5 ms·

New York eyes a 'breathlyzer' for texting while driving

38 points by dvanwag 9y ago

humbleMouse 9y ago
This is the beginning of the end. Privacy is gone, humanity is doomed. What other data will these devices skim while they are looking through the phone OS to see when the last text message you sent was? We are on a slippery slope to being completely controlled by cops and their technology. Pretty soon every law enforcement vehicle is going to come equipped with a LTE spoofer running in their car that skims all this information from the phones in the near vicinity. You'll get automatic messages in your car's dashboard display when you send a text message - "Pull over, you broke the law and sent a text while driving. A cop will be here soon to arrest you."
- tptacek 9y ago
  I guess it's true, in the sense that when you look at it, everything is the beginning of some end.
- vvanders 9y ago
  On one hand, driving isn't a right and if you're piloting a 5k+ lb projectile at 70mph(or 50k+ in the case of some truckers I've seen texting + driving) you deserve to have the goddamn book thrown at you. It would be nicer if there was a way to do this without complete privacy invasion, at the bare minimum a warrant + request to your carrier for just timestamp metadata would make me much more comfortable.
  - jimktrains2 9y ago
    What if my passenger was making the call or text on my phone (which isn't uncommon, at least with my group of friends)? What if the texts were minutes before at a parking lot, while the car was off? How does anything but a copy actually seeing a cell phone in my hand while driving prove beyond a doubt I'm guilty?
    - jnty 9y ago
      The (vast?) majority of cars on the road at any given time are single-occupant. For mobile phone offences, the proportion probably goes up for the reasons you cite.
    - vvanders 9y ago
      E911 pings should provide moving speed at the time of the text. An officer is going to take your Driver's License, so they should should be able to differentiate between you and your passengers.
      - sidlls 9y ago
        How accurate are E911 pings? What if I give my phone to a passenger? My driver's license has literally nothing to do with that. My wife and I both have expensive smart phones. We frequently let the passenger use the driver's phone for, e.g. navigational purposes. If we get in an accident while I'm driving and my wife is using my phone to configure a route, how is a cop to know that?
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - jimktrains2 9y ago
        > E911 pings should provide moving speed at the time of the text. Are E911 pings sent before you call 911? > Modern Enhanced 911 emergency systems (E911) systems automatically track the locations of people who call 911. This technology saves lives, as it allows emergency services to know the precise locations of callers. Like most technology, E911 also has a sinister side. Using a tactic called E911 pings, police can make reverse 911 calls to determine the locations of any cell phone built after 1999 - https://21stcenturylocksmith.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/how-police-listen-to-you-part-2-e911-phone-tracking-and-how-to-troll-it/ https://21stcenturylocksmith.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/how-po... seems to imply it only works when calling 911. > An officer is going to take your Driver's License, so they should should be able to differentiate between you and your passengers. They can really use my driver's license to differentiate between who was holding a phone a few minutes before? That's amazing!
  - merpnderp 9y ago
    So your argument is "think of the children" followed by "let's ticket the person even if they handed off their phone to a passenger to text, or texted at the stop light (legal in my state)?" And you'd be willing to normalize law enforcement snooping in our most private affairs for trivial traffic offenses?
    - vvanders 9y ago
      Where didn't I mention children? :) I've been run off the road, almost hit head-on and all sorts of other stupid shit that would have massive implications to my life and the life of my family from people texting + driving. Hell, last month I got rear-ended by a state employee who was looking at her phone while stopped behind me and then struck my car during yield-merge.
      - merpnderp 9y ago
        Everyone has had incidents like thsi. I had a semi cross three lanes of traffic at once and almost kill my son and I on the interstate. He was on his phone. Held it up and waved apologetically as I passed him. Still not a valid reason to let law enforcement have trivial access to people's most personal information.
- dbrian82 9y ago
  hi,i'm Brian, i had my friend help me hack my ex's email, facebook, whatsapp,and his phone cause i suspected he was cheating. all he asked for was a his phone number. he's email is (hotcyberlord425@gmail.com)..IF u need help tell him Brian referred you to him and he'll help. Am sure his going to help you do it, good luck
jimktrains2 9y ago
Is it keeping track of speed while I perform tasks? or the text I sent a few minutes ago in a parking lot with the car off going to get me a ticket? Or, what if I handed my phone to the passenger?
kamakazizuru 9y ago
this is why we just need to get self-driving cars sooner, this is solving the wrong problem.
Sargos 9y ago
This will be struck down by the courts so fast the ink won't even be dry. Your phone is the backbone of your life and contains pretty much all of your private information and allowing police to scoop all of that up without a warrant is blatantly unconstitutional.
- ShannonAlther 9y ago
  So we might hope. But I worry that when this reaches the courts, the case will be over a collision where the driver at fault has modified their phone to resist such an intrusion...
