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Big Brother Calls 'Shotgun' In Illinois
Reader kackle joins the army of free and accepted Slashdot submitters with this eyebrow-raising story: "I received a form letter from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority saying that my first-generation 'IPASS' transponder needs to be replaced because the battery is old. I called them for clarification since the first-generation transponders obviously have user-replaceable batteries, and I wanted to keep this version because it beeps when a toll is paid. (This notifies drivers that their battery is still good, unlike the silent second-generation version, which informs them of a dead battery by sending a ticket in the mail.) The woman on the phone explained that they were replacing them just because the electronics are old. This uninformed answer made me research the device. I found that the manufacturer has recently filed a patent application for a new transponder that has a camera in it — a camera pointed inward at the occupants. How long before they make it illegal to cover that camera with tape?"
Take a picture of the inside of your car, shrink it down, and attach it to the camera. They'll be so confused about the driverless car that they won't worry about what laws you might be breaking.
So now you won't even be able to enjoy a beer in the front seat without being caught on video.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From what I can tell, they have not manufactured a single device with a camera on it. Until they're actually in use somewhere, I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch. For all you know the camera equipped model is for specific edge cases like maybe charging cabs more if they have an occupant or something and won't be used 99% of the time.
I read the internet for the articles.
Yeah! On the bus, the only cameras recording me are the 3 or 4 little black domes mounted on the ceiling!
Wait...
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Seems like a little bit of black tape ought to fix the camera, no?
And how long will it be before somebody hacks it to transmit pictures of hentai (NSFW) back to the Illinois traffic HQ?
Or, more likely: how long before somebody hacks it to pick up the camera feed from unauthorized recievers?
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The next abstract part:
Sounds like a company that makes toll devices, are patenting a toll device that can enforce HOV Tolls by detecting if you actually have more then one person in the vehicle . . . . imagine that.
Nothing in that first page had *anything* to do with a battery, it had to do with their billing system and having invalid license plate data.
And come up with the completely wrong conclusion.
Jesus christ I know /. isn't what it used to be, but seriously is this the Daily Mail now?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Rise up America, you're rapidly turning into the most apathetic people around when it comes to your rights. Which means the rest of us are completely fucked.
It is funny to read you bashing America while admitting you are an even bigger pussy. If you want to fight, stand up and fight. If you want to stand behind and rant about it, put on a skirt and shake your pom-poms.
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There is no camera in any ipass system nor any intention of doing so. Camera tech is ancient, this could have been implemented 10 years ago. I know this is the kind of manufactured controversy that gets ad impressions for slashdot, but please, there are real problems in the world, and this isn't one of them.
They photograph your license plate at all manual toll collection points too. The police can get those records just as easily. Dropping the pass in favor of dropping coins in the slot doesn't help.
What's your problem with Kentucky?
In the NYC area there are many toll discount programs for call pools with ezpass. In order to get the discount, you must use a cash lane even though you have an ezpass, so an attendant can confirm you are driving with the required number of people for the discount. So you pay less, but you get stuck in traffic with all the people paying cash. If a transponder had an inward facing camera then it could provide a way of letting you use ezpass only lanes and still get the discounts.
This application makes it no less freaky. I would only ever consider it if there were some technological privacy safeguard. For instance, a built in manually operated only door over the lens. When I approach a toll, I have to slide it open to allow the picture to be taken to get my discount. After the toll, I can slide it back closed.
There are lots of people who keep their ezpass in the metal coated bag and only mount it when they are near a toll, and there are non-toll ezpass readers all over the place, with the stated goal of monitoring traffic flow. Wanting to pay tolls faster and get discounts should not mean having to submit to random and capricious tracking and a total loss of privacy when traveling.
This has never happened. They do not do this and the state has specifically said it will not.
When I approach a toll, I have to slide it open to allow the camera to image the picture of a fully occupied car I hold in front of the lens to get my discount. After the toll, I can slide it back closed.
FTFY.
Still, an inward-viewing camera inside the car? Monitored by a State agency? The reason doesn't matter. It's still creepy and wrong.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The Tea Party was an attempt to rise up. So the corporate news organizations did everything they could to paint them as racists - and on pretty flimsy evidence. Now Herman Cain is one of the Tea Party favorites. The Tea Party has some clear goals - limit the power of government - follow the Constitution - cut government spending (and thus government control of the economy). What are the goals of these Wall Street demonstrators? If they really are trying to put limits on government what makes you think the corporate news orgs (who can afford lobbyists) will allow it?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Ah, quite right, it appears. I had to ask again to make sure I got the story straight. The warnings they received were about speeding in the EZPass lane, not between the toll booths.
I went and looked it up... http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/ezpass.asp
And there is an image of the warning at http://www.nytrafficticket.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/17/speeding-in-the-ez-pass-lane/
Carry on.
The old models only have a battery because they beep and some (perhaps all) have a display showing your I-PASS balance. The newer models are entirely sealed, and do not require a battery because they work by RFID chips. This post is a bit ridiculous.
If you want the reasoning... go no farther than the I-PASS website (quoted below):
I have one of the old display model transponders that beeps. Can I keep replacing the battery instead of swapping it out for a new transponder?
