Slashdot Mirror
Australia Mulling a Nationwide Vehicle-Tracking System
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that as political support for Australia's version of the national ID card is waning, the powers that be have found a far more effective way to catalog the populace. CrimTrac, an Australian government agency responsible for designing technical solutions to aid policing, is due to hand in a $2.2 million scoping study for the introduction of a nationwide automatic number plate recognition system (ANPR). It seems that as well as ANPR, the system will also collect images of drivers and passengers with high enough resolution for identification purposes. All ANPR data collected would be made available to participating agencies in real time, and retained for five years for future investigations."
Can you call the gov't up when you get lost and ask them for directions? "Help! I don't know where am I, but i see a kangaroo and the toilets are flushing backwords"
already up and running in Britain admittedly without the photos (but we've got 1 cctv cam per 14 people in this gulag ^H^H^H^H^H country anyway)
If only we had more data available, we could stop all crime!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
From the summary: "support for Australia's version of the national ID card is waning." Um, what national ID card?
So what exactly is the Hawke government going to do now?
load the band up onto the back of a flatbed truck, then hoon around while pretending to perform.
request the resulting footage under the freedom of information laws, then release as the video to your latest single.
You shall know him by his Sig
no text
If it is good enough for Top Gear it is good enough for us
Or maybe a Geoff Kennett, Pauline Hanson...
Next we'll be asked to dobb-in a neighbour!
A long stick, a roll of duct tape, and a can of spray paint will trump even the most expensive traffic cameras.
OP is obliviously lying. I see that text plain as day.
You can't take the sky from me.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Really? You just saved me an expensive ticket on an international flight.
I did some work as a contractor for CrimTrac a few years ago and they had this fingerprint recognition system that went into enormous detail in a single finger print, not just the swirls and where the lines were but it analysed the actual mini-ripples along the edges of each of the lines. Even if you had less than 10% of the total fingerprint it would still find matches by the sequence of ripples along a single line.
Ok just give me a moment....
Hahahaha, hahahaahahahaha!
I'll believe it when I see it, even if such system were to be implemented and they changed every single camera I'd doubt if they'd cover even a third of Australia roads.
It's painful for them to even get roads setup at all! Even the cameras we do have don't work, so they just turn them off.
but only if it's to tag known criminals.
That means the politicians have to get one first.
be cheaper to make a video call...collect
Spending millions to billions of dollars to put in place a system that people don't want, spending hundreds of dollars per camera when they are totally vulnerable to being disabled at any time for mere pennies, is a BAD IDEA!!!
It's not a gulag until they start imprisoning people arbitrarily. A country filled with surveillance is not a police state, it's more like a small village. Beware of gossip, act as if someone's always watching you.
Of course, surveillance *can* be used by a police state, but it can be used against the state as well. Remember the Nixon tapes.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People will start wearing masks.
Personally, I have always wanted an excuse to wear a burqa. Yes, I am serious too. When we get to the point that facial recognition is everywhere I am just going to start obscuring my face. If I have to do that then I want to be comfortable doing it. Naked underneath a burqa seems to be a good place to start. I am only half kidding.
That will be a pretty weird looking world when you have to protect yourself head to toe to obtain a little privacy.
You think it won't happen? You think I am overdoing it a little? They are going to keep that data for FIVE YEARS. You think they won't sell access to it, illegally or otherwise? Of course they will. You better not cheat on your wife or girlfriend. Go to happy finish massage parlors in the middle of day. Basically do anything you want to be private, since it will be a trivial matter to find out EVERYWHERE you have been for the last 5 years.
and (highly reflective) sun-vizor
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Or do it in KKK hoods and an unmarked police car. Oh wait, it's been done.
Ok, this is a technical problem begging for a technical solution. What's it take to detect cameras and hit them with a laser? A watt or so should do to fry the image sensor.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
TOP SECRET FACT:Most modern cars have tracking transponders ALREADY!
Spy transmission chips embedded in tires that can be read REMOTELY while driving.
Yup. My brother works on them (since 2001).
The us gov T.R.E.A.D. act (which passed) made it illegal to sell new passenger cars lacking untamperable RFID in the tires allowing efficient scanning of moving cars.
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 chemical 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)
[amazing document deleted by feds recently]
The chips in your tires are for forensic "after the fact" database tracking, from databases collected on highway choke points, It can be done in real time too though.
