3 ms·

Flock-style scanners now track WiFi/Bluetooth identity from devices in your car

65 points by ck2 2mo ago

ck2 2mo ago
mirror: https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/flock-style-scanners-now-pick-100000424.html https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/flock-style-sc... we have reached the point where now at any point in the future they can trace anyone backwards for months without a warrant (and without probable cause) they can pick a person and then just look for a crime to prosecute since most people break laws daily without realizing it
- cucumber3732842 2mo ago
  Nah, they won't prosecute for a crime. People accused of crimes have these pesky things called rights. They'll find some civil infraction to threaten you with. You'll be cast into a kangaroo system where the deck is stacked against you, you have no presumption of innocence, no right to not self incriminate, you have nearly no right to see let alone question the evidince against you. And of course the civil infraction will have some absurd dollar figure attached thanks to all the useful idiots who think that the fine "needs to be a deterrent".
  - N_Lens 2mo ago
    (In)justice system
  - jambalaya8 2mo ago
    they said can. and some do.
4d4m 2mo ago
Friendly reminder many manufactured goods also have RFID stickers within, used to track/trace parts during factory assembly. These are active and readable at all times by systems like this - irrespective of if the devices are powered.
- ck2 2mo ago
  ha my shoes have RFid tags for stock tracking, I wonder how far away that can be read even most watches people have now broadcast bluetooth MAC (and maybe ANT+ id) and that data is never ever going away, there's no warrant and no law to regulate it they still have tracking data for everyone who visited Epstein Island decades ago (which is even more crazy that no-one was prosecuted out of hundreds)
  - foxyv 2mo ago
    You can read a passive RFID from about 30 meters with the right equipment.
    - VTimofeenko 2mo ago
      "Right equipment" is probably very load bearing. Wouls need a very high gain directional antenna, not sure if a camera next to the road has the space to pick this up from a moving car.
      - foxyv 2mo ago
        Long distance RFID readers are currently used mostly for warehouse inventory tracking. Nowadays you can steer antennas using phased arrays like they use in 5G. https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/rfid/rfid-readers.html?tactic_type=SEMB&tactic_detail=AV_RFID_PortfolioEN_NA_None&utm_source=microsoft_ads,bing&utm_medium=paid_search,cpc&msclkid=98eeee07011e14f5274084836df80190&utm_campaign=MicrosoftAds%7CNA%7CUS-US%7CEN%7CPortfolio%7CBOF%7CRFID%7CNon-Brand&utm_term=long%20range%20rfid%20scanner&utm_content=RFID%20Long%20Range%20Scanners&page=1 https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/rfid/rfid-readers.html?... Although, as I understand it, Flock itself is mostly just looking for Bluetooth, BTLE, TPMS Sensors, and Wifi devices.
- rolph 2mo ago
  its fun when you shuffle these stickers around... https://rfidtag.com/how-to-program-rfid-tags/ https://rfidtag.com/how-to-program-rfid-tags/
cluckindan 2mo ago
Malls and stores have done this for a decade and then some, from devices on you.
- iberator 2mo ago
  wow. is it legal to capture and process such data?
  - mikestew 2mo ago
    So the question is, is it legal for me to receive radio emissions that your device freely emits?
    - tavavex 2mo ago
      The question is, is it legal for you to collect everyone's emissions automatically, process them, derive conclusions from them and sell them to third parties? The assumption that "if doing 1x of something is okay, then surely so is doing 10000x of it fully automatically" has gone unchallenged for too long. We can see the societal implications this has had so far, and it's fully logically consistent to be able to say no to that. Just because I can see you out on the street, broadcasting your visual appearance for the whole world, doesn't mean I should be allowed to record you, analyze your appearance, retain recordings of you forever, automatically track you across the places that many cameras spotted you at and then resell that data to advertising and tech corporations. Small-scale individual recording is okay. Automated mass recording and processing without an extremely convincing reason and thorough limitations and checks should not be.
      - 15155 2mo ago
        As an exercise, write the statute that you think would prevent this behavior. Then, let's poke holes in it.
        tavavex 2mo ago
        "Solve this problem perfectly right now with no edge cases whatsoever, or it's not even worth discussing." The go-to mantra for opposing any complex proposed change. You know, lots of issues in society can't be solved perfectly or on the first try, should we do nothing about those too? There are laws based on ambiguity and discretion, you know. Those seem to work. How about we get anything in place and iron out the kinks later instead of resigning on step one? Making the idea of retaining irrelevant private data even slightly toxic to businesses will already have a chilling effect where your parking app or grocery store will think twice before stuffing every corner of their hard drives with terabytes of surveillance data. And discretion, tests, broad adjectives - that's just the last resort of the legal system. I think that the terms can be defined much more concretely in reality by someone who knows more than me about law. Ask 100 anti-surveillance advocates to choose examples of surveillance from a list and I guarantee that most of them will agree on most answers. Do you believe there's a limitation of reality that prevents the drafting of a law that encompasses at least 90% of the points that people are able to agree on? Can we not distill the actions that make them think 'this is surveillance, but this isn't' into a list of rules?
N_Lens 2mo ago
Torment Nexus looms ever closer.
- beams_of_light 2mo ago
  Sad, isn’t it? I saw this coming many years ago, as I’m sure many of you did. We create so much metadata in our lives, both physically and digitally evident, that our past and future behaviors can be observed at a level of detail only previously imagined in dystopian fiction. We learned about the government’s domestic surveillance programs from Snowden over 13 years ago. About ten years ago, I learned about fiber optic and WiFi sensing techniques that would make the hair stand up on the back of most people’s necks. 14 years ago, stories were written about a pregnant teen whose parents were sent coupons from Target for baby items, because Target had automatically marked the girl as pregnant because of her shopping habits. Computers, vehicles, and software that we pay for have so many built in tracking mechanisms that I think circumventing them would make you more of a surveillance target at this point than not. I know people try to rationalize the whole “I said something near my phone and Facebook gave me ad impressions for it” as simply the algorithm finding a strong signal in your browsing data, but I’m fully convinced that Meta apps are listening on iOS, even with the screen locked. Those who enable these sorts of things should feel shame. You’d have to be a complete asshole to do this stuff to fellow humans just for money.
metalman 2mo ago
there were bluetooth recievers placed in road beds when tire pressure sensors started useing bluetooth, 20? years ago? local garage does not even ask before ripping them out and replacing with conventional valve stems.
SapporoChris 2mo ago
Can this not be mitigated by simply turning off WiFi and Bluetooth on the devices?

