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Texas Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars
An anonymous reader submits "In section 601.507 of Texas HB 2893, the Texas Legislature is considering replacing all vehicle inspection stickers with RFID tags. The legislation also makes provision for the government to use the devices for insurance enforcement. The bill contains limited privacy provisions, but does not seem to exclude other law enforcement usage."
...RFID works only at a very close range. The tags themselves are powered by the radio transceivers that in turn detect them, making their range, by nature, very limited. This isn't a global universal tracking mechanism.
It's a unique vehicle identifier that can be deciphered using the electromagnetic spectrum, similar to the way human eyes or a tollbooth camera might use visible light to view a license plate, another unique vehicle identifier.
Texas is planning on using it for automated vehicle registration and toll booths (relevant bill excerpt below).
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable use of technology to me. Are we to now fear any new legislation that doesn't specifically and explicitly "exclude [...] law enforcement usage", even if utterly irrelevant?
This may sound trite, but:
RFID != bad
Anything - including a license plate or an old fashioned inspection sticker - can be abused for illegitimate purposes or to abridge someone's privacy. And keep in mind that "illegitimate purposes" is awfully subjective. But trampling - or spreading FUD about - technology is not the answer.
Relevant section:
Sec. 601.507. SPECIAL INSPECTION CERTIFICATES.
(a) Commencing not later than January 1, 2006, the department shall
issue or contract for the issuance of special inspection
certificates to be affixed to motor vehicles that are inspected and
found to be in proper and safe condition under Chapter 548.
(b) An inspection certificate under this section must
contain a tamper-resistant transponder, and at a minimum, be
capable of storing:
(1) the transponder's unique identification number;
and
(2) the make, model, and vehicle identification number
of the vehicle to which the certificate is affixed.
(c) In addition, the transponder must be compatible with:
(1) the automated vehicle registration and
certificate of title system established by the Texas Department of
Transportation; and
(2) interoperability standards established by the
Texas Department of Transportation and other entities for use of
the system of toll roads and toll facilities in this state.
This takes very little away, but think about what it might add: the ability to pay for tolls, gas, or parking meters without swiping a card. You have to admit that'd be pretty cool.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
That is all. Er, actually, could I get a +5 insightful? Just wondering.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I don't know what could have happened to it, officer! Must have been the same stray electromagnetism that wiped the stripe on my license!
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Does anyone have a really big microwave oven I could put my car in for a few minutes?
Hmm, I wonder if a radar gun at very close range would suffice...
Well, the old "whack it over and over with a rubber mallet" would work, I expect. Break the chip but not the windshield and hopefully not the sticker itself.
AHA! I've got it...
A Tesla coil! Put 200kv across the sucker and see how well it fares.
Nevermind, problem solved. Go about your cries of doom and gloom, everyone.
If you do, every place you go is documented. Didn't sign up for it but still have the equipment? Doesn't matter, you are still being tracked. Think that is bad? OnStar equipment includes a phone.. Could somebody record what you are doing without you knowing? I'd bet it is possible.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Yeah, right. Sure.
Coming from a state that prides itself on frequent use of capital punishment, I find this hard to believe.
Transistors and Beer!!
Is the state planning on putting RFID tags on police cars as well?
Just look:
http://www.mintruth.com/wiki/images/rfid-nazi.gif
http://images.google.com/images?q=rfid%20nazi
Get your Unix fortune now!
When they realise the manufacturers, insurance companies and the police all want the same thing and are prepared to have a fuck off transmitter built into the car at the buyers expense that can be configured at the dealers.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
... yeah, or the spanish
Lets see how many Trolls vs Insightful's I'll get on this post...
1) This is a great idea- AS LONG AS there is a recorded method for access that is timestamped and GPS'd by the police department for querying the users information (ie, after pulled over but not before).
2) This is a BAD idea because, as has been demonstrated with the SpeedPass(tm) the encryption routines thought secure have been easily broken by dedicated hardware. Access to the db by walking out with a copy of it would result in very interesting privacy implications.
Now, I'm a fan of the black-box in a car because should I get into an accident and die, I'd really like my loved ones to know whether or not I was being a responsible individual or an asshole. And frankly, given the number of total incompetent drivers that are apparently granted licenses to operate 2500lb guided missiles, I think the black box has got a better chance of defending me in an accident than attacking me.
RFID tags provide a method of enforcing insurance- do you know what happens if an uninsured motorist hits you and does damage? You're fucked. Totally, completely, fucked. It would have been better for you to wrap your car (and yourself) around a tree than to get hit by an uninsured motorist.
First, your insurance skyrockets because there's no one to recoup the cost from- guess what, you're fucked.
Second, there's no one to go after for pain and suffering (and I suffered for 5 months after getting T-boned by an asshole that ran a stopsign)- thats alot of physical therapy and chiropractic work to get your neck to move in the right direction without needles of pain shooting everywhere.
Finally, there's the whole issue of 'submitted claims' that then follows you around for 7 years. It doesn't matter that your only fault was existing in that particular place at that particular time, it'll follow you on your record and probably influence such things as your credit report and interest rates.
A much better solution would be to simply confiscate the car of a driver that was uninsured or driving illegally, and if it was someone else's car require a 250$ or 500$ fine, doubling each time the car was 'caught'.
But I guess that's my opinion... someone that's had a perfect driving record, dodged into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting a little girl that ran into an intersection (great mother), been t-boned by a moron, and had 2 friends killed by drunk drivers with no insurance.
This law (if and so on...) provides an automated penalty of $250 for any vehicle which can be identified and can be verified not to have the State required insurrance minimum. It does not limit that to TX vehicles only.
...was EZPass equally evil...?
(Score:-5, Socialist)
If you use and support PUBLIC roads and highways at all, you're asking for this. The communist concept of public streets is just asking for totalitarian rule of our lives when we use them.