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 allegedly 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.
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).
The governement can then either look back in databases to see wheere and when your car drove, and OCR liscense plates at tool or Customs can
build the database up even better without the feds needing to visit your home to get your RFID GUIDs.
More sinister, it is near impossible to buy tires without the vendor in the USA filling out federal paperwork of what VIN the recipient car is!
Photos of tracking chips before molded deep into tires! :
http://www.sokymat.com/index.php?id=94
Link is deleted now but company that bought the tire snitch chip company makes passport scanners for the feds now : http://www.aaitg.com/index.php?id=23
PLEASE LOOK AT THAT LINK : Its the same shocking tire material I have been trying to tell people about since the spring of 2001 on slashdot.
a controversial dead older link was at http://www.sokymat.com/sp/applications/tireid.html
(its gone off archive.org internet way back repository now too)
(slashdot ruins links, so you will have to remove the ASCII space it insertes usually into any of my urls 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 po
You're an idiot, the ANPR scoping study was initiated LONG before the ALP won government.
What is...?
Even if Australians used American-made toilets (with swirling motion), they still wouldn't spin backwards. How water spins down a drain is related to the design of the unit, not the earth's rotation. (urban legend).
BACK TO ARTICLE:
"Only criminals need fear tracking of their cars," is the most common defense to this proposal. My response: "And what if the government makes travel a crime? Then we ALL become criminals." Why would government make travel a crime? Well besides the obvious case of dictatorship, there's also the possibility a government might outlaw travel for environmental reasons. Or because oil is scarce.
A person is not truly free unless he has the right to travel whereever he wishes without restraint or monitoring.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
How about tinted windows? Harsh Australian sun and all that.
An IR laser diode that is left unfocused will do the trick.
It won't zap the sensor, but unless they have used a decent IR filter it will saturate the chip to the point of not registering anything else.
Reasons why you may want to avoid doing this:
- no idea if there will be retinal damage if someone else looks at it
- ANY camera will get upset, so an traffic monitoring will show up your car as worthy of close inspection
- AFAIK, anything that hinders reading your license plate by whatever means is illegal (it is in most of the countries I've been in, no idea about AU).
This is NOT a tech problem, it is a political one. As long as the population doesn't make it VERY clear they disagree with what is going on, their government will continue to seek ways to waste a lot of taxpayer money. I'm willing to bet money on the UK ID Card scheme getting nuked if there is a change of government (AFAIK that is an election pledge), that's why they're so pushy about implementing it in at least some form (hence the contract announcements etc etc) - the intention is to make it hard to roll back.
You know, I can recall times when being in politics was something respectful. I'm obviously old..
Insert
My response: "And what if the government makes travel a crime? Then we ALL become criminals."
In that case it'd be more effective to just stand in the road, that way they don't have to hunt you down.
I love the "What if they do something different in the future" arguments. What if the government declares martial law and starts using chemical warefare on its own citizens? Surely we mustn't have an army so we can stop such a catastrophe!
When I always read items like this, concerning nationwide objective the first thing that comes to mind is ... the project of 2.2m would have only been funded if localised projects were already active and effective.
If it was for a totally new adventure the funding would have been a lot more than 2.2million.
The technology isn't complex.. (blah blah blah)
And most cities here have tollways when a 100s of camera's, its native not to think the intelligence agencies ain't already hacking about with them.
Perfect for brute-force attacks. If the target device is placed out of reach, the system is scalable: the batsman can be aided by an assistant with the cricket ball module.
I'm actually okay with this, assuming its all automated, and the police require a warrant to gain any information from the system (and they can only get the information specified by the warrant).
At least give the people who the country -belongs to- the right to have it run -their way-! Simple, isn't it? Why should we accept something we don't want? - What's the point??
Referendums would be very easy these days, just let people vote with their phones, and you would get a real quick, cheap indication of what people want...
Come on, we live in a digital age, - -Use it!-
Let the people decide, it's their country!
already been done..
here, well sort of.
That's not so crazy. There are a number of countries, like Australia, England and of course America that are pretty much going crazy with the control of the populace stuff. Russia used to have "internal passports" and if you wanted to travel to certain places you needed permission. Being caught traveling without permission was indeed a crime. The current trend toward kontrol resembles the get tough on crime meme, that has resulted in draconian and counter-productive policies such as the 3 strikes law in America. The dynamics are similar with pols vying to come up with ever "tougher" (read stupider and or more authoritarian) policies and laws.