- imglorp 9y ago
  This might fall under probable cause justifying a search. For example, in a traffic collision, you tailend someone: a super common cause is distracted driving. The officer might claim a search for concrete evidence of distracted driving, like if you were accessing the phone during that moment.
- throwfast1 9y ago
  at the rate of which laws are changing, I wish I could believe ideas like this would be immediately struck down however I suspect more laws like this will be created to our surprise on a consistent basis. the chief argument being, the law needs tools to protect its citizens. the sacrifice of privacy for security has been towards security on a consistent basis for a while now, I see no reason for that to change.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    At the rate which laws are changing? Can you be as specific as you can about the priors you're using to generate this conclusion?
    - throwfast1 9y ago
      caught me, I am grumbling about net-neutrality and my inability to keep up with what is going on. the tiff between fbi and apple[0] I see as woefully unresolved. and my concern is when I hear politicians discuss it I hear in my brain the following "we need silicon valley to give us tools, they are creative and smart and I'm sure they can do it" this is not unique to D or R I actually think I recall Hillary making a comment along those lines that I do not have time to track down right now. lastly what about ISPs having their new rights to our privacy [1][2], in regards to [2] there were many that sprouted some collectecting a few hundred thousand dollars... what became of them I do not know. I suspect some agreement with apple will be reached, or worse which I am incapable of imagining. The government persists and I do not think the general populace has the vigilance to keep up. comments like " comments like that of Eric Schmidt (I am paraphrasing) -- Those who are doing nothing wrong have nothing to hide.. I pulled an all nighter and see myself grumbling but I feel this is coherent enough for others to fill in blanks. I feel powerless to change the current state of affairs and the trajectory we are heading. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/inside-the-fbis-encryption-battle-with-apple https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/inside-th... [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/senate-puts-isp-profits-over-your-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/senate-puts-isp-profit... [2] https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData
skolos 9y ago
These technologies (including actual breathlyzer) are patches that might reduce bad human driving behavior but will never eliminate it. In my opinion the only way to solve this is to stop humans from driving altogether. The biggest reason I'm excited that self driving car technology is maturing is because I won't need to worry (and often see through windshield) that a fellow driver is pressing gas pedal while paying no attention where he/she 's going.
empath75 9y ago
this seems to be unconstitutional on its face, but the courts have been willing to let cops get away with murder, so it probably would end up being allowed.
thrillgore 9y ago
How soon before Apple and Google patch whatever mechanisms this tool is using to check phone activity? Since my phone uses Qi charging, maybe I see a value in epoxying my USB port...
- profmonocle 9y ago
  My exact thought. The way they describe it, it sounds like they just plug it in and it can get usage data? If no confirmation is required on the device itself, that sounds like a security vulnerability to me.
- planteen 9y ago
  Take it a step further and put a USB killer inside the phone! https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/usb-killer-fries-devices/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/usb-killer-fries-dev...
dbg31415 9y ago
This is a horrible idea. I'm not going to unlock my phone for the cops just because they pull me over. Once they connect, who knows what data they will capture and how that will be used. Driving isn't probable case for them to look through my emails... and once I unlock my phone for them they can see everything. Also... it's stupidly easy to circumvent. Just carry an old phone and switch it out when they ask. They won't have probable cause to search the car, so it's really whatever phone you give them. I hate how they waste tax money on crap like this.
Brendinooo 9y ago
This article was really light on technological details: >The technology is still in development. But the concept is a device that would use cutting-edge software to determine whether a person's smartphone was being used at the time of an accident. Does anyone know anything about what Cellebrite does? Their website feels jargon-y on the surface, didn't get a clear sense of what all they do on an initial visit. Is what they're proposing even possible without help from Apple/Google?
- problems 9y ago
  Cellebrite sells phone exploits and "forensics tools" (read: exploits + data gathering) if I recall correctly.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- zabuni 9y ago
  Judging from the release notes of their other products, which I assume this will be based on, it relies on exploits, or having the phone unlocked. So if you run a patched google phone or an iphone, they get nothing. http://www.cellebrite.com/Releases/MobileForensics/UFED6.1_ReleaseNotes_EN.pdf http://www.cellebrite.com/Releases/MobileForensics/UFED6.1_R... The device lists makes and models of Android phones they can access, and ones they can bypass the lock. I have to assume they are using exploits. Especially with the lack of similar lists for Apple. What I have to wonder though, are they getting a special version of the product, or is the euphemism or a digital "breathalyzer" just a way of dodging the fact that they want to do warrant less digital forensics on people's devices?
