5 ms·

I find it strange people here are worried about license plate readers (which only record slivers of your location data) while at the same time they carry a phon

I find it strange people here are worried about license plate readers (which only record slivers of your location data) while at the same time they carry a phone that transmits realtime location data to many companies (the manufacturer, your provider, google or apple, and plus all the apps you have installed). And if your car is less than 10 years old it probably has a phone installed in it doing the same thing.

beamatronic 10y ago
Well what is the worst case scenario here? A google-like site where you could type in any plate and see its entire history ( aggregated from all the licence plate scanner sources )? There's no end to how bad this could be. Say with a free account you can see their history for the last 10 days but with a paid account you can have unlimited access! Also with the paid account, you can geofence any license plate and get SMS notifications when they go outside ( or inside ) a boundary. Where does it stop?
- unabridged 10y ago
  >Well what is the worst case scenario here? Public realtime video of every inch of the earth, and I honestly believe there is nothing we can do to stop it.
  - beamatronic 10y ago
    This was definitely alluded to in Snow Crash, with the gargoyle / CIC stringer concept
- the_ancient 10y ago
  >Well what is the worst case scenario here? Your car is spotted near a location that at one time in the past sold something to a drug dealer/grower/manufacture, Then you get your home raided (and possibly your dog killed, and children get to have flash bangs detonated in their beds/faces) all because your car was spotted some place the police took an interest in... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/28/federal-judge-drinking-tea-shopping-at-a-gardening-store-is-probable-cause-for-a-swat-raid-on-your-home/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/28/...
sneak 10y ago
Only one of those organizations has a whole bunch of guns and the ability to prosecute you at will for real or perceived violations of law (or insult). Last I checked, Postmates ain't throwing journalists in jail for whistleblowing.
- unabridged 10y ago
  But every company that has the data is a potential government source. How many do you think willing share data? How many do you will give it up at first request from the DoJ or DoD?
  - sneak 10y ago
    You forget the cost/benefit analysis of giving up that data, however - and it is not shared with the government by default and by nature of being collected, unlike automated plate readers.
pdkl95 10y ago
That's projection; maybe you carry around a tracking device everywhere you go, but that isn't universal. I know an increasing number of people that are switching back to landlines (and other options like voip). > car ... probably has a phone Just like "smart" TVs, that's a feature that some of us will never buy.
- unabridged 10y ago
  These measures will work for a while, but eventually there will be a video log of everywhere you travel. Unless you wear a mask, disguise your gait, and mix with other people doing the same thing, They will know.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    I'm sure President Trump with be a wise steward of his new security apparatus.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  > a feature that some of us will never buy. Don't worry, it will be included in the price. Of nearly every thing worth more than a few hundred bucks (and counting down). The Kindle having a built-in GSM SIM was just the beginning.
peterwwillis 10y ago
There's several things to worry about: 1. ALPR, when positioned strategically, can be as effective (if not more so) than GPS. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that police need a court order to attach a GPS tracker to a suspect's car, but no such order is needed for ALPR. They're also passive, so there's no way to detect them, and you can't really avoid them when driving. They can also be combined with stationary cameras to increase the surveillance area. 2. The mobile phone data of a carrier is only searchable with a warrant. Some agencies use Stingrays without a warrant (thanks, Baltimore City, for the heads up) to track people illegally, but they would need many deployed throughout an area to triangulate, and they wouldn't be as accurate. 3. You can turn a phone off, but you can't make a car invisible. (You could change the plates, but 99.99999999% of the citizens being tracked have no reason, nor access, to do this) 4. Access to the data is basically unrestricted to the police force, and they can keep it for a long time, and they have no oversight. The ACLU says that in 45 states there are no laws on how long police can keep the records. 5. They can be abused easily: "In 1998, a Washington D.C. police lieutenant pleaded guilty to extortion after blackmailing the owners of vehicles parked near a gay bar.[45] In 2015, the Los Angeles Police Department proposed sending letters to the home addresses of all vehicles that enter areas of high prostitution.[46][47][48]" [1] In NYC, they used it to track people who went to a mosque in Queens, amongst other places. [2] What's funny is that private companies have been operating ANPR units for years, and have private databases you can pay to search, similar to other data-selling companies that people like private investigators and creditors have been using for the past 15 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recogni... [2] http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2012/Newark-mayor-seeks-probe-of-NYPD-Muslim-spying http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2012/Newark-mayor-s...