It begs the question, in my opinion, why were are still using numberplates at all? Aren't there better way to keep track of vehicles at this point - seems to me that tracking devices in general might also help prevent theft to a large extent.. of course providing they couldn't be disabled easily, which.. yeah... would be a difficult feat?
I have spoken'eth.
History shows that all governments eventually become tyrannical in nature. (For example Rome started as a Republic, devolved into an Imperium, and finally ended as a dictatorship.) More recently, we have our own President spying on us with the US PATRIOT Act giving him power to tap all phone conversations everywhere.
Why give some future tyrant the tools to abuse his power & track all travel? We should limit government power every chance we get, to guard against that future tyrant *before* he arrives on the scene.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Oh goodie!
Report comings and goings of hookers/mistresses to and from congresscritters abodes, Report all commonwealth vehicles, both marked and unmarked visisting red light districts. Together with the tie up of mobile phone cell triangulation. Once a hacker has the wireless intercepts in place, everybody can mine this information. Just because the cops play with this now (to raise revenue) does not mean others can collect the same information for mavolent purposes. Too bad journalists aren't stupid enough - they walk or take a bus/train/bicycle, or a loaner car. That webcam on the window sill- well, thats just to observe the weather , wink wink.
Agreed. The whole idea is incredibly stupid. "CrimTrak"? If they know someone is a criminal, go to his house, his parent's house or his girlfriend's house. 95% of the time he'll be there. For the other 5%, we need panopticon video surveillance of the general population! It's obvious! How ever did we make it to 2008? The criminals should have killed us all by now without this technology!
Please, somebody, somewhere cut me a f*cking break and stop this stupidity.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
I agree. Hence my example of not having an army to protect against future tyranny.
Certainly a reasonable post. However note to a man not one has discussed to the other side of the issue. How far and by what means should law enforcement do it's job without constituents lambasting them for their failures (and they will most assuredly fail)? A weighty question, but then privacy is weighty and plenty have commentary on that.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
The current love affair with GPS units can be extrapolated as follows. Gov. mandates blackbox GPS units. Features. - Warns you if you speed, - logs your trip data - tells you your speeding - prints out tickets if you break a trtaffic rule... you get the picture?
The thing people who try to impose crap like this never seem to realize is that it's easy to track honest people as they go about their daily business. People with bad intent can usually defeat systems like this with about five minutes' thought. Meanwhile, the information being collected infallibly winds up being spread around to friends of the collectors. Canadian Social Insurance Numbers were assigned exclusively for tax purposes. Now, you get video store clerks asking for your SIN when you apply for a damned movie card.
Bottom line: the only criminals who get caught by these systems are the dummies. So the end result is just a little Darwinian natural selection for your crooks while all the rest of us lose freedom and privacy.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The taggant article from Princeton's site wasn't deleted; its URL just changed. It's here.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Australia is *far* more down to earth than the US government.
It would be quite a powerful crime fighting tool being able to get a bank robber's licence plate number and being able to track them within minutes of the robbery.
Actually, keeping the army weak is pretty important to preventing martial law. Or haven't you been to Iraq, Iran, Argentina, or Russia in the last 20 years?
If by *far* more down to earth you mean they only occupy countries for oil^H^H^Hstability purposes, instead of invading, you are damn right.
I have seen far too many CHAINED stories of the following variety:
1. "Let's collect all this data! It might help us catch one terrorist!"
2. "The only people who have to fear this data are criminals, so go back to the San Terradino Free University."
3. News in YRO: "Today an employee lost the laptop with 5 million records of the tracking database."
4. Anonymous posts the database on the net.
5. Everyone starts blogging. "Ooh, I wonder why you went to the Red Light District, hmm?"
We're headed towards a Sixties-ish explosion over this stuff within a decade. The pressure can't build forever.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Except that "Outlaw attitudes" tend to be frowned upon by employers. Oops.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You mean the license plates they stole/duplicated from the car in the airport long-term parking garage, which is the same model and color as the getaway car they stole last week?
Serious criminals will work around the system, and dumb ones will still hide out at their girlfriend's place.