... along with their former governor
If it's supposed to replace inspection stickers, then why does it just contain stuff that belongs on the registration title? Inspection stickers are for emissions, not for you registration. Then again, I don't what they do down in Texas with their cars.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
Every car will have an RFID tag and every police cruiser will have a reader. You won't dare drive if you've got a warrant, no insurance, or some other reason for the officer to talk to you. It'll get sold as an efficiency thing and we'll just have to get used to it, warts, mistaken stops, and all.
We're looking at doing this in Nebraska, but its coming from a large dealership wishing to ease customer service - pull in and the service drive guys already know the vehicle's service history.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
With RFID it'd be painless to add this to highways or stoplights. As drivers we have come to expect a certain degree of inattention, i.e. the law is not constantly watching our movements on the road. We do not expect total privacy, but we have expectation of a reasonable amount from the peering eyes of the law.
How hard is it going to be to forge these things? Once the police start relying on this stuff the tech savvy criminals are going to have it easy. Car flies through a toll at 90mph? Don't need cameras anymore...we have the rfid of the car. (it HAS to be the right car because the company that sold us this stuff said it can't be fooled... )
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
get smart and: 1) require all new cars to have a governor (illegal to tamper with) which would limit them to the current speed limit (broadcast by rfid encased in reflecters). 2) require insurance companies to OFFER a (completely optional) plan where you can pre pay a certain number of miles rather than paying by the month. You will have to have a gps unit installed to track your car - otherwise it could never work, but the operating expense for your car would now be related to the number of miles you drive. Right now you pay the same for insurance each month if you drive 2 miles or 10,000 miles that month. The prepay plan would offer significant savings to people who rarely use their car, and provide an incentive for walking, riding a bike, or using public transportation when possible. 3) Start putting a punitive tax on gasoline that rises at, say 1% over the rate of inflation. Gas is too cheap right now. If anyone anywhere thinks that buying an H2 is a good idea, then we need to start making it more expensive.
That is, in the context of paying tolls.
l /howetollworks.html
http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/trafficinformation/etol
not sure how it all actually works but it's not straight RFID...
It's pretty cool though - without this sort of technology, the traffic jams would be awful at the tool booths.
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
RFID works only at a very close range
False. Standard RFID readers work only at close range, but it is possible to construct long-range RFID readers. Furthermore, if it can be used for toolbooth enforcement, then it can be read in normal traffic situations.
similar to the way human eyes or a tollbooth camera might use visible light to view a license plate, another unique vehicle identifier.
The information stored on a license plate is human readable, the information stored in an RFID chip is not. Furthermore, automatic license plate readers are still sufficiently expensive that they aren't being deployed widely.
But, yes, automatic optical license plate reading is another serious privacy concern. The fact that we have kind of fallen into that possibility is no justification for compounding the problem by also deploying RFID.
All this really does, assuming they don't add annoying additional data, is make a license plate readable by machines. Heck they could even attach it to the license plate tags for convenience. Make distribution easier.
Ah, another ignorant sheep that doesn't know the fucking difference between socialism and Libertarianism. A Libertarian is against socialism of any kind. Going by the constitution, the Department of Transportation should be abolished and all public roads should be privatized. Where is this allowed in the Constitution, if you want it, just simply add it to the Constitution, otherwise, according to the ninth and tenth amendments, it's unconstitutional.
______________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself.
Police abuse power.
Give them more power and there WILL be more abuses.
Doc Ruby is right, and you are a Pollyanna-ish idiot.
April Fools was yesterday!!
But IMO the issue isn't really electronic vs visual ID. The issue is electronic vs human reading of that ID.
Up till relatively recently, a numberplate could be read by any human, but not by an automated machine. So it could be easily checked when really necessary (e.g. when stopped by the police, when photographed leaving a petrol station without paying, when photographed by a speeding camera, &c). But it wasn't checked as a matter of routine.
Now, though, there are machines which can look at a numberplate and automatically recognise the vehicle ID. And there are RFID chips which can be automatically read by machine. Both of these have a similar effect: car IDs can be read as a matter of course, and checked against whatever information they want to.
Arguably, when used to stop cars which have no tax or insurance, that could be beneficial. But would you want your husband/wife to be able to subpoena records of all your movements in a divorce case, say? ("You claimed to have been working late at the office, but your car was recorded as having driven to your girlfriend's house at 5.27pm that evening!") And if the system is widely used, how easy might it be for people to gain unauthorised access? You have only to look at any detective novel to see how people can have good, legitimate reasons for wanting to conceal their movements. And it'd be a gift for stalkers and paparazzi...
Here in the UK, we already have automated numberplate recognition, not just for speed cameras and red-light cameras, but also for the recognising cars entering the London congestion zone, and sending out appropriate bills. (And I gather there's a good number of people who were billed incorrectly...) There's also a new type of speed camera, which recognises your numberplate as you pass fixed locations on motorways, and issues a speeding ticket if your average speed between two such points exceeds the limit. (Which is fair, but worrying for the privacy implications.)
So yes, I agree with your conclusion that RFID doesn't seem to have any intrinsic dangers over and above those which are here already...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Where all the vehicles had stock license plates with a barcode running along the bottom ?
I bet I can defeat this by wrapping the car in aluminum foil ...
Now imagine driving down the freeway, the exit sign above seems to have a flashing light (dramatic effect, not needed for RFID readers) and within seconds you are pulled over because (a) your insurance lapsed, (b) your registration has expired and (c) oh yeah, you're not wearing your seatbelt... got some unpaid parking tickets too.
I have mixed feelings about it.... I laugh when it happens to someone else, I cry when it happens to me. You know, life is pretty tough and law is pretty unforgiving. But when financial times are hard, sometimes you can skip along with some luck until things get better. I'm having good times now, but I've had some bad ones where insurance and registration wasn't as important as gasoline and rent. (And for the record, I don't drink, smoke or otherwise waste money recreationally all that often and never did.) The thought of having an almost robotic police force out there pulling people over getting the most income possible from fines and such is a little creepy.
On the other hand, if it were forbidden to pull someone over for trivial offenses (insurance and registration for example -- they could mail out a "warning letter" and make you pay postage or something... that would be reasonable) but say, "Amber Alert" type stuff, someone with a warrant for a violent crime, stolen car(!) and stuff like that I'd be down with. Is there any hope for sanity in the application of new technology in government?
There are thousands of traffic cameras all over the US now. You are in essence tracked to the intersection in most cities, although admittedly RFID could enable realtime tracking...which oddly enough some people pay for with LoJack.
Personally, I think the idea is good, though it has potential for abuse.
Once such example could be automated issuing of speeding tickets. There are some towns and villages that people know to be speed traps. Two examples of these from the news are New Rome and Macks Creek. I can picture a small town or village like one of these places investing in a pair of readers. Install them on the local highway, and calculate how much time a car should take to travel between these points. If a vehicle goes faster than this, it must be speeding. Use the database to find the driver's address, and send them a ticket. The bill does allow local law enforcement to access the database in Section 601.501 b.
As abusive as this may sound, though, it's nothing that couldn't be done with tracking license plates.
Let's consider for a moment. You are driving down the highway in thousands of pounds of machinery at 65 miles an hour with your most beloved people in the world. You are doing this with thousands of other people each in their thousands of pounds of machinery traveling at high speeds. How would you feel about the following:Today, a police car can drive up behind you and run your plate to find out everything listed above except insurance. The only difference RFID would make is that this same thing could be done by stationairy check-points or by an officer watching a monitor that shows where the violations are occurring rather than checking vehicles one-by-one.
This is about safety and responsibility on public transportation systems. I have to say that it does make sense. This sort of thing would protect us much more than it would intrude upon us (And I am a major privacy advocate).
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
On just the first four points alone would be important. The driving public needs this info pounded into its collective brain constantly. They should be put on all drive exams to be taken every 5 to 10 years (stop this automatic license renewal nonsense).
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
I live in Texas and I'm not to afraid. Why? Because in order to abuse these tags, it will cost money. Money to build speed traps, or money to equip cop cars. Since the taxes are lower in Texas, most deparments don't have enough money for staff, let alone new devices (I can't tell you how many times I driven through a small town in Texas lately where an empty cop car is parked at the nearest intersection because they can't pay to man it...). Only a in a few areas (suburbs, retirement places such as Williamson County) where the local rich blue hairs throw tons of money away to get yonger people like myself off the streets will these new things be abused. And in those places it doesn't matter anyway because the ultraconservative elected judges let the cops do whatever they want anyway- a little RFID is nothing compared to those heat guns some Texas cops still use (despite a supreme court order saying no). With those cops, you are either favored (rich, white, "good ole boy") or your screwed, the laws that are in place to unforce this are mostly irrelevent. The rest of the state will get techonology to use RFID twenty years from now when every state does it. It took till the 80's for school segrigation to end in some parts of Texas for crying out loud!
Open Source Sushi
TOP SECRET FACT:Most modern cars have tracking transponders!
:
:
: ...but the link finally died in July 2004 and the new location does not have a photo of a RFID bridge underpass collector. But does discuss thhe toll booth RFID uses...
Spy transmission chips embedded in tires that can be read REMOTELY while driving.
A secret initiative exists to track all funnel-points on interstates and US borders for car tire ID transponders (RFID chips embedded in the tire).
Yup. My brother works on them.
The us gov T.R.E.A.D. act (which passed) makes it illegal to sell new passenger cars lacking untamperable RFID in the tires.
Your tires have a passive coil with 64 to 128 bit serial number emitter in them! (AIAG B-11 ADC v3.0) . A particular frequency energizes it enough so that a receiver can read its little ROM. A ROM which in essence is your GUID for your TIRE. Multiple tires do not confuse the readers. Its almost identical to all "FastPass" "SpeedPass" technologies you see on gasoline keychain dongles and commuter windshield sticker-chips. The US gov has secretly started using these chips to track people.
Its kind of like FBI "Taggants" in fertilizer and "Taggants" in Gasoline and Bullets, and Blackpowder. But these car tire transponder Ids are meant to actively track and trace movement of your car.
Taggant research papers
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/ ~ota/disk3/1980/8017/801705.PDF
(remove spaces in url from slashcode if needed)
I am not making this up. Melt down a high end Firestone, or Bridgestone tire and go through the bits near the rim (sometimes at base of tread) and you will locate the transmitter (similar to 'grain of rice' pet ids and Mobile SpeedPass, but not as high tech as the tollbooth based units). Sokymat LOGI 160, and Sokymat LOGI 120 transponder buttons are just SOME of the transponders found in modern high end car tires. The AIAG B-11 Tire tracking standard is now implemented for all 3rd party transponder manufactures [covered below].
It is for QA and to prevent fraud and "car theft", but the US Customs service uses it in Canada to detect people who swap license plates on cars when doing a transport of contraband on a mule vehicle that normally has not logged enough hours across the border. The customs service and FBI do not yet talk about this, and are starting using it soon.
Photos of chips before molded deep into tires!
http://www.sokymat.com/sp/applications/tireid.html
(slashdot ruins links, so you will have to remove the ASCII space it insertess usually into the url above to get to the shocking info and photos on the enbedded LOGI 160 chips that the us gov scans when you cross mexican and canadian borders.)
