4 ms·

“Why, what fast payments you have!” All the better to track you with, my dear. Those drive by toll scanners are great for paying tolls. Also really great for

by zaroth 8y ago

“Why, what fast payments you have!” All the better to track you with, my dear. Those drive by toll scanners are great for paying tolls. Also really great for recording, for all time, everyone who drives under them. Standardizing a fare payment system just does the same for mass transit. Not that there aren’t programs to add facial recognition in all these spaces which could be good enough, but why make it easy? Until there’s a Federal privacy framework which limits the amount and duration of information the government can collect, and some reason to believe the NSA, DEA, and FBI are actually adhering to those agreements, above and beyond admissibility in court, I am staunchly opposed to any of these systems in the name of efficiency. It needs to be illegal to use these tolling systems for surveillance, because the next “gas tax” is squaring up to be a GPS based mileage tax.

xxpor 8y ago
There's literally nothing stopping govts from putting up licence plate scanners everywhere already. This seems like a silly criticism.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > There's literally nothing stopping govts from putting up licence plate scanners everywhere already. Except for the courts which have started to tell them that they can't do that.
- astrodust 8y ago
  What, you think they haven't already done that? Many toll highways use license plate recognition to do billing for non-transponder cars.
- save_ferris 8y ago
  Not to mention the networked telemetry systems present in almost all modern cars. GPS is standard, as are "smart" entertainment consoles. Our cars already generate tons of data that can be used to track us, I'd be far more comfortable with recording a single data point on a toll road than I would having every single one of my movements tracked.
jedberg 8y ago
Do you only use cash wherever you go? And no cell phone? Because you can already be tracked by credit cards and cell phones anyway. You will be tracked, you might as well get some benefit from it, right?
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  Or we could get transit systems that won't track us, payment systems that won't track us and cell phones that won't track us.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Hoping that that is like hoping for going back to when there was no income tax. The government gets too much benefit from the tracking, there is no way they'd ever give it up, just like the income tax.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      Who is "the government"? That guy sounds like a jerk. If only we had some kind of system for changing the government when a majority of people agree that we've had enough of the existing policies.
    - suff 8y ago
      That's why innovation happens. People don't just role over, they invent open source cell phones, and cryptocurrency etc.
darren_ 8y ago
> Standardizing a fare payment system just does the same for mass transit. No it doesn't. Japan has a standardized mass transit fare payment system, covering close enough to the entire country, and you can get in on that with a card purchased, and topped up, completely anonymously in cash.
- lovemenot 8y ago
  Presumably you mean Suica and compatible systems like Passmo. It's anonymous at point of top-up, that's true. But when the card is issued, an ID should be shown.
  - darren_ 8y ago
    ? This isn't true at all. You buy them at vending machines in the station. You _can_ add your name to them if you want. You don't have to.
    - lovemenot 8y ago
      Good to know, thanks. I'll get a new anonymous card.
- grawprog 8y ago
  The fare card system they implemented here tracks everywhere you go on their system. If you use the tickets you pay more, if you don't register your card, good luck when something goes wrong with it(and it will). Your options are, travel anonymously, and pay more or risk losing the money on your fare card due to them just deciding not work anymore, loss etc. I've gone through 4 now in about three years. Two just stopped working and i lost two. They also don't give your $6 deposit back, so i've now spent an extra $24 i'll never get back, for nothing on top of the money i lost on the first two cards. I've registered them since. Or Get tracked constantly any and everywhere you go on transit.
  - darren_ 8y ago
    > If you use the tickets you pay more, if you don't register your card, good luck when something goes wrong with it(and it will). Counterpoint: No it won't, necessarily. I've never had an issue with one of these IC cards (edit: in over 10 years of using them). I've lost one, that's it. I've lost more of the paper tickets _inside_ the station than that. Do you have actual data on the failure rates of IC cards?

by zaroth 8y ago

xxpor 8y ago

There's literally nothing stopping govts from putting up licence plate scanners everywhere already. This seems like a silly criticism.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> There's literally nothing stopping govts from putting up licence plate scanners everywhere already. Except for the courts which have started to tell them that they can't do that.
astrodust 8y ago
What, you think they haven't already done that? Many toll highways use license plate recognition to do billing for non-transponder cars.
save_ferris 8y ago
Not to mention the networked telemetry systems present in almost all modern cars. GPS is standard, as are "smart" entertainment consoles. Our cars already generate tons of data that can be used to track us, I'd be far more comfortable with recording a single data point on a toll road than I would having every single one of my movements tracked.

jedberg 8y ago

Do you only use cash wherever you go? And no cell phone? Because you can already be tracked by credit cards and cell phones anyway. You will be tracked, you might as well get some benefit from it, right?

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
Or we could get transit systems that won't track us, payment systems that won't track us and cell phones that won't track us.
- jedberg 8y ago
  Hoping that that is like hoping for going back to when there was no income tax. The government gets too much benefit from the tracking, there is no way they'd ever give it up, just like the income tax.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    Who is "the government"? That guy sounds like a jerk. If only we had some kind of system for changing the government when a majority of people agree that we've had enough of the existing policies.
  - suff 8y ago
    That's why innovation happens. People don't just role over, they invent open source cell phones, and cryptocurrency etc.

darren_ 8y ago

> Standardizing a fare payment system just does the same for mass transit. No it doesn't. Japan has a standardized mass transit fare payment system, covering close enough to the entire country, and you can get in on that with a card purchased, and topped up, completely anonymously in cash.

lovemenot 8y ago
Presumably you mean Suica and compatible systems like Passmo. It's anonymous at point of top-up, that's true. But when the card is issued, an ID should be shown.
- darren_ 8y ago
  ? This isn't true at all. You buy them at vending machines in the station. You _can_ add your name to them if you want. You don't have to.
  - lovemenot 8y ago
    Good to know, thanks. I'll get a new anonymous card.
grawprog 8y ago
The fare card system they implemented here tracks everywhere you go on their system. If you use the tickets you pay more, if you don't register your card, good luck when something goes wrong with it(and it will). Your options are, travel anonymously, and pay more or risk losing the money on your fare card due to them just deciding not work anymore, loss etc. I've gone through 4 now in about three years. Two just stopped working and i lost two. They also don't give your $6 deposit back, so i've now spent an extra $24 i'll never get back, for nothing on top of the money i lost on the first two cards. I've registered them since. Or Get tracked constantly any and everywhere you go on transit.
- darren_ 8y ago
  > If you use the tickets you pay more, if you don't register your card, good luck when something goes wrong with it(and it will). Counterpoint: No it won't, necessarily. I've never had an issue with one of these IC cards (edit: in over 10 years of using them). I've lost one, that's it. I've lost more of the paper tickets _inside_ the station than that. Do you have actual data on the failure rates of IC cards?