Other ways of getting "clean" cars include carjacking, holding families hostage, or simply killing the owner(s).
sigh
The police have a working prototype ANPR system mounted in a patrol car which automatically looks up every plate it recognises.
http://www.111emergency.co.nz/EVENT-PoliceCollege08/PoliceCollegear.JPG
http://www.111emergency.co.nz/PoliceCollege08.htm
Yes, and bank robbery, like all other crimes, are at such an horrendous all-time high. This will certainly nip this problem in the bud!
Erm if they stole plates, the system would still work because the camera would still see those numbers driving around.
What those numbers mean are irrelevant - If someone gets the licence plate of the robbers, then the cameras can follow them.
The world is looking more and more like a prison complete with a ball and chain tied to everyone's ankles.
There's a popular quote that was used during the American revolutionary war, "Give me liberty or give me death". I'd rather die than willingly become a drone.
Even if Australians used American-made toilets (with swirling motion), they still wouldn't spin backwards. How water spins down a drain is related to the design of the unit, not the earth's rotation. (urban legend).
Hey buddy! Learn your science! The location of the "American Made" toilet with the swirly water thing would spin in reverse in the southern hemisphere. It's called the Coriolis Force and you can read about it right here.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Goodness me, I need coffee. I want to flame my own post for gramatical errors.
The sad untold truths about being a grammar-nazi.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
We can take care of the other 5% by inviting them to a party, apparently.
Honestly, I don't give a shit. I don't know about Australia, but the police here, in America, have done a wonderful job catching bank robbers without needing to know where I am.
Is crime really so bad in Australia that it's just easier to treat everybody like criminals in the first place?
Maybe not
"And what if the government makes travel a crime?"
Strangely ironic if they did - given the country was founded on forced transportation of criminals.
Just saying.
This is coming from a 7th generation Austrailan. ;P
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
I can actually see it being introduced... Slowly but surely our freedoms are being reduced "for our own good" by a government that wishes to micromanage our lives, yet is unable to manage our country.
Limiting our freedom to travel is only another step in the road to total tyrannical dictatorship "for our own good."
I am not stubborn. I am right!
This technology of machine reading license plates is already being used in California: http://cbs8.com/features/crimefighters/story.php?id=109994
Who would use their own car in a bank robbery... or rob a bank without a mask... Or not have a car ready somewhere to switch. If you don't do any of these things already then you don't need a surveillance system to catch you.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I am an Aussie, and when I was a kid I tried many times in vain to convince the water in my bathtub and basin to drain out counter-clockwise. In fact I don't recall ever seeing water drain counter-clockwise. If the coriolis effect does not impact the direction that water spins in as it drains, then I can only postulate that it must have an effect on the way that tubs and basins are manufactured!
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
Hm-m-m. Tin foil hat tight tonight?
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
We have the Australia Card. And it's for our own protection.
Tried to post a present to a relative lately? Govt ID please!
Tried to retrieve a package from the postal system? Govt ID please!
Tried to walk or drive around Sydney at night? Govt ID please!
Tried to hire accomodation at Rottnest? Govt ID please!
Tried to open a bank account? Govt ID please! [1]
About the only thing you don't need your Govt ID (passport or driver's license) is to vote. Then they just ask who you are.
When Hawke tried it there were lots of "papers, comrade" jokes. And the idea was soundly rejected with some of the largest mass demonstrations in Australia's history. But, quietly, quietly it's been slipped into the system.
First "uniform" licenses with optional photographs
Then the photographs became mandatory - but we'd never require them for ID
Then it became illegal to drive without carrying your license (most states only required that you present it within 24hrs)
Then it became necessary to use a DL or PP to post packages
And now the NSW police can demand to see proof of identity. Not always legally, but proving that to the arresting officer is left as an exercise for the reader.
And we get silly crap like http://www.firstaid.net.au/proofofidentity.php where you need to prove your identity just to do a first aid course.
And of course a DL (aka Australia Card) is the simple option.
[1] You can use some other ID but it's just about impossible to get your 100 points without a DL or Passport
1. The police currently do a good job of catching bank robbers, and
2. Idiots will still suggest Orwellian overraction to their invented 'problems'.
I used to work in the banking industry so I can attest to 1, and 2 is self evident.
As long as you have a souped-up Pursuit Special you're probably free to go where you want. Just make sure to avoid the biker gangs.
