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Researcher: Hackers Can Jam Traffic By Manipulating Real-Time Traffic Data
An anonymous reader writes "Hackers can influence real-time traffic-flow-analysis systems to make people drive into traffic jams or to keep roads clear in areas where a lot of people use Google or Waze navigation systems, a German researcher demonstrated at BlackHat Europe. 'If, for example, an attacker drives a route and collects the data packets sent to Google, the hacker can replay them later with a modified cookie, platform key and time stamps, Jeske explained in his research paper (PDF). The attack can be intensified by sending several delayed transmissions with different cookies and platform keys, simulating multiple cars, Jeske added. An attacker does not have to drive a route to manipulate data, because Google also accepts data from phones without information from surrounding access points, thus enabling an attacker to influence traffic data worldwide, he added.' 'You don't need special equipment for this and you can manipulate traffic data worldwide,' Jeske said."
There is nothing new about this. I once worked for a guy who bragged to me that as a kid in new Zealand, one of his first hacking exploits was to get into the Auckland traffic control systems and randomly change all the lights to red. He thought it was hilarious. He was an idiot.
The integrity of the crowdsourced traffic data depends entirely on trusting the client, in this case the Google-controlled Android software that sends back the data. If you figure out how to replay that, then you can pollute the data.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
if you don't bother to use these systems.
Considering the amount of time people spend checking to see which route is preferable, unless that route is at least 10 minutes shorter, there is no significant reason to alter your route.
The obvious exception being total gridlock, highway construction and the like.
It's like people who drive around looking for the cheapest gas not understanding they're burning fuel to save that 2 cents per gallon which negates their cost savings.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Barf: The minute we move in they're gonna spot us on their radar.
Lone Starr: Nuh-uh.
Barf: Uh-huh.
Lone Starr: Nuh-uh.
Barf: Uh-uh.
Lone Starr: Nuh-uh. Not if we jam it.
Barf: Aha! You're right.
Lone Starr: Down scope.
Barf: Down scope.
[puts down a periscope and targets the Spaceball 1's radar dish]
Barf: Radar about to be "jammed."
[then, a huge jar of "jam" smashes into the dish]
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As Apple says it collects data from iPhone, I wonder how easy it would be to simulate a lot of iphones in a particular area. As it is I find the Apple traffic to be a bit more reliable than Google. I remember two years ago being stuck in traffic jam that Google had told me was perfectly fine, even when I was stuck. Neither service is as reliable as my local traffic monitoring service that has supplements all data with cameras in addition to test cars listing drive times between points of travel.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This is another example why we can't have nice things. Some malicious person will find a way to screw it up for no better reason than fun.
I want to make a traffic jam in India. Look! It worked!!!
I can't imagine this would affect many people. Most people stuck in traffic don't have a choice, they're there because it's a part of their daily commute. I check traffic maps on a daily basis, but it's most just to confirm that, yes, it's as bad as it is every other day. I then proceed to go local.
So the rarer instances where it's handy is if conditions are particularly severe or if there's a jam somewhere you normally wouldn't encounter one. However, even then, there aren't always viable alternatives. Take the New York City area. Unless you can circumvent the region altogether there's no viable alternative, it's all varying degrees of bad.
Not that urban planners and traffic engineers need the help. Some of the decisions they make leave me wondering if they're mentally disabled or trolling the driving public. A couple of the major avenues across my city have light cycles that pretty much guarantee you're going to be stuck at every red if you're driving at or close to the speed limit. Secondary side streets are given far too much priority. Hackers could only improve things.
While I found the actual paper to be interesting (the researchers basically describe how they used a packet sniffer to capture data being sent to Google, then examined and reverse engineered the data to figure out exactly what was in the packets and what they could do with it), the idea of actually influencing real world trafic conditions using this method is a bit silly. First, only a very small percentage of drivers actually use live traffic data to make navigation decisions on the fly. Of those, some percentage either won't have an alternate route to choose from, or will simply stick to their route and tough it out. At best, you'd only trick a small percentage of drivers into avoiding a stretch of highway. As for "creating traffic jams", you'd have much better luck if you simply dropped a couple panes of glass off of the back of a truck or did something equally nefarious to cause an accident.
assholes can use computers to aid and abet their assholery.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"Traffic has me on the edge of taking a hostage."
That way you can use the Carpool lanes.
Now that I think about it, in some places, creating a traffic jam is not that hard. Here in Boston, traffic jams happen whenever it snows, whenever it rains, when the sky is clear and the sun is low in the sky (the traffic report calls it "solar glare"), when there's an accident (even in the opposite direction on an interstate highway: "curiosity delays"), whenever there's a Red Sox game or other event at Fenway Park, and when there's road construction. So based on the frequency of traffic jams and the diversity of causes, it does not seem to take much to cause a traffic jam around here. Rural Nebraska might be another story.
Now, to use faked traffic data to *prevent* a traffic jam, that would be a truly noteworthy hack!
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.