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Roadside Assistance System Used for Eavesdropping
pegr writes "El Reg has a story about how a US appeals court has 'put the brakes on an FBI surveillance technique that turns an automobile driver's on-board vehicle navigation system into a covert eavesdropping device, after finding that the spying effectively disables the system's emergency and roadside assistance features.' Seems the right to get the service you pay for trumps the 'right' of the FBI to spy on you, using your own vehicle's systems!"
OnSpy, how can we help you?
What's most disturbing is that they only passed this because it prevented the saftey features from working, and not because it was infringing on rights of privacy. Crap, if they have a bug order anyway, can't they just bug the car?
I mean, the cops are listening... so... uh... what's the point of having roadside assistance? If the car breaks down, the FBI or whoever was listening could repsond!
I remember CSIS was slammed some years ago for agents listening in on random phone calls to Canadian citizens, and gossiping about what was going on with other agents, in a kind of Real-Radio type gagfest.
It's a good sign from the states that they are stopping this stuff, but I don't have much faith in that being followed by every cop out there. If they want to know what you're up to, trust me... they will.
when the guys who show up to fix your flat tire are wearing dark sunglasses.
2 1337 4 u!
"Although the bottom line is that the surveillance order was rejected, the real effect of it is that this kind of monitoring is permissible as long it does not interfere with the service."
So how long until there is a federal law or regulation requiring these services to be able to work effectively even when the FBI is tapping in?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
I could say something about being paranoid and not owning a car that comes with these systems (I really don't have a use for the roadside assistance anyway -- that's what my cell phone is for), but if the FBI really wants to bug your car, they are going to be able to do so. This just makes it easier for them. I guess as far as the civil liberties go I guess I'm alright with it as long as they had to get a warrant in the first place to do this. The scary thought is the idea of a private corporation or individual using this to spy on you.... don't ever dump/piss off that cute chick you met last night who works at the OnStar call-center :)
Interestingly enough, it seems that it was overturned because it stopped the system from providing the service that was sold to the customer (emergency notification when the button was pressed/airbags deployed in an accident). I wonder if the Feds will mandate that future versions of this system have the capability to spy on the customer and still work as provided?
You'd think the FBI would have been smarter then this. What would have happened if the suspect had a flat tire and tried to use his roadside assistance? Gig might have been up pretty quickly. I suspect some techie didn't do his homework....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
... but I wonder how long it'll take before any system like this will have to have 2 channels, one for the security "people", and one for you...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Thing is, it might be fun to mess with people who are attempting to use such a system against you. Record the audio from movies where people are conspiring, and play it back when the car is driving. Shield the GPS receiver so that it doesn't receive properly, stuff like that.
Or, just learn how to be relatively self-sufficient on the road, so that they have a much harder time using things against you...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
What about installation of a trojan to turn on and transmit audio from your PC's microphone, or pictures from the web cam?
I'll bet this is already part of the FBI's arsenal.
Prudence dictates disconnecting that microphone when not in use. And hardware based (less easily suborned) monitoring of outbound network traffic.
(The accomplished tin-foil hat wearer will suggest that a disconnected microphone will just mean a free-standing bug being installed, and he'd be right. But why connect the mic and make it easy for you to be spied upon?)
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
No, go ahead and read the article. It's ok, I'll wait...
Here, I'll do the heavy lifting for you...
"Under federal law, the FBI can obtain court orders compelling telecommunications companies, ISPs, landlords and others to assist the Bureau in spying on customers. But the law requires that surveillance in such cases be conducted "unobtrusively and with a minimum of interference with the services" provided by the company."
There. You want to try again?
LOS ANGELES, Nov 1, 2033 -- Due to the overwhelming success of historic actions such as the PATRIOT act and the DMCA, this morning the United Corporations of America announced they will be launching SafeCam, their latest security-related legislative product.
Also known in the UCA as "consumers who look and act different", TERRORISTS have become a major threat to the consumer's way of life. The fact that he or she could be buying products from a real TERRORIST should send shivers down the spine of any good white God-fearing American consumer. There has been no way to effectively keep these TERRORISTS out of the marketplace, until now.