finnn 9y ago
Anyone know where I can get one of these devices that can bypass the security of a smartphone and scrape it's contents? Also, will the mobile OS manufacturers be patching this gaping security hole?
- problems 9y ago
  I doubt it works as claimed. My phone when plugged in goes into charge only mode by default, there's not exactly much to exploit there when the data pins are turned off. They mention the tech is glitchy, I'm guessing because their exploits fail on many devices.
- cmdrfred 9y ago
  It also interestingly works on all devices evidently. I think it's vaporware it says it hasn't been developed yet.
ColinCochrane 9y ago
It seems like there are a couple big issues with this. 1) What if your passenger was using your phone? 2) What if you using voice-commands to send a text (especially if via CarPlay, etc...)?
- johnfn 9y ago
  True, passenger in the car does blow a hole through this. But that's only something like 5% of cars, so it'd be easy to only target the other 95%. Voice to text is certainly harder to prove right now. To me (and I know this will be a controversial opinion) I feel this is something smart phone manufacturers should work together with the government on. A simple "has a text been manually entered in the last x minutes" read out feels like a non slippery slope that may save lives by proxy.
  - jimktrains2 9y ago
    > To me (and I know this will be a controversial opinion) I feel this is something smart phone manufacturers should work together with the government on. A simple "has a text been manually entered in the last x minutes" read out feels like a non slippery slope that may save lives by proxy. It wouldn't save lives -- it's only useful after the fact. My phone shouldn't spy or taddle on me (more than's already required to connect to the cell network.)
mediaman 9y ago
The article mentions this technology is still glitchy. But how will it ever become non-glitchy? Police will not be able to constitutionally require you to provide a passcode if the phone is locked and there is established case law to support this, so the device would have to scan the phone without a passcode. Doesn't existing security on modern phones (the iPhone's secure enclave, for example) make this extremely difficult to do?
- darknoon 9y ago
  Older iPhones have exploits that allow bypassing some or all of the protections. It's likely exploits will be found or have been found against current (iPhone 7) hardware given the economic incentives. Nonetheless, I am not aware of any out in the wild. As for android phones, afaik you're pretty boned.
  - jncraton 9y ago
    That's a little alarmist. Apple at least appears to take iOS security seriously, so if there was a known flaw that was actively being used to extract data in the wild it would get patched very quickly. Why do assert that Android phones are just broken? Even with traditional full device encryption without specialized hardware support, it is very difficult to extract keys from a running device without some sort of known vulnerability. I find it highly unlikely that anyone could build a simple device that someone like a State Trooper could use to pull usable information off an encrypted phone made in the last two years old with any kind of reliability.
ben_jones 9y ago
So um, can we name and shame whatever start-up is doing this?
tomjen3 9y ago
Pointless. I mean sure if they see them do it, fine them, but I am far more concerned with drivers who are drunk - they are dangerous the entire trip.
sandworm101 9y ago
Constitutions normally only protect the content of communications, not the fact that communications occur. This isnt even the traditional metadata debate (inside v outside of an envalope). They dont care who or what you text, just the when and that you did. A mandatory tech that betrays only the time that a text was sent will probably survive legal scrutiny.
- djschnei 9y ago
  4A makes no distinction between content/things and actions. A timeline of my actions is absolutely something I am (should be) secure in. Furthermore, the idea that privacy means secrecy is too narrow even when we think only about personal information, like the contents of a journal. Suppose I give you my diary and urge you to read it. No one would think you are violating my privacy when you do so. The reason is that privacy is not about the information itself, no matter how personal it may be. Instead, this aspect of privacy – informational privacy – is about my right to control what other see, and in this example I have given you my permission. Privacy has less to do with the information we conceal from the world than with the close and trusted people that we determine to share our information with. My Actions, i.e. the act of communicating, is absolutely protected under the original intent of the fourth amendment. Now, that means very little nowadays, but your statement - "Constitutions normally only protect the content of communications, not the fact that communications occur" - is patently untrue.
djschnei 9y ago
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” - Ben Franklin
fuzzywalrus 9y ago
I just don't know how this could be provable? Either there's an OS level log that you're signing your life away on that is a huge privacy risk (and requires OS level engineering) or they're just guesstimating off data use. I can't see how they'd be able to differentiate from a hands free UX interaction from one done physically. Also, if in a car of multiple people, it begs the question who is responsible for using the phone? When traveling with friends/family/significant others/guests often we hand off our device for media usage.