These older model transponders need to be replaced to ensure customers continue to receive the benefits of I-PASS and avoid toll violations. The Tollway recommends that these transponders be replaced for two important reasons:
The older transponder model is no longer being manufactured and, therefore, is no longer certified by the manufacturer. Our testing has shown that the older transponder model does not perform as well as the new transponders on the new open road tolling system."
You shouldn't follow the media blindly and research things yourself, Tea party members are not racists, nor ignorant. They are painted as such by the corporate controlled media outlets.
(This notifies drivers that their battery is still good, unlike the silent second-generation version, which informs them of a dead battery by sending a ticket in the mail.)
This is not correct when you sign up for an IPASS account, you give the toll authority your license plate numbers. If your vehicle goes through a toll and the IPASS unit doesn't work correctly, when the toll authority goes through the photos of supposed violators' plate numbers, yours will be cleared as a registered plate and they just deduct the toll as per usual. It shows up on your IPASS transaction list/invoice as a "Virtual Toll". I had a bunch of those on my statement from when I took the unit off of one car and put it on another for a week, and they didn't seem to care at all. Same regular toll price.
The summary links for a forum post that says
"Worse, the way they're sorting out motorcycles from cars is by doctoring the plate number in the system, so when they go to check your plate number, it won't come up even if it's linked to the account, and they assume that you're not an I-Pass customer even if you are."
So that's some issue with motorcycles and the way their goofy system works, and this was in 2005.
Now, since they can read your plate and determine if you're an IPASS user, and there is no penalty for not having an IPASS unit in your car if you're a registered user...why have IPASS units at all? I guess for when it's raining or the plate is obscured and they can't collect a toll by OCRing the plate?
With the first link, the chain is forged.
That's not quite the way I remember it. Instead, I remember the Tea Party having some valid complaints, but then they were quickly co-opted by some greedy politicians like Palin and Bachmann. The Tea Partiers were so dumb and gullible that when these politicians said "we're one of you!" they believed it and adopted them as their spokespeople. After this, the TPers' reputations were ruined.
The Tea Party has some clear goals - limit the power of government - follow the Constitution - cut government spending (and thus government control of the economy).
What are the goals of these Wall Street demonstrators?
http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall-street-official-demands-2009
The web page is evolving and you have to essentially read it in reverse order to see the progress
the order is (AFAICT):
1: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City (11 demands)
2: Below Is The Original List of Proposed Demands and Voting Links for #Global Revolution (17 demands)
3 and Most Recent: LIST OF PROPOSED "DEMANDS FOR CONGRESS (8 demands)
The page keeps changing, so you mileage may vary
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Others here says that the tolls cost double if you pay using the manual method, and that they photograph your license plate anyway. So if you want privacy, the answer is simple: don't drive on a toll road!!! I'm sure there's other roads that you can drive on, although they won't be as quick or direct.
Tolls originally had a valid reason. The government would purchase a bond to fund the road building, and the tolls would pay off the bond. I have no problem with this, the users of the road pay for their road.
The problem comes after the bond is paid off, the government never likes to give up a source of income that people may not notice. Now they only have to pay a fraction of the toll for road upkeep, and the rest is gravy.
Or even better, instead of paying off the bond with the tolls, they used the money for whatever pet projects they wanted. In either case the toll just becomes another tax.
Have you actually turned on a TV or read a newspaper in the last year or two?
Palin and Bachmann associated themselves with the Tea Party movement. They give speech after speech invoking the Tea Party and they have very many Tea Party supporters.
And you're trying to say this is "spun by the lib'rul media"? Amazing.
Everyone wants freedom for themselves. Heck, even criminals want "freedom" to commit their crimes.
The Tea Partiers seem to be all about getting as much freedom as possible for themselves, and taking away freedom from anyone who is different from them. And they will use Big Government to pass laws to take other's freedoms away. Have you asked a Tea Partier for their opinions on abortion lately? Medical marijuana? Gay marriage? Integrating (their own) religion with government?
Well, here's why the EZPass system is currently a good idea:
* Bypass the enormous lines at rush hour. Try going over the Tappan Zee at 5:30 PM with one, and you'll never want to give up your EZPass.
* 10% discount on tolls when paid with EZPass adds up.
* It has automatic credit card billing so you don't have to make sure you have change on hand for tolls.
* You can put in the foil bag it comes with to prevent it being read.
If they can just keep those benefits without adding additional tracking, it would be good. I like the way it is right now.
The patent specified optional camera(s), acceleration sensors and satnav tracking... I'd like to keep it the way it is!!
It's not like the government mandated that a unique number be attached to each vehicle by which it could be tracked or anything...
Dunno whether you were writing tongue-in-cheek, but we might point out explicitly that this has been done. Readers who aren't familiar with the topic might try googling "RFID in tires" and reading a few of the articles.
So if you've bought a new car (or got new tires) in the US recently, your car can be tracked by RFID transceivers that you drive past. How much of this data is actually being collected doesn't seem to be much documented. There's an obvious problem in that it does require installing the RFID equipment throughout the road system, and it will probably be difficult to keep such a massive installation a secret for long. Today, you are probably mostly tracked this way when you pass a toll station on a major highway, or enter/exit parking lots of specific organizations that have decided to collect the data. But the installed base of RFID gadgetry on roads will probably slowly expand in the future.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.