You never heard of it either because nobody moderates on slashdot anymore and this is probably +0 still. It has also never appeared in print before and is very secret.
Californias Fastpass is being upgraded to scan ALL responding car tires in future years upcoming. I-75 may get them next in rural funnel points in Ohio.
The photo of the secret prototype WAS at
http://www.tadiran-telematics.com/products6.html
http://www.telematics-wireless.com/site/index1.php ?ln=en&main_id=33
but the fact is... YOU PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE A RADIO TRANSPONDER not counting your digital cell phone which is routinely silently pulsed in CA bay area each rush hour morning unless turned off (consult Wired Magazine Expose article). Those data point pulses are used by NSA on occasions.
The us FBI with NRO/NSA blessin
Wouldn't that make it a lot easier to create a reliable automated driving system? you could tell where cars were due to their rfid tags, rather then having to process visual stimuli to locate cars, and you could concentrate computation on more important things, like determining how close you are to the edge of the road etc.
Or inside the window?
I know in Philly there were some big problems with people getting their license plates cut up and the inspection stickers stolen.
How hard is it to reprogram an RFID tag? It seems like another opportunity for identity theft...
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
I'm working on an embedded Gnu/Linux device that will be roughly 304.8mm wide x 152.4mm tall that can be mounted on the back of the vehicle to prevent readers from picking up the signals from the tags. I'll post details to this thread when it is ready.
I recommend all Colorado citizens contact and complain to their representatives tonight!
Thieves and burglars love OnStar. It has become an easy hack from a safe distance and tells them the typical routes and timing of a suspect so they can safely burglarize his house. Also great for stalking. What a great invention and most car dealers don't even tell their customers/victims that their car might have an OnStar system!
I'd mod you up but alas I'm out of points.
Therein is the problem.
They are also very jammable by their nature.
The only question is how good the crypto used is, and how good it's implementation is. Once the crypto is broken, it can be spoofed VERY easily.
..don't panic
Don't forget that Texas has joined the working group that wants to track every cars millage so they can send you a bill (on top of the gas tax) for every mile you drive in the state.
You can not trust a government that refuses to give full details on Billion dollar contracts, see the New Texas Road System (tm)
Legal code reads like Perl to me, so I'm not really sure how much information they're planning on the chips, but how would this be any different with the current system: where every car is required to have a metal plate which projects an ID code and information on when the car was last inspected over the visual spectrum?
I can understand the need for privacy, but when the information is already out there, it seems silly to get excited about something like this.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
It's not like passive RFID really works... There are were problems with the ePC class 1 tags that causes a phase lock loop on readers, giving a 15% fail rate even on good tags. Now add the intrigue of a functional environment, oh and interoperability standards established by the Texas Department of Transportation.
Or they could just do what Illinois did. Double the tolls for anyone not using the IPass (EZ-Pass, call it whatever). That way, use is "voluntary". If you want privacy, it costs you twice as much.
Many raise the point about how easy it would be for RFID to be used to pay for parking or tolls and such. I prefer, however, to be able to see it when my money is being spent. It is much easier to keep track of where it goes when I have to count it out. If I am going to be charged, I want to make the conscious decision whether I'll pay or turn around and go elsewhere. I sure don't want to have to try and remember whether each line of fine print on a monthly statement is a correct representation of the roads I travelled or the places I parked.
Likewise, consider the effect on the public? How much easier would it be to raise prices? If you pay now, you can protest. If you get a statement at the end of the month, how many people will go to the trouble of arguing?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
mile marker 100 = 0s
mile marker 101 = 60s
speed = 1mile/minute = 60 miles/hour
mile marker 100 = 0s
mile marker 101 = 57s
speed ~= 63.16miles/hour
so.. 3 miles over, okay, I agree, would be silly, and cashcow-y, etc. etc.
But what if it was 50 seconds ?
mile marker 100 = 0s
mile marker 101 = 50s
speed = 72miles/hour
Now we're going 12mph over. Certainly that -should- be ticketed, no ?
( except for those long-ass stretches in the U.S. where the basic motto is "go with the flow", and the flow typically goes 80 where it's a 65mph (nighttime) limit )
So the only reasonable argument to be made here is - what would the general populace consider a ticketable offense ?
Or, rather, what would the general populace put up with ? (if some people had their say, there'd be no speed limits at all)
I'd certainly say that if the threshold were, say, 10mph+ over, then you've got nothing to whine about if you do get a ticket (short of hardware malfunction, it not being you who was driving the vehicle, all those arguments and then some)
I'm curious...
:)
Would it be technically possible to make an RFID Firewall solution ?
I'm assuming that these data requests to an RFID can be picked up, as the RFID has to.
I'm similarly assuming that the data sent back can be picked up, as the scanner has to.
So I'm assuming that it is possible to, electronically or mechanically, block either signal.
Additionally, I'm assuming that it's possible to electronically LOG these signals - if at least a timestamp and, if equipped with GPS, GPS location.
Then those with RFID tags could opt to enable the RFID at well, log any (in their view) unauthorized access, etc.
If this doesn't exist yet, why not ? Make it, patent it - make a mint - piss of Slashdot users for patenting it. All that and then some
any dumb knucklehead can walk by your parked car and write down license plate, inspection info, the date, model, make and id of your car registered with just a pen and paper.
So what's stopping anyone from accessing your information now?
Hence it can enhance privacy by ten fold , I don't see this as a bad thing. If not, it may surely make easier and automated way to enforce the law and save few bucks for the state along the way.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Really, read the grandparent comment then look through his posting history. Two thirds of the comments are fascist apologism, and this one is no exception. It's pretty hard to believe he isn't trolling Slashdot.
Of course, the Autobahn is in Germany, is fairly orderly (compared to U.S. roads, yes), and is more of a 'go with the flow' thing as I mentioned above.