SafeCam is a nanochip-sized machine which locates consumer homes and positions itself in key strategic positions. The product records video and audio data of the consumer and his or her family, scanning their food, office, computer, medical records, and general lifestyle attributes. It automatically bills the consumer and sends everything it finds to a central server to be analyzed and, if necessary, be sent to the Department of Consumer Protection. If it uncovers evidence that a consumer might be a TERRORIST, it will alert the local Law Enforcement corporation using the tried-and-tested "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" algorithm so successfully employed by previous UCA legislative products. Evidence can include non-Christian religious material, photographs of middle-eastern-looking people, and any product with questionable foreign origin.
In the past, consumers have reacted positively to similar legislative products. Since non-TERRORISTS have nothing to hide, they do not mind 24-hour monitoring and reporting, and are now accustomed to the level of security the UCA provides.
The UCA reports they plan to initially deploy ten SafeCam devices for every one consumer into the air supply later this month. Of course, consumers may choose to block these devices from entering their homes and businesses, but this blocking will be used against them as evidence, because who else but a TERRORIST would be afraid of Big Brother?
About the United Corporations of America
The UCA is the world leader in consumer protection legislative products. Representing corporations throughout the world, the UCA's mission is to provide a safe environment for all consumers to enjoy working, spending, and enriching member corporations.
This document is hereby released to the public domain. You may (and are encouraged to) reproduce, republish, read, modify, and/or archive it without limitation.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a victory for privacy and liberty (albeit a small one), but isn't this setting a precident that's kind of scary? I mean as long as they don't interfere with the service it's ok? Granted, I'm sure that by the time the FBI is taking out warrants to listen in on your conversations you've probably already got worse things to worry about than this, but with everything becoming more interactive, how far away are we from losing what little is left of our privacy? Scary...
Ok, to start, you will notice that first in order for this surveilence to be activated, they need a cout order. IOW they need a warrant. That makes this surveilence no different than a wire tap or sitting outside your house with a mic aimed at your window. If they hae the warrant, they can monitor.
Second, this seems overly paranoid on the safety issue, given that if the FBI is listening in, I'm sure they would be able to hear the person they're tapping scream "Holy FUCK!" before he hits the semi truck. And I highly doubt the FBI is just gonna sit on their ass wondering why they aren't getting any more sound.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Scene: Interrogation room, deep under FBI headquarters.
AGENT: We know you did it. We have proof.
YOU: You've got nothing!
AGENT: [to other agent] Bob, play the tape.
YOUR VOICE: I'd like the double cheeseburger meal, supersized with no pickles
MCDONALDS DRIVE THROUGH: What kind of drink?
YOUR VOICE: A large Coke please
AGENT: Damnit. Fast forward the tape a bit.
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...
must be a great country he comes from where you can be "free" and be spyed on all at the same time, isnt democracy wonderful
Please report to your local Block Warden for re-education and social adjustment, Citizen!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
They can already track you via your (digital -- not analog, far as I know with analog all they can tell is which sector around the tower you are in -- a general area but not an exact location -- correct me if I'm wrong) cell phone. That's how they caught that college kid last year sending the mailbombs (? something like that) -- he turned his cell phone on.
At least with a cell phone, if you are truly paranoid, you just take the batteries out of it. Not much the non-automotive guy can do to disable these systems (or the black-boxes that record information during an accident). Besides, the cell phone has legitimate uses -- my new Verizon phone supposedly has the ability to give my exact GPS coordinates to 911 centers.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If the car breaks down, the FBI or whoever was listening could repsond!
Actually, in the majority opinion, they addressed that: "The FBI, however well-intentioned, is not in the business of providing emergency
road services and might well have better things to do when listening in than respond with such services to the electronic signal sent over the line."
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Sure they could bug your car anyway, but you could sweep for bugs (if you were a criminal, anyway).
The difference is that they're turning something that is a harmless, useful commercial service and remotely exploiting it for monitoring.
Then again, I suppose a long-range camera exploits "harmless photons" for the same purpose, which is why it would have been allowed, and the safety issues are the only reason the court rules against the FBI.
Other than revealing that the FBI actively pursues these kinds of tactics, which most of us already knew (perhaps not to this extent), this article only discusses one rare exception to that policy and laws which govern it.
