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Once Vehicles Are Connected To the Internet of Things, Who Guards Your Privacy?
Lucas123 (935744) writes Carmakers already remotely collect data from their vehicles, unbeknownst to most drivers, but once connected via in-car routers or mobile devices to the Internet, and to roadway infrastructure and other vehicles around them, that information would be accessible by the government or other undesired entities. Location data, which is routinely collected by GPS providers and makers of telematics systems, is among the most sensitive pieces of information that can be collected, according to Nate Cardozo, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Not having knowledge that a third party is collecting that data on us and with whom they are sharing that data with is extremely troubling," Cardozo said. in-vehicle diagnostics data could also be used by government agencies to track driver behavior. Nightmare scenarios could include traffic violations being issued without law enforcement officers on the scene or federal agencies having the ability to track your every move in a car. That there could be useful data in all that personally identifiable bits made me think of Peter Wayner's "Translucent Databases."
This is the reason the group I Am The Cavalry was formed.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Corrected Translucent Databases link. Was previously pointing to the beta site.
Your '84 T-bird was fuel-injected and had electronic ignition. It was in no way EMP-proof.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
... It knows where I am. It knows how fast I'm going. ...
Well, maybe, and maybe not.
I recall a couple years ago, when I was traveling south on a street in a nearby town, but when I glanced at the GPS gadget, it showed me about a block north of where I was -- and headed north. Traffic was light, so I looked at it frequently, to see what it did, and it showed me continuing north, until my actual location was nearly a mile south of what it showed. Then it decided I'd made a U-turn, and was proceeding south at a rather high speed. Finally, the little You-Are-Here icon reached my actual position, and slowed down to match me. A bit later, I checked its records of that trip, and it showed a max speed somewhat over 250 mph.
So if the police had access to that data, I'd have got a ticket for going about 8 times the legal speed limit. I sorta suspect that most judges would laugh and toss it out. But if it'd been only twice the speed limit, I'd probably have had a large fine to pay.
And note that the position was credible, though it was roughly a mile off. A couple of months ago, however, I noticed that, while my bearing and speed seemed accurate, my GPS position was roughly 100 miles SE of my actual position, which put me maybe 10 or 20 miles east of Cape Cod, driving along in the ocean. It stayed that way for at least 15 minutes, and then suddenly popped over to a local street a few blocks from my actual position.
I've also seen it showing my position as being in north-central Canada, and somewhere in Nevada, when I was actually in the Boston metro area.
So if the police are tracking our GPS position and speed, we have no defense. Yes, maybe the judges will dismiss the tickets that are obviously so badly wrong. But if they're only off by a few miles or mph, we'll all be getting completely bogus tickets that we'll have to pay.
Of course, they may still dismiss them for people who "look right" and "talk right", as they do with claimed drug offenses. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.