:)
:)
Those wouldn't really benefit from any such setup, though putting the threshold there at 30km/h+ over would be fine with me
I don't think anybody can (sanely) argue for abolishing speed limits altogether, though - imho
The Harris County Tollroad Authority already uses RFID tags (call EZ Tags) to pay for tolls. Recently, the Houston and Dallas toll systems were integrated so drivers from one city could pay for tolls in the other city with their RFID tag.
The tags could be easily abused to monitor speeding, but they are not. Real-time traffic maps are generated from the travel speed data:
http://www.houstontranstar.org/
There's been several posts already about putting readers on corners etc. I see this as an extremely wasteful and inefficient deployment of what are, when you get down to it, antennas. They are already in place, and even if their resonant frequency is wrong, regular replacement for wear and tear should have them up to scratch in a couple of years. The existing data network linking them back in to a city's traffic monitoring system can be used, and even if the vehicle's body shields the windscreen tag from the antennas buried in the road at every traffic light, they can just as easily read the tags buried in your tyres.
like a lot of people pointed out RFID does not work at long distances at all and is almost unusable in open spaces like the highway. SO this won't ever happen. Plus it goes over several laws in the constitution like for one you can not legally put traching devices on people or vehicles without a court order. No judge is ever going to let this one fly. Right not you can track vehicles that have gps easy but you still need a court order to do that. So as far as cops tracking your vehicle goes, that won't ever happen. The big brother conspiracies are really starting to get old.
I rule.
Transistors and Beer!!
Texas also considers putting RFID tags inside all guns...
Oh wait. It's April 2, All Fools Day is over. Sorry everyone.
I may have the wrong number but I believe it's the 5th amendment that is supposed to protect you from self incrimination. Given I hate people that do not carry insurance but Rights are Rights. And before you pull that privelage crap if you give up one right for the privelage of driving what would be next. You cant carry a gun in your car if driving on a public street or something equally assinine.
Capital punishment is directly related to law enforcement. Don't you think that Texas would use the RFID info to help prosecute alleged murderers if they could figure out how?
Uh huh. Yep.
Transistors and Beer!!
Are we talking windshield or license plate stickers here? Because with EZ-Pass certain cars with metal-oxide window tinting have to get an exterior tag to place by their license plate instead of behind the windshield. Would this metallic tint also block the RFID signals?
...that people have been stealing cars by acquiring a car's VIN and buying a key for that car. It's simple enough to put a piece of tape over the VIN on your dashboard - it can easily be removed if someone has a legitimate reason to see it - but any yahoo with an RFID scanner can get the VIN from an RFID tag, AND, even creepier, your registration and title information. For those who might be wondering, here in Texas that includes your home address.
I'm sorry, I'm not really the tin-foil hat type, but I'd just as soon keep that information just a little bit harder for the bad guys to come by.
When you're not looking, this sig is in Latin.
Any Texas residents or anyone that will be in Austin on Tuesday - according to the bill status at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/db2www/tlo/ billhist/actions.d2w/report?LEG=79&SESS=R&CHAMBER= H&BILLTYPE=B&BILLSUFFIX=02893, the bill is scheduled for public hearing before the House Transportation Committee on 04/05/2005. Anyone may attend these hearings and register their support or opposition to the bill, and generally will also be allowed to give brief testimony. The hearing will be held at the state capitol in Austin - any of the DPS officers or volunteers should be able to point you to the right room.
i ps.htm e .htm
Also, if you read the bill itself, the purpose of the transponder is to enforce the requirement of a minimum level of automotive liability insurance.
The transponder would rely a unique ID as well as the make, model and VIN of the vehicle it is attached to. This is all information that anyone within range of the RFID tag, including the traffic monitoring cameras, could already determine.
No matter which side you are on on this issue, show up at the hearing - this bill is very new - this is the first time it is going to be discussed, and this seems to be the first session it has been introduced in, so it's doubtful it goes very far this time. However, it's important that people show up and voice the privacy concerns inherent in this bill.
If you cannot attend the hearing, the author of the bill is Representative Phillips. His contact information is:
District 62
Capitol Office: EXT E2.720
Capitol Address: P.O. Box 2910
Austin, Texas 78711
Capitol Phone: (512) 463-0297
District Address: 421 North Crockett
Sherman, TX 75090
District Phone: (903) 891-7297
He serves as the vice-chair of the transportation committee, which this bill has been referred to.
The chair of the transportation committee is:
Rep. Mike Krusee
District 52
Capitol Office: CAP GW.18
Capitol Address: P.O. Box 2910
Austin, Texas 78711
Capitol Phone: (512) 463-0670
If you are a Texas resident but cannot attend the hearing in Austin on Tuesday, I'd recommend calling and requesting their fax number and faxing a letter detailing your concerns, or mailing one, but mailing it quickly.
You can also email either of these representatives via their website, although faxed or mailed letters generally get more attention.
Representative Phillips: http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist62/phill
Representative Krusee:
http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist52/kruse
The right to travel freely goes back at least to the Magna Carta, whose rights US citizens inherit through the ninth amendment to the US constitution. In an era when the ability to drive is basically assumed in our commercial and political relations (e.g., polling places are not even necessarily within safe walking distances), and everyone is required to live with the pollution, noise and real-estate investments to support automobiles, driving should be considered a right that can be lost by illegal conduct (like voting).
These RFID things have to be dirt cheap(a penny each?). Cheap enough so that I want to buy about 10,000 of them and put them in the trunk of my car to "overload" any automatic detectors.
..........FULL STOP.
My Florida licence plate won't have a RFID tag on it. Well, not till Jeb hears about this....
they can't steal it!;-)
<chessucat twitches>
"I'm a dirty white tomcat, enter my world..."