38 points by dvanwag 9y ago

This is the beginning of the end. Privacy is gone, humanity is doomed. What other data will these devices skim while they are looking through the phone OS to see when the last text message you sent was? We are on a slippery slope to being completely controlled by cops and their technology. Pretty soon every law enforcement vehicle is going to come equipped with a LTE spoofer running in their car that skims all this information from the phones in the near vicinity. You'll get automatic messages in your car's dashboard display when you send a text message - "Pull over, you broke the law and sent a text while driving. A cop will be here soon to arrest you."

tptacek 9y ago
I guess it's true, in the sense that when you look at it, everything is the beginning of some end.
vvanders 9y ago
On one hand, driving isn't a right and if you're piloting a 5k+ lb projectile at 70mph(or 50k+ in the case of some truckers I've seen texting + driving) you deserve to have the goddamn book thrown at you. It would be nicer if there was a way to do this without complete privacy invasion, at the bare minimum a warrant + request to your carrier for just timestamp metadata would make me much more comfortable.
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  What if my passenger was making the call or text on my phone (which isn't uncommon, at least with my group of friends)? What if the texts were minutes before at a parking lot, while the car was off? How does anything but a copy actually seeing a cell phone in my hand while driving prove beyond a doubt I'm guilty?
  - jnty 9y ago
    The (vast?) majority of cars on the road at any given time are single-occupant. For mobile phone offences, the proportion probably goes up for the reasons you cite.
  - vvanders 9y ago
    E911 pings should provide moving speed at the time of the text. An officer is going to take your Driver's License, so they should should be able to differentiate between you and your passengers.
    - sidlls 9y ago
      How accurate are E911 pings? What if I give my phone to a passenger? My driver's license has literally nothing to do with that. My wife and I both have expensive smart phones. We frequently let the passenger use the driver's phone for, e.g. navigational purposes. If we get in an accident while I'm driving and my wife is using my phone to configure a route, how is a cop to know that?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - jimktrains2 9y ago
      > E911 pings should provide moving speed at the time of the text. Are E911 pings sent before you call 911? > Modern Enhanced 911 emergency systems (E911) systems automatically track the locations of people who call 911. This technology saves lives, as it allows emergency services to know the precise locations of callers. Like most technology, E911 also has a sinister side. Using a tactic called E911 pings, police can make reverse 911 calls to determine the locations of any cell phone built after 1999 - https://21stcenturylocksmith.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/how-police-listen-to-you-part-2-e911-phone-tracking-and-how-to-troll-it/ https://21stcenturylocksmith.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/how-po... seems to imply it only works when calling 911. > An officer is going to take your Driver's License, so they should should be able to differentiate between you and your passengers. They can really use my driver's license to differentiate between who was holding a phone a few minutes before? That's amazing!
- merpnderp 9y ago
  So your argument is "think of the children" followed by "let's ticket the person even if they handed off their phone to a passenger to text, or texted at the stop light (legal in my state)?" And you'd be willing to normalize law enforcement snooping in our most private affairs for trivial traffic offenses?
  - vvanders 9y ago
    Where didn't I mention children? :) I've been run off the road, almost hit head-on and all sorts of other stupid shit that would have massive implications to my life and the life of my family from people texting + driving. Hell, last month I got rear-ended by a state employee who was looking at her phone while stopped behind me and then struck my car during yield-merge.