# Erik
Great, now that everyone knows it's possible, how long until we start to see plans for building your own box to enable this "feature" in other people's vehicles?
Wait a minute. I got it. You could play with your magic nose goblins.
And this is the exact reason I got a Garmin StreetPilot III... that and my tin-foil hat ofcourse...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
After reading this I'm starting a tin-foil car cover company!
Have been developing systems like this for years.
A few telematics systems lets you silently call upp the vehicle and eavesdrop using the handsfree functionality, but most don't. Some of the protocols supports it, while the vehicle implementation of it does not.
What a call center operator can always do, however, is silently track your car. It usually works by calling up the vehicle over Verizon's WIN4 net, transmit authentication codes and a request to track the car's progress. Every five-fifteen minutes thereafter, the car will call up and transmit a GPS log to the call center.
Remote door unlock is often also a trivial matter.
No, you cannot call up and hijack the vehicle from the ordinary phone network since all WIN4 subscriptions have an areacode of 500, rending them unreachable from any ordinary phone. Calling out to them is a long and tedious process. On top of this, every vehicle usually have a unique passcode generated when the car is built. A list of these passcodes are then sent directly to the call center who uses them to access the cars.
No, you cannot reprogram the 800 number dialled by the vehicle in case of a crash or other event. The number is setup in the WIN4 network. No matter what number you are trying to get to from the handset, you will end up at the same DNIS.
My $.05
Another literary reference that comes to mind is the saboteurs in Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano." Everyone was always suspected of being a saboteur. In the finale there is chaos--people destroying machines everywhere. One guy exclusively destroyed traffic lights. Technology can certainly enslave as easily as it can liberate.
Seriously, though, this kind of intrusive surveillance does justify paranoia and, ironically, the very anti-government sentiments it is meant to address. And people scoff when I complain about GPS in all new cell phones. Not that they couldn't triangulate coordinates anyway, with an older cell phone.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
My 'car-a-oke' renditions of todays top hits are really not to be missed.
You know what?
I'm going to start selling a little clip on to the cell phone to light up or beep when it detects that the phone is transmitting. I bet the paranoid would pay $50 for that. It wouldn't cost more than a few bucks to make, with a mini-circuits rf amplifier and mixer.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
here in San Antonio, an SAPD special street/drug crimes unit has been known to call up the Transguide Operators (highway cameras for traffic and safety conditions) and ask them to train a camera on a suspect or two.
supposedly this pissed off some city officials and the practiced has been "banned" - yeah, right.
I asked the dealership where the onstar equipment was, and they said it was buried deep in the dash somewhere, totally inaccessible. I had the vehicle home and 5 minutes later found it underneath the passenger rear seat. It's not labelled "ONSTAR UNIT", but it was pretty obvious. You pull the cover back and there is a nice motorola built case with two data cables going into it and a 3rd coax connection (for the antenna).
The Onstar stats say they recover 500 vehicles a month. Thieves really are idiots. All you have to do is disconnect the onstar box, or, at the very least pull out the antenna cable.
I was considering disconnecting the unit after my year was up, but then my wife's cousin who consults for onstar was telling me that they will perform 'public safety' services even if you don't have an active account. He said if you're even in a bad neighborhood, just hit the button and say "I don't feel safe", and they'll guide you out.
Interestingly, the onstar documentation doesn't come right out and say it, but it implies that they can use the onstar system (with built in gps) for reasons other than helping you. I can envision a situation where one parent might 'kidnap' their own kid and the other parent could get a court to use the Onstar system to locate the vehicle (or something like that).
A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.
I call upon you, the American People to realize that this action is only used to gather intelligence on the Axels of Evil - these terrorists in our midsts. This only furthers our resolve to do whatever we must to protect your freedom.
They don't have to leave their seats to use onspy. Besides, the warrent requirement is a complete non issue. With roving wiretaps the FBI can ask for a warrent in their favorite jurisdiction and it follows you everywhere. And under the patriot act, they don't even have to be investigating a crime, but only have guess that maybe they might hear something that could be relevant to a terrorism investigation. So what does this mean? It means that the fbi could readily get a warrent on your iranian doctor friend who's been sending money back home to a charitable organization who (unbeknownst to him) is suspected of having questionable ties. Since roving wiretaps follow him around, and say, you play cards with him on tuesday night they can tap your phone without getting another warrent. This is absolutely insane people.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This what have i been telling you people all along.. but nooooo all i get is fucking 'tin foil hat' cracks..