Until elected officials start not getting re-elected because they weren't paying attention to privacy issues, then nothing is going to change. But let just one or two lose their job and I guaran-goddamn-tee the rest of them will be the most vocal privacy advocates a media spin doctor can produce.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"Give them an inch and they'll...." refers to governments.
Next time you have to take a piss test to work at a menial job, you'll be reminded that your job is of great importance and THAT is why you have to prove your innocence. That too started off as a "well, you dont want airline pilots flying stoned (drunk is ok)?" logic which 20 years later has fast food joint grunts pissing in a cup and kids kicked out of schools because the zero tolerance policy doesnt allow them to bring cold medication or lozenges to school.
The road to abuse is always paved with bullshit reasoning like yours.
What is it they say about those who dont know history being doomed to repeat it?
I mean...government would NEVER lie to you right?
They would NEVER abuse your rights?
Your defence about RFID working at close range only is as weak as Bil Gates tell us that we would never need over a certain amount of RAM.
How long do you think it would take to increase the range or hell, just change tecnologies when it becomes available?
>Are we to now fear any new legislation that >doesn't specifically and explicitly "exclude
>[...] law enforcement usage",
In one word: Yes.
Exclude it for any use but the stated one AND THEN if you want to add it law enforcement, you specify it at the time.
What kind of moron writes a blank check and says "Well, if it gets abused, we'll have to change the law."?
What would be so wrong in specifying its use?
>even if utterly irrelevant?
Excuse me? What is?
The short distance thing?
Fine its irrelevant now. And what happens when it isnt irrelevant? Are you going to be there to make sure that once its relevant the politicians will act to close the loophole?
For a country that loves to use words like freedom around, its amazing how many people are willing to just piss them away so easily. Look up what your Ben Franklin said about those who are willing to give up their liberties.
You are completely missing the point.
You put in the safeguards BEFORE it is abused, not after.
I've installed "vehicle loop detectors" inground for traffic control, security, etc..
They are everywhere. At most intersections you will see diamonds cut in the concrete and covered with tar and a line from the diamond that runs to the curb, usually headed towards a big silver box that operates the traffic lights.
When a car passes over the loop the magnetic field changes and the system knows a car went over. Not only can it count cars, it can tell the size of the vehicle (motorcycle v. car v. truck) and estimate the speed and direction. This is usually to help control traffic lights so that the light doesn't sit on red when there are no cars there. It also is used in apartments and mini-storage areas to let cars out and shut the gate behind the car to prevent tailgaters from sneaking in.
This loop can also act as a receiving antenna and it would be a very, very simple matter to have these loops "light up" the RFID chips and read them, then the equipment could pass the data upstream to what ever EVIL BIG BROTHER system you want (or don't want) to imagine.
This is BAD... My suggestion? If this passes, you should destroy the chips. A couple hundred thousand volts should do it. A $30 stun gun should fry these nasty little bastards.
Texas WILL pass this. I know how they work, Texas is very much into being a BIG BROTHER state.. They are wanking off at the thought of this right now..
the Texas Legislature has passed a law requiring all "American" flags flown throughout the state to contain the phrase "Heil Bush!" and the Carlyle Group corporate logo.
Meanwhile, a few hundred more black kids will have their feeding tubes removed under the "Futility" law because their poor parents can't pay the hospital bill for the treatment.
And a few hundred more minority criminals will be executed.
Welcome to Texas - land of "the law" (as they used to call it.)
Memo to Osama: Got any idea where your next target should be?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You are right about the tech part but dreaming when it comes to the politicians and the voters.
If anyone goes too uppity about privacy all you need is a small boom like in Atlanta'96 (still havent found the people) and NYC'01 and privacy issues will melt away quickly.
(false)Safety will always trump privacy, the politicians know that and they always play on that fear.
In that respect, WTC was a god-send to those who want all those hippy notions in the constitution wiped out.
Privacy and rights is something we used to crow about to the russkies. The sheep here are even better trained and our gulags are even worse: highest prison population inthe world and 70-80,000 sexual assaults in US jails every day.
I do not foresee anything getting a politicians ousted that is based on privacy or rights. None.
I think the Patriot act is the best example.
dd
I'm seeing scanner like devices attached to concrete poles on the interstates in Jacksonville and Orlando. Cameras have been going up for a while in these areas as well. My thought is states aren't just considering rfid but they are moving full speed to implement some sort of track and trace system for all vehicles. The government has a lot of explaining to do. The 911 inside job seems to have been the excuse to get all this going: "You've been attacked, just sit back while we 'protect' you (read: assfuck you).
---
Motorist: "Help me OnStar! I've locked my keys in my car!"
OnStar: "We know Mr. Johnson. We have been monitoring you for the past five years since you bought your car. Just a minute while we unlock it. [pause] Oh no Mr Johnson, you have an unpaid parking ticket. I'm afraid you'll have to pay it before we can unlock your car. A tow truck is being dispatched. There are many fine hotels nearby. You want me to recommend one?"
The point was that the transponders were originally sold as a way to auto-pay on the toll roads, not as a tracking device for anything else.
Now that "mission creep" has happened, as with so many other government programs, it would be trivial for local law enforcement to track any "EZ Tag"-equipped car for any reason, or no reason at all. Want to fill the city coffers? Start auto-generating tickets for any vehicle that exceeds the speed limit.
I guess while you were not looking, they went and took another of your "rights." Enjoy those you have left.
Yeah, right.
Somewhere in the middle is America, where hundreds of millions of people produce lots of money, which corporations get politicians to let them take from us, while we get politicians to stop them from taking it without asking.
The way you have characterized this is just plain wrong.
Corporations do not take my money. Instead, I give it to them in exchange for goods and services. This is the purpose of money.