    - merpnderp 9y ago
      Everyone has had incidents like thsi. I had a semi cross three lanes of traffic at once and almost kill my son and I on the interstate. He was on his phone. Held it up and waved apologetically as I passed him. Still not a valid reason to let law enforcement have trivial access to people's most personal information.
dbrian82 9y ago
hi,i'm Brian, i had my friend help me hack my ex's email, facebook, whatsapp,and his phone cause i suspected he was cheating. all he asked for was a his phone number. he's email is (hotcyberlord425@gmail.com)..IF u need help tell him Brian referred you to him and he'll help. Am sure his going to help you do it, good luck

jimktrains2 9y ago

Is it keeping track of speed while I perform tasks? or the text I sent a few minutes ago in a parking lot with the car off going to get me a ticket? Or, what if I handed my phone to the passenger?

kamakazizuru 9y ago

this is why we just need to get self-driving cars sooner, this is solving the wrong problem.

Sargos 9y ago

This will be struck down by the courts so fast the ink won't even be dry. Your phone is the backbone of your life and contains pretty much all of your private information and allowing police to scoop all of that up without a warrant is blatantly unconstitutional.

ShannonAlther 9y ago
So we might hope. But I worry that when this reaches the courts, the case will be over a collision where the driver at fault has modified their phone to resist such an intrusion...
imglorp 9y ago
This might fall under probable cause justifying a search. For example, in a traffic collision, you tailend someone: a super common cause is distracted driving. The officer might claim a search for concrete evidence of distracted driving, like if you were accessing the phone during that moment.
throwfast1 9y ago
at the rate of which laws are changing, I wish I could believe ideas like this would be immediately struck down however I suspect more laws like this will be created to our surprise on a consistent basis. the chief argument being, the law needs tools to protect its citizens. the sacrifice of privacy for security has been towards security on a consistent basis for a while now, I see no reason for that to change.
- tptacek 9y ago
  At the rate which laws are changing? Can you be as specific as you can about the priors you're using to generate this conclusion?
  - throwfast1 9y ago
    caught me, I am grumbling about net-neutrality and my inability to keep up with what is going on. the tiff between fbi and apple[0] I see as woefully unresolved. and my concern is when I hear politicians discuss it I hear in my brain the following "we need silicon valley to give us tools, they are creative and smart and I'm sure they can do it" this is not unique to D or R I actually think I recall Hillary making a comment along those lines that I do not have time to track down right now. lastly what about ISPs having their new rights to our privacy [1][2], in regards to [2] there were many that sprouted some collectecting a few hundred thousand dollars... what became of them I do not know. I suspect some agreement with apple will be reached, or worse which I am incapable of imagining. The government persists and I do not think the general populace has the vigilance to keep up. comments like " comments like that of Eric Schmidt (I am paraphrasing) -- Those who are doing nothing wrong have nothing to hide.. I pulled an all nighter and see myself grumbling but I feel this is coherent enough for others to fill in blanks. I feel powerless to change the current state of affairs and the trajectory we are heading. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/inside-the-fbis-encryption-battle-with-apple https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/inside-th... [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/senate-puts-isp-profits-over-your-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/senate-puts-isp-profit... [2] https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData

skolos 9y ago

These technologies (including actual breathlyzer) are patches that might reduce bad human driving behavior but will never eliminate it. In my opinion the only way to solve this is to stop humans from driving altogether. The biggest reason I'm excited that self driving car technology is maturing is because I won't need to worry (and often see through windshield) that a fellow driver is pressing gas pedal while paying no attention where he/she 's going.

empath75 9y ago

this seems to be unconstitutional on its face, but the courts have been willing to let cops get away with murder, so it probably would end up being allowed.

thrillgore 9y ago

How soon before Apple and Google patch whatever mechanisms this tool is using to check phone activity? Since my phone uses Qi charging, maybe I see a value in epoxying my USB port...

profmonocle 9y ago
My exact thought. The way they describe it, it sounds like they just plug it in and it can get usage data? If no confirmation is required on the device itself, that sounds like a security vulnerability to me.
planteen 9y ago
Take it a step further and put a USB killer inside the phone! https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/usb-killer-fries-devices/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/usb-killer-fries-dev...

dbg31415 9y ago

This is a horrible idea. I'm not going to unlock my phone for the cops just because they pull me over. Once they connect, who knows what data they will capture and how that will be used. Driving isn't probable case for them to look through my emails... and once I unlock my phone for them they can see everything. Also... it's stupidly easy to circumvent. Just carry an old phone and switch it out when they ask. They won't have probable cause to search the car, so it's really whatever phone you give them. I hate how they waste tax money on crap like this.

Brendinooo 9y ago

This article was really light on technological details: >The technology is still in development. But the concept is a device that would use cutting-edge software to determine whether a person's smartphone was being used at the time of an accident. Does anyone know anything about what Cellebrite does? Their website feels jargon-y on the surface, didn't get a clear sense of what all they do on an initial visit. Is what they're proposing even possible without help from Apple/Google?

problems 9y ago
Cellebrite sells phone exploits and "forensics tools" (read: exploits + data gathering) if I recall correctly.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
zabuni 9y ago
Judging from the release notes of their other products, which I assume this will be based on, it relies on exploits, or having the phone unlocked. So if you run a patched google phone or an iphone, they get nothing. http://www.cellebrite.com/Releases/MobileForensics/UFED6.1_ReleaseNotes_EN.pdf http://www.cellebrite.com/Releases/MobileForensics/UFED6.1_R... The device lists makes and models of Android phones they can access, and ones they can bypass the lock. I have to assume they are using exploits. Especially with the lack of similar lists for Apple. What I have to wonder though, are they getting a special version of the product, or is the euphemism or a digital "breathalyzer" just a way of dodging the fact that they want to do warrant less digital forensics on people's devices?

finnn 9y ago

Anyone know where I can get one of these devices that can bypass the security of a smartphone and scrape it's contents? Also, will the mobile OS manufacturers be patching this gaping security hole?

problems 9y ago
I doubt it works as claimed. My phone when plugged in goes into charge only mode by default, there's not exactly much to exploit there when the data pins are turned off. They mention the tech is glitchy, I'm guessing because their exploits fail on many devices.
cmdrfred 9y ago
It also interestingly works on all devices evidently. I think it's vaporware it says it hasn't been developed yet.

