance-tech/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/lprs-exposed-how-..., which points to this.

lazyjones 11y ago

I wish they wouldn't withhold information on locating such devices via shodan.io or other methods. The more people look at such issues, the better - and the victim's privacy has been compromised already, so it's unlikely that disclosure would cause so much more damage to them as to justify obstructing further security research.

Shivetya 11y ago

I am just dreading the day they move from license plate readers to face readers. The technology is advancing fast enough for it to happen

frgewut 11y ago
Truth to be told - I'll buy one
- zo1 11y ago
  I'll buy them too. For every access point to our neighborhood/gated-complex. As long as the privacy implications are solved, and reasonable. I don't see any reason why local communities can't use this to prevent crime by excluding undesirable individuals from gaining access.
  - annnnd 11y ago
    I hope you mean whitelisting instead of blacklisting? otherwise, where would you get the list of "undesired" (whatever that means) individuals?
    - zo1 11y ago
      "Undesired" could mean anything the local community/neighborhood decides it to be. Personally, I would not want anyone with criminal records in my neighborhood/private property. Is that perfect? No, but it's a good start. Whitelisting would also be more difficult to maintain, but is already done in a lot of gated complexes I've seen. Where the individual phones ahead, and get's given a ticket that has a day pass or something. Ultimately, I believe this will get a lot of backlash as it will make a lot of people uncomfortable as to the implications.
      - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        So if you get a traffic ticket or points on your driving license - your run out of town does this also include smiling at white women
        zo1 11y ago
        >"So if you get a traffic ticket or points on your driving license - your run out of town" That's not what I said. >"does this also include smiling at white women" If people choose to be racist and prevent people from going onto their private property, that's their business as long as they're not physically hurting anyone.
        spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        You said criminal record - which driving offenses are. And your housing estate is not private property in the same sense your house is - the public highway is the "public highway".
Spooky23 11y ago
Who says it hasn't.

awjr 11y ago

ALPR cameras are interesting. I've been looking at ALPR as a solution for understanding how traffic moves through your city/town. Transport planning feels like it is very much something done in the dark ages and primarily focused around traffic flow. Scheme results are hard to determine and even harder to reverse/tweak. Creating a network of ALPR cameras that enable mapping of major routes and centres of interest (e.g. schools) can also enable Local Authorities to focus money "cleverly". A case in point is Poynton, UK. Where a radical scheme has seen amazing results despite restricting traffic massively. http://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-services/what-we-do/route-design-and-construction/shared-space-busy-intersection-poynton http://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-services/what-we-do/route-des...

stevetrewick 11y ago
Poynton seems to have achieved its result without the massively disproportionate act of mass surveillance you seem to be advocating.
- awjr 11y ago
  Admittedly transport behaviour through the scheme could be measured with cable vehicle counters, however determining the exact speed at which a vehicle travels through the scheme could not be done without ALPR. In the UK, there is a push to implement 20MPH zones throughout most residential streets. Using ALPR you could easily measure the impact of these changes to the average speed of vehicles. Yes you could identify "speeding" drivers but I do not see that as a bad thing.
  - mhb 11y ago
    however determining the exact speed at which a vehicle travels through the scheme could not be done without ALPR Of course it could. One way would be to ask for volunteers (compensated or not) to put stickers on their cars which would uniquely identify them.
    - awjr 11y ago

annnnd 11y ago

Whenever something like this happens I am always left wondering if it would be better to legalize and organize some sort of "locking service" which goes around the (national) IPs, finds the holes, breaks in, fixes the hole and sends a message to owner (if it is possible to determine who it is). I think I am mostly aware of the implications, but I wonder if net effect would be positive...

oneJob 11y ago
If that is all it will do why not write and release. Interesting analogy. Viruses are now understood to facilitate horizontal gene transfer. Viruses and the rest of our microbiome are functionally key constituents of the "human" organism. This relationship is not a one off. It is found, to a greater or lesser extent, in many biological systems. Yet, we have only formally welcomed one such distinction into the public discourse surrounding the Internet : Memes. I think there is an argument to be made that, software viruses are not absolutely bad, and that code once release has a life of its own. We should therefore accept, and in some circumstances embrace, such contributions to the code base of the Internet.
dspillett 11y ago
Unfortunately I doubt the net positive effect would be enough to bring in the money needed to fend of potential litigation when the service accidentally fixes something in a broken manner.

vgallur 11y ago

This joke always comes to my mind with plate readers: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-URBVGKEBRss/U0GgQetIwEI/AAAAAAAAC20/b0DEdUTSCwo/s1600/i.img.jpe http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-URBVGKEBRss/U0GgQetIwEI/AAAAAAAAC2...

baseten 11y ago
Oh yes. little bobby tables we call him. https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/

NullCharacter 11y ago

I can almost guarantee the people against ALPR are most likely the same people who have no problem throwing a camera in somebody's face in your local Starbucks or something, and then when asked to stop recording, they say "but bro it's a public place".