It is the government that takes my money without my asking for it. Though I personally don't mind, since they do provide valuable services in return. (Plus I'm a believer in the democracy thing.)
... you can expect to see your insurance rates go up and probably not just in Texas.
The bill has at least two paragraphs (I'm not going back to re-read and count) that detail the mandatory requirements on all insurance companies to comply. The requirements on them are to develop databases and methods for law enforcement to have constant access to those databases. I doubt there are many, if any, insurance companies that operate only in Texas. The expense for all of these insurance companies to comply will increase your insurance premiums, too.
Then we have this laughable gem (copied from the bill itself):
Sec. 601.506. CERTAIN FEES AND CHARGES PROHIBITED. An insurance company or designated agent subject to the motor vehicle liability insurance compliance program may not assess or collect from the policyholder of a motor vehicle liability insurance policy subject to this section a charge or fee because the company or agent is required to comply with any part of the program.
Uh-huh. They specifically prohibit the insurance companies from charging you a fee for this "service" because government thieves always hide like cowards if they can. (Apparently, these weasels have learned from the mistakes of the FCC. When they impose ridiculous mandatory expenses on telephone and cable companies, those companies itemize it on your bill as a federal fee so you know who to blame.)
Can they prevent the insurance companies from building this expense into their normal insurance rates?
Absolutely not. It's another unfunded mandate from government. Those usually come from the federal government to the states. This one is from a state government to for-profit businesses.
Businesses do not pay taxes and they don't pay bills. They have expenses and those expenses are always reflected in the price of the product.
It wouldn't surprise me to find that the insurance companies lobbied for this, though. It costs them nothing and drives up the "compliance rate" of people forced at gunpoint to buy their product.
If you can't get what you want by persuasion, just remember boys and girls, that the government has permission to use guns to accomplish what you want.
Congress has passed law stating the tires on your car will need to have pressure sensors in your tire. Currently this is accomplished with RFID technology. Moving disks don't like wires or scraping brushes.
So, if you have new tires on your car two years from now, people will still be able to track you.
Everyone talks about safety, but I see this as an Orwellian dream. Every vehicle can be tracked. Speeding tickets can be given if you cross two RFID sensors too soon...currently being done for toll road transponsers. Who needs cameras at traffic lights when you can now record which tire crossed the intersection line. The options are limitless.
Posting AC to avoid the likely Karma hit...)
Both from personal experience and from having worked around body shops and the like, (dealing with insurance,) I am pretty sure there is a double standard, which these chips won't solve.
If you are in Texas legally and are fluent in English, you will be held to account for your traffic violations.
If you are in the US illegally, and get in an accident with no insurance, you will (usually) NOT be held accountable by the law enforcement officials on scene, and be allowed to go on your way.
If you are fluent in English XOR are here legally, it could go either way.
(No, I am not being racist, I am reporting observations. I apologize if this comes off as insulting.)
If the law enforcement officials aren't enforcing the proof-of-insurance laws at accidents (in selective cases), where they have the parties involved already there, why would they enforce it based on an RFID tag?
If a Texas Law Enforcement Official reads this, please respond and tell me if I am wrong, or have dealt with a section of the populace that is a statistical anomaly.
The speed limit must be set somewhere. Yes, going anything above it is reason to give you a ticket. If you don't like it or don't trust your instruments, nothing prevents you to compensate by driving as if the limit was 50 mph. Obviously there can be "tolerances", say 1% or 5%.
But it gets worse: your example talks about the average velocity, so we may well suppose you reached speeds far above the 60 mph limit (while driveing at 40 mph) for the rest of the time).
As it is an *electronic* identifier, what prevents people from just frying it "accidentally" and then blaming it on the weather or some other electrical accident with the car? It'd not affect the human readable information, but it'd sure take out the RFID tag, where the problem seems to be.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
...that make me glad I'm carfree by choice.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Where in the constitution is this bit about tracking devices?
Last time I checked, your license plate, which you are legally required to display, is a tracking device. Anyone who can see your car can track it.
The reason this type of legislation is implemented is because there is a very significant portion of the population that does NOT get insurance in this state. Of the people I know in Houston that have been in motor vehicle accidents, well over half were involved in accidents with vehicles that had NO insurance. This is a widespread problem. I for one am willing to submit to such a provision if it increases the number of insured vehicles on the road.
If you think about it, RFID is just a more advanced version of driver's licenses or vehicle license plates. If you are on a public road, then the government should be able to monitor such usage. If you don't want people tracking you go use public transportation.
My speeding options are limitless!
Ok, so how practical would it be to take out your magnetron out of your microwave and build a hand held 'burner' to wipe the RFID off the face of the earth?
I refuse to be tracked anymore then i have too..
And yes, I do pay via cash and wear sunglasses in stores, and wear driving gloves to not leave behind fingerprints.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's more government 'social engineering'.
"... I said, government is powerless to protect you, not powerless to punish you.
Do not be alarmed, continue swimming naked."
Wiggums - Simpsons
I hear a lot of people panicking. "Woe is me. RFID = bad. This is terrible."
I have a solution for you. Don't drive. Don't own a car in Texas. Driving is not a right, it's a privilege. And it's termed that for anyone of you who eventually gets pulled over for a DWI. If you refuse the DWI test, you'll find out exactly how much of a right you have to drive when your drivers' license is suspended.
Driving is a privilege. Get over it. If you can't abide by the law, then don't drive. If you don't like the law, elect different legislators. But frankly, there's more good to come out of this than there is bad. If you don't like paying car insurance, you're not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of people who refuse to pay car insurance, and they need to be stopped. This is one way to reduce EVERYONE's car insurance by forcing them to pay up. Same thing with speeding. If you're speeding, and you cause an accident, you should be at fault. I don't want my insurance rates to climb because of your disregard for the law. You think freedom is a great thing for yourself, but not for others? There's more freedom from an RFID-based system than you think.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All you "big government" types don't like this? Move to Canada. This is a perfect opportunity for all you lefties to get out of the country! But frankly, I'd think you socialists would like this opportunity for the government to (poorly) control another aspect of our lives.
