California's Wireless Road Tolls Easily Hackable

An anonymous reader writes "Nate Lawson, a researcher at RootLabs, has found a way to clone the wireless transponders used by the Bay Area FasTrak road toll system. This means you can copy the ID of another driver onto your own device and, as a result, travel for free while others foot the bill. Lawson also raises the interesting point of using the FasTrak system to create false alibis, by overwriting one's own ID onto another driver's device before committing a crime. Luckily, Lawson wasn't sued before he could reveal his research, unlike those pesky MIT students."

Comments

sounds familiar

[gentooligan]

I think I read about this in little brother.

Re:Cameras at every toll booth

[neapolitan]

Yep - that was my first thoughts too. Driving with an unreadable license plate, though, is grounds to get you pulled over anyway.

In case you didn't know, most toll booth places have:

    Cameras front-mounted to take a picture of YOU or passengers...

    Cameras in the back to take a picture of your plate...

    Occasional cops sitting at the side of the road that are ready to pull you over.

It's academically interesting (and it should be) but not useful for the criminal. You can always simply drive through a checkpoint without an ez-pass, and most likely nothing will happen for a long time. Is it worth it? Nope.