Everyone needs to wake up and look around at what is going on... get your heads out of the sand and fight for what freedom we have left.... before its too late ( if it isnt already )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Honest citizens are still in danger because of roving wiretap provisions and the lower standard needed for a warrent from the patriot act.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
When I bought a car recently, the finance guy tried to sell me Lo-Jack, which if you don't know is a microwave transmitter that the police can remotely enable and then pick up the signal from their squad car, ostensibly to retrieve your car when it gets stolen.
The relevent part is when he said "... and since it's only turned on when you report your car stolen, it isn't Big Brother-ish like On-Star and the others".
A microwave transmitter in my car that is directly controlled and monitored by the police. And that's not Big Brotherish. Riiiight.
That the guy seemed genuinely startled when I pointed out this obvious problem tells me that we've already lost.
The enemies of Democracy are
China already does this to a limited extent. If you are executed for your crime they charge the family for the price of the bullet.
r ationale/additional_reasons/part3.shtml
From http://www.boycottmadeinchina.org/en/why_boycott/
"The immediate families of the victims were, formerly, required to be present at the execution and to make a denouncement of the victim. This is no longer mandatory. However, the victim's family is still required to pay the cost of the bullet used in the execution."
Hmm, I always thought it was a nonvolatile memory solution like CompactFlash cards that don't require a battery to retain the data. But then I've never cracked apart a cell phone to see. Guess what I'll be doing with my old Nokia when I get home tonight? :)
In any case, if this is true (and it probably is -- I'm not doubting you) I doubt that battery is powerful enough to transmit for very long. I suppose if you are truly paranoid you could say that they could have a feature built in to enable it to transmit just long enough for them to locate you, but how are they going to activate that feature if you have already removed the primary battery?
Are you telling me that the phone still checks the network every so-often even with the primary battery removed to see if there are new commands waiting for it? That's a bit of a stretch.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No, I don't think so. I work in the mobile phone industry. For GSM, you can browse the standards at www.3gpp.org. Document 07.07 specifies inter alia a way of setting up a network-initiated GPRS connection (i.e. a data connection), but I've never come across a way of setting up a network-initiated voice connection and I'm virtually certain it doesn't exist.
Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat Wisconsin
"He was the lone senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act last fall, has been its most vocal critic, warning that the act infringes on constitutional freedoms. He also introduced legislation that would put on hold the government's "Total Information Awareness Program"."
Statement Of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold On The Anti-Terrorism Bill From The Senate Floor
epic.org mentions Feingold
Privacy rights in the 18th century were virtually nonexistent, at best. Remember, in America, this was a country that was rebelling against a monarchy that was very nearly dictatorial in its treatment of its colonies. Far from expecting a certain level of privacy from monitoring, the founding fathers had to be constantly aware of the potential of the British-controlled government monitoring of their every move, without any redress available. The very reason that the Bill of Rights reads as it does was because the founders were extraordinarily distrustful of government - they knew that it had to exist for a country to work, but that it must be limited in nature for freedom to flourish. Thus, the created a Constitution that placed significant limits upon the government. You'd better believe that they knew that privacy could be taken away - it is one of the chief tools of a repressive government, and the founders of this nation had gone through a war to throw off the yoke of a very repressive government. But these were extremely smart guys...and fortunate for us. They knew that formulating a Bill of Rights that was very specific in what it granted would just allow the government to work around the specificity. So they framed the 12 Amendments very broadly, without making any reference to privacy as such, and in the end, they had enumerated rules for a government in its dealing with its citizens in such a way that their privacy was guaranteed, without specifically guaranteeing their privacy. That, to me, is extraordinary.
They didn't have to envision incredible technological advances. The wording of the Bill of Rights is so broad that it encompasses them. It's not necessary to consider the context of the Constitution's era. It truely is an ageless document because the founders did not strive to address specific issues, but concerned themselves with broad, sweeping concepts. They allowed their descendents to place specific issues against the broad concepts of the Constitution. And that shows exceptional forsight...and trust.
-h-