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Roadside Cameras Infected with WannaCry Virus Invalidate 8,000 Traffic Tickets (yahoo.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader nri tipped us off to a developing story in Victoria, Australia. Yahoo News reports:
Victoria Police officials announced on Saturday, June 24, they were withdrawing all speed camera infringement notices issued statewide from June 6 after a virus in the cameras turned out to be more widespread than first thought. "That does not mean they [the infringement notices] won't not be re-issued," Assistant Commissioner Doug Fryer told reporters, explaining that he wants to be sure the red light and speed cameras were working correctly. Acting Deputy Commissioner Ross Guenther told reporters on Friday that 55 cameras had been exposed to the ransomware virus, but they've now determined 280 cameras had been exposed. The cameras are not connected to the internet, but a maintenance worker unwittingly connected a USB stick with the virus on it to the camera system on June 6.
Fryer said that about 1643 tickets would be withdrawn -- up from the 590 that police had announced on Friday -- and another five and a half thousand tickets pending in the system would be embargoed. Fryer said he was optimistic the 7500 to 8000 tickets affected could be re-issued, but for now police would not issue new tickets until police had reviewed the cameras to ensure they were functioning properly... The "WannaCry" malware caused the cameras to continually reboot, Fryer said. Fryer said there was no indication the malware had caused inaccurate radar readings, but police were being "over cautious" to maintain public faith in the system.
Last week Victoria's Police Minister was "openly furious" with the private camera operator, saying the group hadn't notified the relevant authorities about the infection.
Fryer said that about 1643 tickets would be withdrawn -- up from the 590 that police had announced on Friday -- and another five and a half thousand tickets pending in the system would be embargoed. Fryer said he was optimistic the 7500 to 8000 tickets affected could be re-issued, but for now police would not issue new tickets until police had reviewed the cameras to ensure they were functioning properly... The "WannaCry" malware caused the cameras to continually reboot, Fryer said. Fryer said there was no indication the malware had caused inaccurate radar readings, but police were being "over cautious" to maintain public faith in the system.
Last week Victoria's Police Minister was "openly furious" with the private camera operator, saying the group hadn't notified the relevant authorities about the infection.
The bad guys accidentally did society a favor.
This makes me happy. :-)
"Doesn't mean they won't not be reissued" -- I can barely parse that.
They really do speak the Queen's English down there.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
So how did this work. Are the camera set to automatically execute when a USB is plugged in or did the person who stick it manually execute the program?
The evidence is tainted, lawyers will be able to get charges dismissed. Then buy another V-tail Bonanza. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I guess that the infection having been discovered means people will have to go back to placing burning tires filled with gasoline on them! :P
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
the additional loss of revenu-err... lives
to cut taxes. Local governments have to scrap for every penny and resort to crap like this. I don't think you'll find any honest traffic engineer who says these things make the world safer. If you want safe make the yellow longer. Problem solved.
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One thing is when it targets the public, then "we're going to do something about it, don't worry folks, calm down!". Nothing happens.
It now affects a gov. major income source - you bet the military is going to be on it now!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
LOL. Once again the government outsourcing their responsibility to private operators turns out to be (yet) another million dollar mistake, fully funded by the taxpayer. Except in this instance, it's not an expense, rather a lack of revenue, and no one is crying because we all know in Victoria cameras are revenue machines, not road rule enforcement/deterrent. That's why most of them are on straight sections of highway with limits of 100kph or more.
I reckon they should 'fine' the operator their commission for the year.
Commission? Yes, commission; the operator gets a slice of each ticket issued.
You think that makes them do their utmost to issue as many tickets as possible? You bet, about $1bn worth every year.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
She said wanna cry had infected the linux systems as well as the windows ones in her statement.
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Where I live they are on the internet and connect to central station over VPN. Some of the older systems used MPLS, but I think those are mostly gone.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
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The real story here is that the cameras were farmed out to a for-profit company.
A "sin tax" is one thing and bad enough, giving a third party a chance to make a profit from it hurts everyone apart from the profiteers.
Time to start looking at the former government for kickbacks or a special job for the guy who sold the farm.
This should be understood on the background of how speed cameras operate here (Victoria, otherwise referred to in Australia as Police State). The damn things are everywhere. There's no responsibility to tell people where they are, so they're not used as a deterrent like other states, they're used to raise money and they're GREAT at that. More than a billion dollars in the last three years .For a place that has the population of Wisconsin.
There's a classic one in Chadstone, which is the champion for raising $$$, located just as 70kph turns into 40kph. They must be cackling with glee over that one.
Also, there's no leeway on these things. 77% of speeding fines are for exceeding a posted limit by less than 10kph (6mph). I've had one for being 3kph over, while being the only guy on a double lane straight highway for miles and miles... (cops hide in the vegetation in the median strip). Good one guys, beats catching rapists eh?
Fundamentally, other \.ers have called it right. The fundamental problem is that a commercial operator will basically install as many of them as you let them since they get nice revenue from it. The state government sees this as $$$, and can pull up all sorts of charts telling you that they are 'safety cameras'. All the while, this is a state where cops do nothing about rampant tailgating, driving around with fogs + high beams, hoons spinning wheels at every traffic light, failure to indicate and so on... because that would need police work rather than just ticking a box on a form and waiting for the money to roll in.
Occasionally, just occasionally, one sees a burnt out speed camera with still-smouldering tyres at the base of it. Digitally burn the things? Bring it oooon.
These cameras use Windows on their embedded hardware? I suppose a bit expensive but why not? Other than security issues...
4wdloop
I think that by suspending these tickets, they are fueling the fear/suspicion that such a virus could go in and fake evidence of speeding. Sure, in theory a virus could have a dual payload: On consumer and business PCs it encrypts the data and asks for a fee. But when it finds itself on a roadside speeding camera it will start to fake photos of speeding vehicles. Right!
Realistically, worst case, the evidence of the speeding vehicles has been lost. Then the tickets that you've already sent should be followed by: "It seems that due to a technical glitch we lost the evidence of your speeding. Lets just say we are very much convinced that you were speeding, but when it would come before a judge we can't legally prove it. Let this be a warning. You can forget about the fine this time. We'll make sure it doesn't happen again. That is: Us losing the evidence."
So they can validate some red light tickets can be reissued.
In my state we have rape kits over a decade old and the governments solution is to try to crowdfund processing rape kits (instead of allocating state funds to that cause).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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It could be argued that the reboots caused "selective monitoring" where one vehicle passing thru the intersection above the limit would get a ticket and another vehicle going above the limit would not because the system was rebooting. Since the system was not "fully operational" the ticketing was inherently unfair.
I only look human.
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"Fryer said there was no indication the malware had caused inaccurate radar readings, but police were being "over cautious" to maintain public faith in the system."
I don't know what "public faith" regarding those ticket cams he's talking about, I've never heard of anyone that likes them or has ever trusted them in the first place.