Have fun with this one.
For those that don't know, RFID readers for the technology capable of reading tags at Toll-Tag distances happen to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. You need a reader for each lane of traffic. A per-mile-marker detection system's a cool idea until you start running up the bill for such a system- and that doesn't even count the need for accurate real-time monitoring of these units or for a huge honking super-computer to grind through the data and do aggregation and correlation of all the data points.
You're not going to see the uses you mention because the country's not flush with trillions of dollars to DO what you describe.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If you're using a Toll Road, it's possible to be caught by the FBI, Toll-Tag or not. There's this little thing called a Violation Enforcement System that's typically coupled with the Toll-Tag systems. If for any reason their little violation alarm goes off, even if you're kosher, the system takes a nice photo of your license plate and the time that it occured. This is cross-checked with the event logs for toll payment, both cash and tag based, and if a payment isn't logged, they go through the DMV records and mail you a nice ticket for your cheating on the system.
If you don't want to get caught and you're being hunted by LEOs, the toll roads aren't a good idea at all anyway.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Davis Instruments manufactures an OBD-II monitoring device called CarChip E/X that happens to capture 300 hours of acceleration, braking, engine performance, and impact sensor logs- it's only about $150 at most chain Auto Parts stores.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Page 84 - American Government - Continuity and Change - 2004 Texas Edition
The MADD 'loonies' actually lobbied and along with others got the Surface Transportation Act of 1982 revised to tie 5% of road monies to a higher drinking age (18 to 21). Only 16 senators voted against it. Later they raised this to 10%. The Bill was signed by Reagan. Later MADD lobbied unsuccessfully to get the BAC lowered to
The 55mph speed limit, as I understand it, was a safety issue, but not one of MADD. However, there are plenty of good reasons to enforce a speed limit. 65 mph is as fast as you want to go for fuel economy.
Special Interest Groups are the people that I don't like, Public Interest Groups are the people I do like.
cameronpalmer.com
The only reason that states like Texas and California are looking into changing the road taxes from a percentage of gas sales to RFID information on miles driven is to give a break to drivers of gas hogs.
The state governments say that hybrid cars are going to cause gas tax revenues to go down, but the fact is that the national average gas efficiency is still getting worse than it was 20 years ago because of the overwhelming numbers of SUVs and trucks sold every year.
People who buy gas hogs increase our reliance on foreign oil and deserve to pay more for gas and for gas taxes as a way to discourage waste. We shouldn't all have to submit to government monitoring of our driving just to let Hum Vee owners get a tax break.
Any chance this isn't as heinous a plot as parent believes?"
Zero chance at all. If it weren't intended to be misused, then please explain to me why I can't disable the RFID devices if I want to? After all, the tires are MY property; and the technology for doing so does exist.
I fully support manufacturers and OEMs being able to work more efficiently. I am completely opposed to their using that information against me, without my knowledge or support.
And, based on the history of how these things work, it is only a matter of time before these databases make it into the hands of businesses promoting marketing.
I think that I can say, without exaggeration or fear of contradiction by any person with even the smallest amount of intelligence, that it's this kind of communist left-wing conservative fascist racist liberal right-wing intolerance that is bringing down Slashdot, and, indeed, the entire IT community, if not Western civilization, most human civilization (on this and other planets), and possibly all civilization everywhere throughout the entire universe.
Please recant your statement.
The fate of the entire universe is in your hands/talons/tentacles/omnipods.
Well, the fate of the entire civilized universe, anyway.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
...would we be the British Commonwealth of the Americas?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
"Road Use Fees"
Beats toll booths. Nice complement to the gas tax.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Perhaps, but hes a realist..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Duh!
Its already BEING done, and has since 2001 and being done with RFIDs embeedded in your tires!
if you read all the major posts in this tread you will learn the details buddy.
Everyone seems to be getting riled up about governments' ability to access RFID devices, but what about criminal organizations? They definitely have the money to buy the latest technology or corrupt insiders and gain access to the system.
Criminals could set up readers around police stations and record tags from police cars. Then they could setup readers around their "areas" for a early warning system.
Undercover operations could be in jeopardy, as could be the usage of police informants. "Hey Mikey, been noticing your car parked by the police station a lot. Why?" or "Hey Mikey, according to this report your car has been in the presence of police cars. Why?"
Or a hit man could set up an RFID triggered device.
I live in Texas. The toll roads in north TX have used the Toll Tag system for years and they even have camera that shoot *every* license plate that goes thru any toll booth.
They use the camera to catch and fine folks that use the "tolltag only" lanes for free... Hovever the news just reported last week that the biggest offender has been caught on camera over *1,000* times and just ignores the police letters and fines.
Being a reasonable citizen, it think the law enforcement staff looks might foolish for not catching these worst offenders.
What makes anyone think RFID on every windshield would be more effective?
Also, the State of Texas just implemented a new window sticker system within the last 12 months.
Why would they pass this proposed legislation and ditch the new system so soon???
Hate to bust the Big Brother paranoia, but, it just ain't gonna happen in Texas anytime soon!
Especially when the TX Legislature meets once every two years and then only for about 4 months before they adjourn.
This next decade really will demand skepticism and vigilance. These days it is the government that is paranoid, not us. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
The State Legislature recently passed a bill preventing the city of houston from installing red-light cameras. Using minimal common sense (which is a misnomer since it isn't that common) one can realize that the same individuals will be voting on this bill which means in all probablility, it will not pass.