Mod parent up. The summary is (as usual) inflammatory and misinformed. There is no scheme, legislation or proposal in Australia or any of its states for a national ID card.
Wrong.
It was canned.
Next time, do your research before replying.
Ah, and, captcha: repress
How.. appropriate.
Sorry I wasn't clear enough. My point is that the cameras log the plates, not the people.
They change to another vehicle as soon as they're out of sight of cameras and witnesses. It'll take time to work out the changeover, if ever. They can use car parks, shopping centers, mass transport, deserted areas, etc. Hey, take the magnetic plates along, there's lots of blue 2005 model Camrys around, there's probably a score within a minute's drive of where I work. It might not be discovered for days.
This is not a tracking system, it only gives hits on time, place and direction. What happens between those hits is unknown, and there's a delay in use of the system.
The vehicle has at least a couple of minutes before it's entered into a live tracking system. By then, the vehicle might be in a locked garage and the people are long gone.
The investigation is then like any other - the camera system has been just as helpful as any witness who saw the vehicle drive away from the scene of the crime, no more.
Having had some involvement with ANPR here in the UK, I can confirm he's going to spend an absolute fortune. The ANPR software is charged on a per camera basis for at least £2500 each (it's only a lousy driver & some pretty shoddy OCR software too, and is unreliable as anything), plus the control softare and very expensive support.
He will also spend a lot of time meeting some incredibly nice salesmen, or may have already done that. They will disappear shortly to leave him with some very unhelpful support people.
Australia is *far* more down to earth than the US government.
It would be quite a powerful crime fighting tool being able to get a bank robber's licence plate number and being able to track them within minutes of the robbery.
In principle you are right however a bank robber with any clue will steal a car and use that for the robbery then dump the car and change to one or even two other cars to throw of the police. If the thieves are blatant they may even catch a train or bus (sans masks of course).
Actually the police have more chance of identifying a thief from the crime scene and can arrest them while protecting themselves and the public. High speed chases may catch a thief in the end but when a thief perceives they don't have anything to loose they don't care about their life or anyone else's.
What is scary is not so much the thief (yes they are rat bags) but the Governments who erode human rights by using the "greater protection excuse". It is debatable that it provides greater security for the average citizen but the greater the surveillance the more it can be abused but of course we all know that could never happen.
On a side note in NSW Australia where I live all speed and red light cameras require signs warning that a camera is ahead while other states don't have to do this. This is what we would call revenue raising so the NSW Government made it mandatory to have signs placed to avoid being seen as money grabbing (I think it was also close to an election as well). Speed cameras even in NSW do catch speeders (normally doing 10 km/h over the posted limit) but only those who excessively speed and are not paying attention. They did try to get the cameras painted black in some areas but the voter backlash would have made doing this political suicide.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
The coriolis force does NOT affect how water spins down a drain.
As I said, that is an urban legend. (Maybe YOU need to learn your science.) In fact my water drains one way 50% of the time, and the other way the other 50% of the time.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
That is absolute bullshit. For a tenth of the price, they could hire adequate manpower to make such technology pale in comparison for that intended purpose.
The real purpose, the big brother surveillance of every minutae of our life by our opressive dictators is being trialled in Australia for a wider market. We're just the test population before it is rolled out in larger shores, a testbed to iron out the kinks in the plan to dominate every facet of our life.
This is the end of our liberty, the end of our fraternity and equality too. We are no longer free men, we are slaves to masters we are all too willing to support and succumb to.
Heh. They ran a sting like that around here by sending them notices that they won a prize and to come pick it up. Criminals are pretty stupid.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
> t's already outlawed to wear most types of masks in public
> "because then we can't ID you if you *might* be a criminal!!"
> But yes, I see this as a major flashpoint, and it would open up the next fashion wave.
ALL it needs is a fashion to be seen in public wearing a Ned Kelly mask! If a car is FULL of "Ned Kellys", then WHO was actually driving?
http://www.beechworth.com.au/nedkellyhelmet.jpg
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
Except that "Outlaw attitudes" tend to be frowned upon by employers.
Any more than wearing burqas or otherwise concealing your whole body? I doubt it. I think most businesses would embrace an "outlaw attitude" much more readily than the "I have something to hide" attitude.
... and then they built the supercollider.
... spray paint is a lot easier to apply.
Hey, almost forgot! (4) Piece of string.