65 points by ck2 2mo ago

ck2 2mo ago

mirror: https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/flock-style-scanners-now-pick-100000424.html https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/flock-style-sc... we have reached the point where now at any point in the future they can trace anyone backwards for months without a warrant (and without probable cause) they can pick a person and then just look for a crime to prosecute since most people break laws daily without realizing it

cucumber3732842 2mo ago
Nah, they won't prosecute for a crime. People accused of crimes have these pesky things called rights. They'll find some civil infraction to threaten you with. You'll be cast into a kangaroo system where the deck is stacked against you, you have no presumption of innocence, no right to not self incriminate, you have nearly no right to see let alone question the evidince against you. And of course the civil infraction will have some absurd dollar figure attached thanks to all the useful idiots who think that the fine "needs to be a deterrent".
- N_Lens 2mo ago
  (In)justice system
- jambalaya8 2mo ago
  they said can. and some do.

4d4m 2mo ago

Friendly reminder many manufactured goods also have RFID stickers within, used to track/trace parts during factory assembly. These are active and readable at all times by systems like this - irrespective of if the devices are powered.

ck2 2mo ago
ha my shoes have RFid tags for stock tracking, I wonder how far away that can be read even most watches people have now broadcast bluetooth MAC (and maybe ANT+ id) and that data is never ever going away, there's no warrant and no law to regulate it they still have tracking data for everyone who visited Epstein Island decades ago (which is even more crazy that no-one was prosecuted out of hundreds)
- foxyv 2mo ago
  You can read a passive RFID from about 30 meters with the right equipment.
  - VTimofeenko 2mo ago
    "Right equipment" is probably very load bearing. Wouls need a very high gain directional antenna, not sure if a camera next to the road has the space to pick this up from a moving car.
    - foxyv 2mo ago
      Long distance RFID readers are currently used mostly for warehouse inventory tracking. Nowadays you can steer antennas using phased arrays like they use in 5G. https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/rfid/rfid-readers.html?tactic_type=SEMB&tactic_detail=AV_RFID_PortfolioEN_NA_None&utm_source=microsoft_ads,bing&utm_medium=paid_search,cpc&msclkid=98eeee07011e14f5274084836df80190&utm_campaign=MicrosoftAds%7CNA%7CUS-US%7CEN%7CPortfolio%7CBOF%7CRFID%7CNon-Brand&utm_term=long%20range%20rfid%20scanner&utm_content=RFID%20Long%20Range%20Scanners&page=1 https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/rfid/rfid-readers.html?... Although, as I understand it, Flock itself is mostly just looking for Bluetooth, BTLE, TPMS Sensors, and Wifi devices.
rolph 2mo ago
its fun when you shuffle these stickers around... https://rfidtag.com/how-to-program-rfid-tags/ https://rfidtag.com/how-to-program-rfid-tags/

