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Chinese Spying Devices Installed On Hong Kong Cars
jjp9999 writes "Spying devices disguised as electronic border cards have been secretly installed on thousands of Hong Kong vehicles by Chinese authorities, according to a Hong Kong newspaper. A translation of the story states Chinese authorities have been installing spying devices on all dual-plate Chinese-Hong Kong vehicles for years, enabling a vast network of eavesdropping across the archipelago."
Nothing they do surprises me anymore.
Circumcision is child abuse.
How does seeing help....
When it is disguised as a border pass transponder, which you'd pretty much expect to have "taped onto the vehicle’s front window"?
So is my Fastrack. Maybe I'm naive, but I never seriously considered it was being used to spy on me... (though now that I think of it, it's probably more likely than not ;)
do you live in a state with electronic tolling? how do you not see the the device you are required to have fastened to your windshield if you wish to use automatic toll paying? this is similar thing, a "border card" required for vehicles dual licensed in mainland / hong kong
Those who RTFA can read this:
Apple Daily says they took the device to a university professor and a private investigator, both of whom attested to the espionage potential of the units.
or this:
An Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong, Zheng Liming, took apart one of the devices and confirmed that it can listen in on conversations
and see a photo in which a hole in the plastic shell is marked "cavity for receiving sound" (a microphone would have been more convincing), two quartz crystals (the likes of which can be found in almost every modern electronic devices) marked "generate carrier frequency for radio transmission" and a nondescript chip that "turns voice signals into digital information".
You know what? I think I'll take a photo of my cellphone's innards, photoshop conveniently spy-sounding labels into the photo, bring my cellphone to a university professor who will testify that my device has a microphone, a crystal, an antenna and a processor that definitely has the potential to turn it into spying device then write an article about it.
Some journalism...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
We have a couple of experts saying it certainly could be a bug. But nobody said they found the freq it was transmitting on and got feedback from it. Kinda flimsy evidence so far.
Actually, the current suggestion is to put a device on your car to track the mileage so they can tax you based on how much you drive.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/18/news/economy/gas_tax_drivers/?section=money_latest
Which is blatant BS (on their part, not yours), since if they only cared how much you drive (rather than where and when), then all they'd have to do is check the fucking odometer!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
stick the bug into the license plate!
I do wonder how they work technically. I mean, there can't be much space for a battery in such a licence plate. You can't use RFID like technology at a distance of more than 10-50 meters, which would make actual eavesdropping a challenge even for a government. If it is to have any semblance of being secret obviously you can't use the car's battery or electrical systems.
Very weak radio transmitters still need about a watt for reasonable communications (ie. cell phones). So if you wish to use something like this for, say a year (they're valid for a year), you'd need a tiny, tiny 31 MJ (that's megajoule) battery, or 3 KWh, but it can't be much larger than a watch battery.
So how the hell do you keep that thing powered ?
For that matter, which radio do you use ? Cell network ? It would require a hell of a lot of people in the loop.
Or tax at the fuel stating.
signature is pants
I clicked the link and was about to RTFA, then I spotted that it's from "The Epoch Time" referencing an article from "The Apple Daily". I am from HK and those are not two news sources that I trust. The first is a media front for the Fa Lun Gong, which as much as I dislike communism, I have a worse distaste for a money sucking "religious" cult. The latter is a sensationalist tabloid paper. It is famous for its yellow journalism. If you want a report on fact, that's not it.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Then get the stonecutters to put a stop to that technology.
signature is pants
The thing with those devices is that of course they automatically log when-ever you pass a toll gate. So there is a record of the movements of that device (and in effect an individual vehicle). I wouldn't be surprised if law enforcement uses it to track smugglers (they typically cross the border multiple times a day).
That depends on whether they want to use variable road pricing, which was an idea mooted in the UK a few years back. The idea being that you get charged more for driving on roads that are more congested. Or something like that.
I'd be weary of the source as it is the Apple Daily. They are known for not being that reliable. I was on the cover a number of years ago, and they photoshopped my hair blond to make me look more white and miss quoted me. I was pissed but then everybody told me that everybody knows that's what they do. C'est la vie. I'll wait till I hear it from a different paper.
Hey gamers, help me out with your combo skills!
When .gov quits pretending to actually be for citizens, they'll just pull up the covers with the nice Corps they're in bed with. Let's pair the last two semi-consecutive stories in a row.
"Location aware apps from Adobe. Spying from Government."
Why are we now falling for the spin? Are we that desperate for Minority Report style ads?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You don't have to track prepaid tags that simply transmit tokens until they run out of tokens -- you just keep track which tokens you have heard and only accept new ones. Tokens then may be randomly loaded when payment is made, without any need for association with any particular person or vehicle.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
. . . is that, no matter the source, no matter the content, no matter its significance, the Wu Mao Dang will spun it round, round, baby, right round. . . You're being harmonized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
I was lucky to find this with just a little googling. It is a JZ-871 GFSK transceiver module.
http://www.sz-wholesaler.com/p/505/545-2/micro-power-data-rf-module-jz871-171649.html
In the US, drivers have to buy their own RFID transponders just for the privilege of being able to pay tolls electronically.
Not necessarily. I did not pay for my EZ-Pass transponder. At least in New York and New Jersey, two of the states that use the EZ-Pass transponder that I can vouch from personal experience, the transponder is given to you free if you have the tolls billed automatically to your credit card.
Which is, pretty much, is the only practical approach. If you take the other option of getting a prepaid transponder, they'll charge you for it. But, having to constantly prepay is just not worth the hassle, in my opinion. It's much more convenient to have the agency automatically bill you. With the tolls being as high as they are, you'll be spending all your time adding money to the account. It's just not worth it.
There are some states in the EZ-Pass system that charge for transponders. But you do not have to buy a transponder from your state's agency. New York will give EZ-Pass to any state's resident. If your state's EZ-Pass gives discounts on some in-state tolls, you won't get them from New York though.
In effect yes. Societies do not simply up and go to war one morning. It's generally a process that takes some time to build up. The larger the conflict, the longer the build up.
A good example is the Libyan conflict, which took several weeks of drumming before allied forces launched air-strikes, and even still the US was quite reluctant to proceed. The Syrian conflict is currently being drummed up as we speak, but whether there's enthusiasm for air-strikes is another matter. However, I stress that no major action will be taken by the US, UK or any other western power without a build up of public interest in a conflict.
As to who is behind these build ups and ultimately these wars, while there are special interests, ultimately I think these things are emergent phenomena; and I would now be inclined to say that they are beyond a society's conscious control. Which isn't to say that they cannot be halted or indeed advanced prematurely. That is the job of the leaders of states. They are the ones that ultimately decide how these trends evolve and ultimately manifest themselves.
See also: The Second Iraq War and The Cuban Missile Crisis.
May the Maths Be with you!
In most states in the US, there is a safety inspection once a year when the odometer reading can be taken with absolutely no inconvenience to the owner.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I hope you're not serious. Your car must be inspected once a year. Make odometer reading part of the inspection process.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
If variable road pricing is incompatible with the Bill of Rights, well then they don't get to do the fucking variable road pricing!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz