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Starting Next Year, Brazil Wants To Track All Cars Electronically
New submitter juliohm writes "As of January, Brazil intends to put into action a new system that will track vehicles of all kinds via radio frequency chips. It will take a few years to accomplish, but authorities will eventually require all vehicles to have an electronic chip installed, which will match every car to its rightful owner. The chip will send the car's identification to antennas on highways and streets, soon to be spread all over the country. Eventually, it will be illegal to own a car without one. Besides real time monitoring of traffic conditions, authorities will be able to integrate all kinds of services, such as traffic tickets, licensing and annual taxes, automatic toll charge, and much more. Benefits also include more security, since the system will make it harder for thieves to run far away with stolen vehicles, much less leave the country with one."
The "must be tagged" law will not prevent theft, and will not prevent other criminal activities.
It does not prevent the criminals from disabling a tag, altering a tag, or replacing the tag.
What the tracking system ultimately tracks are the tags. Not the vehicles.
As such, removing the tags, and then transporting the vehicle under a different but "valid" tag would make an effective means of breaking this system.
The real benefit to law enforcement/government is *NOT* combating criminals, it is tracking law abidding citizens.
I would expect catch-22s like "we show your vehicle at the scene" in one case and "you can't prove that isn't a fake transponder being used to put you on the other side of the country" in another, with the difference being the desire of the prosecutor.
(Eg, "iron-clad, irrefutable!" When used to show guilt, and "suspect, clearly a technological fabrication!" When used to assert innocense.)
If anything, this masure will spawn a new form of criminal activity, buying, selling, and provisioning counterfiet/shady transponders.
The big brother society ... Marches on steady. Unstoppable and with an insatiable appetite for new technology
It also deploys very quietly these days. It's already up and running before people notice it's there.
We already HAVE four federally mandated car trackers on all passenger cars (along with most other vehicles) since 2007.
It's called a "Tire Pressure Monitoring System". It works by having (typically) a lithium-cell powered device in the valve stem on each wheel that transmits the tire pressure information along with a unique serial number (so your dashboard computer doesn't get confused by nearby cars). These can also be read by loops in the road.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I would rather see us do what doctors in ancient greece did.
Make an oath not to willfully cause harm, and internally enforce it. Call it whatever, but we need some form of morality in our profession, and willfully creating code we KNOW to be malicious is clearly immoral, regardless of what moral compas you choose to employ.
Simple things, like "I will not create mass mailers for commercial uses", "I will not create personally identifiable tracking systems of any sort.", "I will not create nor enforce systems to hinder political speech of any kind.", "I will not willfully penetrate another computer system without permission, and will not create tools to do so either.", "I will not willingly install backdoors for spying, monitoring, or sabotage, for any agency, in any software or systems I create.", etc.
It doesn't need to be religious, like 'i will only make open code' or anything. Just things we can unilaterally agree are clear misuses of technology. Kinda like doctors refusing to create bioweapons. That kind of thing.