cluckindan 2mo ago

Malls and stores have done this for a decade and then some, from devices on you.

iberator 2mo ago
wow. is it legal to capture and process such data?
- mikestew 2mo ago
  So the question is, is it legal for me to receive radio emissions that your device freely emits?
  - tavavex 2mo ago
    The question is, is it legal for you to collect everyone's emissions automatically, process them, derive conclusions from them and sell them to third parties? The assumption that "if doing 1x of something is okay, then surely so is doing 10000x of it fully automatically" has gone unchallenged for too long. We can see the societal implications this has had so far, and it's fully logically consistent to be able to say no to that. Just because I can see you out on the street, broadcasting your visual appearance for the whole world, doesn't mean I should be allowed to record you, analyze your appearance, retain recordings of you forever, automatically track you across the places that many cameras spotted you at and then resell that data to advertising and tech corporations. Small-scale individual recording is okay. Automated mass recording and processing without an extremely convincing reason and thorough limitations and checks should not be.
    - 15155 2mo ago
      As an exercise, write the statute that you think would prevent this behavior. Then, let's poke holes in it.
      - tavavex 2mo ago
        "Solve this problem perfectly right now with no edge cases whatsoever, or it's not even worth discussing." The go-to mantra for opposing any complex proposed change. You know, lots of issues in society can't be solved perfectly or on the first try, should we do nothing about those too? There are laws based on ambiguity and discretion, you know. Those seem to work. How about we get anything in place and iron out the kinks later instead of resigning on step one? Making the idea of retaining irrelevant private data even slightly toxic to businesses will already have a chilling effect where your parking app or grocery store will think twice before stuffing every corner of their hard drives with terabytes of surveillance data. And discretion, tests, broad adjectives - that's just the last resort of the legal system. I think that the terms can be defined much more concretely in reality by someone who knows more than me about law. Ask 100 anti-surveillance advocates to choose examples of surveillance from a list and I guarantee that most of them will agree on most answers. Do you believe there's a limitation of reality that prevents the drafting of a law that encompasses at least 90% of the points that people are able to agree on? Can we not distill the actions that make them think 'this is surveillance, but this isn't' into a list of rules?

N_Lens 2mo ago

Torment Nexus looms ever closer.

beams_of_light 2mo ago
Sad, isn’t it? I saw this coming many years ago, as I’m sure many of you did. We create so much metadata in our lives, both physically and digitally evident, that our past and future behaviors can be observed at a level of detail only previously imagined in dystopian fiction. We learned about the government’s domestic surveillance programs from Snowden over 13 years ago. About ten years ago, I learned about fiber optic and WiFi sensing techniques that would make the hair stand up on the back of most people’s necks. 14 years ago, stories were written about a pregnant teen whose parents were sent coupons from Target for baby items, because Target had automatically marked the girl as pregnant because of her shopping habits. Computers, vehicles, and software that we pay for have so many built in tracking mechanisms that I think circumventing them would make you more of a surveillance target at this point than not. I know people try to rationalize the whole “I said something near my phone and Facebook gave me ad impressions for it” as simply the algorithm finding a strong signal in your browsing data, but I’m fully convinced that Meta apps are listening on iOS, even with the screen locked. Those who enable these sorts of things should feel shame. You’d have to be a complete asshole to do this stuff to fellow humans just for money.

metalman 2mo ago

there were bluetooth recievers placed in road beds when tire pressure sensors started useing bluetooth, 20? years ago? local garage does not even ask before ripping them out and replacing with conventional valve stems.

SapporoChris 2mo ago

Can this not be mitigated by simply turning off WiFi and Bluetooth on the devices?