beamatronic 10y ago

Well what is the worst case scenario here? A google-like site where you could type in any plate and see its entire history ( aggregated from all the licence plate scanner sources )? There's no end to how bad this could be. Say with a free account you can see their history for the last 10 days but with a paid account you can have unlimited access! Also with the paid account, you can geofence any license plate and get SMS notifications when they go outside ( or inside ) a boundary. Where does it stop?

unabridged 10y ago
>Well what is the worst case scenario here? Public realtime video of every inch of the earth, and I honestly believe there is nothing we can do to stop it.
- beamatronic 10y ago
  This was definitely alluded to in Snow Crash, with the gargoyle / CIC stringer concept
the_ancient 10y ago
>Well what is the worst case scenario here? Your car is spotted near a location that at one time in the past sold something to a drug dealer/grower/manufacture, Then you get your home raided (and possibly your dog killed, and children get to have flash bangs detonated in their beds/faces) all because your car was spotted some place the police took an interest in... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/28/federal-judge-drinking-tea-shopping-at-a-gardening-store-is-probable-cause-for-a-swat-raid-on-your-home/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/28/...

sneak 10y ago

Only one of those organizations has a whole bunch of guns and the ability to prosecute you at will for real or perceived violations of law (or insult). Last I checked, Postmates ain't throwing journalists in jail for whistleblowing.

unabridged 10y ago
But every company that has the data is a potential government source. How many do you think willing share data? How many do you will give it up at first request from the DoJ or DoD?
- sneak 10y ago
  You forget the cost/benefit analysis of giving up that data, however - and it is not shared with the government by default and by nature of being collected, unlike automated plate readers.

pdkl95 10y ago

That's projection; maybe you carry around a tracking device everywhere you go, but that isn't universal. I know an increasing number of people that are switching back to landlines (and other options like voip). > car ... probably has a phone Just like "smart" TVs, that's a feature that some of us will never buy.

unabridged 10y ago
These measures will work for a while, but eventually there will be a video log of everywhere you travel. Unless you wear a mask, disguise your gait, and mix with other people doing the same thing, They will know.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  I'm sure President Trump with be a wise steward of his new security apparatus.
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
> a feature that some of us will never buy. Don't worry, it will be included in the price. Of nearly every thing worth more than a few hundred bucks (and counting down). The Kindle having a built-in GSM SIM was just the beginning.

peterwwillis 10y ago

There's several things to worry about: 1. ALPR, when positioned strategically, can be as effective (if not more so) than GPS. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that police need a court order to attach a GPS tracker to a suspect's car, but no such order is needed for ALPR. They're also passive, so there's no way to detect them, and you can't really avoid them when driving. They can also be combined with stationary cameras to increase the surveillance area. 2. The mobile phone data of a carrier is only searchable with a warrant. Some agencies use Stingrays without a warrant (thanks, Baltimore City, for the heads up) to track people illegally, but they would need many deployed throughout an area to triangulate, and they wouldn't be as accurate. 3. You can turn a phone off, but you can't make a car invisible. (You could change the plates, but 99.99999999% of the citizens being tracked have no reason, nor access, to do this) 4. Access to the data is basically unrestricted to the police force, and they can keep it for a long time, and they have no oversight. The ACLU says that in 45 states there are no laws on how long police can keep the records. 5. They can be abused easily: "In 1998, a Washington D.C. police lieutenant pleaded guilty to extortion after blackmailing the owners of vehicles parked near a gay bar.[45] In 2015, the Los Angeles Police Department proposed sending letters to the home addresses of all vehicles that enter areas of high prostitution.[46][47][48]" [1] In NYC, they used it to track people who went to a mosque in Queens, amongst other places. [2] What's funny is that private companies have been operating ANPR units for years, and have private databases you can pay to search, similar to other data-selling companies that people like private investigators and creditors have been using for the past 15 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recogni... [2] http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2012/Newark-mayor-seeks-probe-of-NYPD-Muslim-spying http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2012/Newark-mayor-s...