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

Cameras at every toll booth

[maynard]

And they can record license plates. I think this hack has little criminal viability. Anyone who used it extensively would be caught in short order. Though authorities might be willing to let the criminal conduct continue on until the criminal passed the felony threshold.

Re:Cameras at every toll booth

[Chainsaw76]

"pretty foolproof"
Your kidding right? There have been many cases of the Red Light Companies moving sensors around to catch people who Hadn't run the red light. And the one time I got a ticket from this system, the plate was unreadable, the Dark 4 door sedan pictured didn't look anything like my white 2 seat convertible, and we (my car and I) were 800 miles away at the time on the time stamp.

-J

Re:Cameras at every toll booth

[EMeta]

Um, no. Better no one doing it. Running reds isn't like going 10 mph over the speed limit. People die from that. A lot. It really shouldn't be about the income.

Re:Cameras at every toll booth

[repvik]

I consider using the state-provided roads as a privilege, not a right, that requires your car to be identifiable by a valid licence plate.
If the plates are obscured, either by dirt or by purpose, isn't it reasonable to give a ticket to deter this?

Re:Cameras at every toll booth

[Bob-taro]

Um, no. Better no one doing it. Running reds isn't like going 10 mph over the speed limit. People die from that. A lot. It really shouldn't be about the income.

I'd say that depends on how long it's been red. If you mis-time a short yellow and are in the intersection when it turns red, that's not too dangerous. No more than driving 10mph over (which may be why the yellow light seemed so "short"). That's one problem with automatic ticketing systems - they can't put the incident in context very well.

Re:Cameras at every toll booth

[garett_spencley]

"I sort of agree with your sentiment, except that I percieve using a car on the road is a privilege"

I don't. We paid to put the roads there and everyone should be able to use them however the hell they want so long as they don't harm anyone.

I prefer to punish people AFTER they have done harm. Not before.

License plates, laws against drunk driving[1], justifying drug criminalization by claiming that drug use increases rates of crime, placing curfews on public parks etc. is all preemptive and it places a burden on an innocent society. There's no reason not to throw the book at someone who breaks the law but asking society to give up their freedom for the sake of reducing crime statistics is unfair. It costs tax dollars, gives the government a way to profit off of criminal behaviour (traffic fines) and regulation (licenses, vehicle registration etc.) and I don't think it actually does much in the way of achieving it's goal of preventing crime anyway.

[1] - I realize that's borderline trollish so I'll justify that: killing someone and violating traffic laws is already illegal. Why do we have to make it more illegal? Has all of this money spent - and made - by cracking down on drunk drivers actually reduced the number of dangerous drivers on the road ? What about sober drivers who are just as dangerous as people who are drunk ? In Ontario it's now illegal to drive with ANY ALCOHOL WHAT-SO-EVER in your system. You can not transport any alcohol that has been opened and any alcohol you do transport needs to be out of reach of the driver (ie: in the trunk). During peak holidays such as new years etc. they put up road blocks on every major road and stop every single car to smell the driver's breath. It punishes everyone for the mistakes of a few. It's getting extremely out of hand.

Re:Cameras at every toll booth

[garett_spencley]

Ok, to turn this around a bit. Can you tell me exactly which pieces of asphalt/concrete you have paid for?

As far as I'm concerned, all of it. We have tax on gas sale, income tax, sales tax, taxes on all vehicle purchases (new or used), driver's licenses, license plates, road tolls, traffic fines (which I'm against but we still pay them), parking fees (for publicly owned parking garages and meters etc.). All ways of giving money to the government for things like road upkeep. How they use it very much my business but I haven't personally investigated how my money was put to use.

Point being We ALL pay for public infrastructure in one way or another so we should all be able to use it to heart's content so long as we don't harm anyone. I don't see why it should be any more complicated than that.

Easily hackable, but a useless hack...

[SuperBanana]

...given that almost all of the toll transponder systems in the US have cameras, and plate recognition is done. I once got a ticket from another state (NY), claiming a plate I had years ago had gone through one of their upstate tollbooths. Also, my father would get notices in the mail from our state's system when he moved the transponder to a vehicle that wasn't registered to use it. So. Useless hack, sensationalist article, film at 11.