ColinCochrane 9y ago

It seems like there are a couple big issues with this. 1) What if your passenger was using your phone? 2) What if you using voice-commands to send a text (especially if via CarPlay, etc...)?

johnfn 9y ago
True, passenger in the car does blow a hole through this. But that's only something like 5% of cars, so it'd be easy to only target the other 95%. Voice to text is certainly harder to prove right now. To me (and I know this will be a controversial opinion) I feel this is something smart phone manufacturers should work together with the government on. A simple "has a text been manually entered in the last x minutes" read out feels like a non slippery slope that may save lives by proxy.
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  > To me (and I know this will be a controversial opinion) I feel this is something smart phone manufacturers should work together with the government on. A simple "has a text been manually entered in the last x minutes" read out feels like a non slippery slope that may save lives by proxy. It wouldn't save lives -- it's only useful after the fact. My phone shouldn't spy or taddle on me (more than's already required to connect to the cell network.)

mediaman 9y ago

The article mentions this technology is still glitchy. But how will it ever become non-glitchy? Police will not be able to constitutionally require you to provide a passcode if the phone is locked and there is established case law to support this, so the device would have to scan the phone without a passcode. Doesn't existing security on modern phones (the iPhone's secure enclave, for example) make this extremely difficult to do?

darknoon 9y ago
Older iPhones have exploits that allow bypassing some or all of the protections. It's likely exploits will be found or have been found against current (iPhone 7) hardware given the economic incentives. Nonetheless, I am not aware of any out in the wild. As for android phones, afaik you're pretty boned.
- jncraton 9y ago
  That's a little alarmist. Apple at least appears to take iOS security seriously, so if there was a known flaw that was actively being used to extract data in the wild it would get patched very quickly. Why do assert that Android phones are just broken? Even with traditional full device encryption without specialized hardware support, it is very difficult to extract keys from a running device without some sort of known vulnerability. I find it highly unlikely that anyone could build a simple device that someone like a State Trooper could use to pull usable information off an encrypted phone made in the last two years old with any kind of reliability.

ben_jones 9y ago

So um, can we name and shame whatever start-up is doing this?

tomjen3 9y ago

Pointless. I mean sure if they see them do it, fine them, but I am far more concerned with drivers who are drunk - they are dangerous the entire trip.

sandworm101 9y ago

Constitutions normally only protect the content of communications, not the fact that communications occur. This isnt even the traditional metadata debate (inside v outside of an envalope). They dont care who or what you text, just the when and that you did. A mandatory tech that betrays only the time that a text was sent will probably survive legal scrutiny.

djschnei 9y ago
4A makes no distinction between content/things and actions. A timeline of my actions is absolutely something I am (should be) secure in. Furthermore, the idea that privacy means secrecy is too narrow even when we think only about personal information, like the contents of a journal. Suppose I give you my diary and urge you to read it. No one would think you are violating my privacy when you do so. The reason is that privacy is not about the information itself, no matter how personal it may be. Instead, this aspect of privacy – informational privacy – is about my right to control what other see, and in this example I have given you my permission. Privacy has less to do with the information we conceal from the world than with the close and trusted people that we determine to share our information with. My Actions, i.e. the act of communicating, is absolutely protected under the original intent of the fourth amendment. Now, that means very little nowadays, but your statement - "Constitutions normally only protect the content of communications, not the fact that communications occur" - is patently untrue.

djschnei 9y ago

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” - Ben Franklin

fuzzywalrus 9y ago

I just don't know how this could be provable? Either there's an OS level log that you're signing your life away on that is a huge privacy risk (and requires OS level engineering) or they're just guesstimating off data use. I can't see how they'd be able to differentiate from a hands free UX interaction from one done physically. Also, if in a car of multiple people, it begs the question who is responsible for using the phone? When traveling with friends/family/significant others/guests often we hand off our device for media usage.