
“My tires have RFID tags in them. Yours probably do also” - aburan28
https://twitter.com/JGamblin/status/685617755479871489
======
grymoire1
(1) Video surveillance is used everywhere on police cars, traffic lights, etc.
It's cheap, practical and can work at (2) Tires already have serial numbers.
(TIN). I don't know if they track these numbers when tired are installed or
not, but if they do, then RFID just makes the job faster. If that is your
concern, pay cash for tires and install them yourself in your garage. (3) RFID
would be REALLY hard to do as you are driving down the road. It takes time to
power up the RFID tag, send it a message, and get a response. I found a
reference of 300 milliseconds for a reading. That's IF you are two inches
away, and the object is NOT moving. If the tag is at the edge of the tire (as
the picture implies) - where are you going to put the reader so that it can
get within 2 inches of the tire? And how can it read the tag at 40 miles an
hour, when the tag is spinning around the edge of the tire? If the sensor is
embedded in the road, you have to drive directly OVER it, and the tag has to
be at the bottom of the tire, and the car has to be driving very very slow.
That's assuming the sensor and the power cable will survive being embedded in
asphalt. A sensor near the edge of the road would be too far away to get a
reading, If someone can get within 2 inches of your tires while you are
driving 40 miles an hour, you have other things to worry about.

~~~
cobookman
> That's IF you are two inches away, and the object is NOT moving. If the tag
> is at the edge of the tire (as the picture implies) - where are you going to
> put the reader so that it can get within 2 inches of the tire?

900Mhz RFID tags can be read from over 30ft away. Can't find a video but
someone @ defcon was able to get a read from 250ft away using a yagi antenna &
power way over the FCC limits.

~~~
grymoire1
Yes, but there's a big difference between a one-time demo under ideal
conditions, and something that can be mass-produced and used daily. In the
case of tires, (1) the car is likely moving, (2) the tires are spinning at the
same time, (3) there are 4 tires (at least - not to mention shoes, credit
cards, etc.) and all RFID tags of the same frequency will respond to the
reader at the same time, making it very difficult to capture the ID of a
single tag. There is no collision avoidance in the transmission.

Yes, I'm sure some special technology can be developed that can track and
follow a single car as it travels down a road, and isolate the tags, but the
police already use ANPR to identify amber alerts, stolen vehicles, unpaid
fines, etc. ANPR systems cost under $200, and some (according to Wikipedia)
will work even if the car is traveling at 120 MPH.

It makes no sense to attempt to use RFID for tracking cars.

~~~
cobookman
> and all RFID tags of the same frequency will respond to the reader at the
> same time

Depends on the tag design. Using Q Values you can avoid the collisions to some
extend. [http://www.rfidsb.com/anticipating-your-starting-point-
with-...](http://www.rfidsb.com/anticipating-your-starting-point-with-the-q-
value/)

Not sure how much the spinning tires distort signals...etc. Def out of my
scope of knowledge.

> It makes no sense to attempt to use RFID for tracking cars.

Agreed, grabbing license plates makes more sense.

------
greenyoda
One of the replies below the tweet points out that RFID tags have been present
in tires since 2003, and provides this reference:

[http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?269](http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?269)

The intended purpose is being able to track tires that are subject to safety
recalls.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yup, and when this came out I took my RFID reader kit out and read the tags on
my tires. And yes they were all unique.

Some folks at UC Berkeley built an RFID reading device you could put by the
side of a (one lane) road (like an on-ramp) and read the tires from it. From a
traffic analysis standpoint it would be much more effective than those hoses
they put across the road to measure cars going by.

At the point we reach Tools Offering Aggregated Surveillance Things (TOAST),
you'll be able to figure out where a tire (and the car it was attached to) was
24/7

~~~
tzs
> Some folks at UC Berkeley built an RFID reading device you could put by the
> side of a (one lane) road (like an on-ramp) and read the tires from it. From
> a traffic analysis standpoint it would be much more effective than those
> hoses they put across the road to measure cars going by.

Why would that be much more effective? Do the hoses have significant count
errors, or is it that the RFID system will let them tell what make/model of
tire went by and so infer data such as vehicle type that they do not get from
the hose system?

~~~
ChuckMcM
The hose system tells you total traffic but unless you have two of them you
don't know what direction the cars are going. Also it can't tell how cars
"flow" so where cars enter the measured area and where they exit. Traffic
planners need flow to understand if "express" lanes would help for example.

------
gaius
When your car has a license plate and there are ANPR cameras all over the
city... The tracking horse has long since bolted.

~~~
chrisseaton
How is anyone able to steal cars anymore with those cameras?

~~~
fweespeech
Strip and switch tires/license plates in blind spots.

~~~
awqrre
most cars worth stealing are also probably connected 24/7 [1]

1\. [http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-
gps-2014-1](http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1)

~~~
tamana
How is that "most cars worth stealing"?

~~~
awqrre
that's just one example... look up other brands, most major brand's cars are
connected, at least their somewhat recent products

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kazkas
The tracking potential is very low for tire RFID tags because every tire as
well as every car has some sort of visual identification. However, the main
advantage I see is that you can very easily find out who dumps used tires in a
river or in the woods.

~~~
bitL
So they would burn them instead now. Better?

------
tomohawk
There's also this:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/12/tracking_auto...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/12/tracking_automo.html)

and this:

[http://resources.impinj.com/h/i/2503326-vehicle-tracking-
wit...](http://resources.impinj.com/h/i/2503326-vehicle-tracking-with-rfid)

------
boznz
An RFID is just a unique serial number no real different to a barcode or a
written serial no, just it can be read easier (and generally matched to a UID
on a maintenance database or suchlike) Yes the manufacturer can also store
encrypted data on one but I honestly cannot figure out how an external party
could abuse this system.

~~~
codefreakxff
It really doesn't take very much creativity to abuse this system. How about a
database of who bought each tire cross referenced to a monitoring strip in the
road to see who is going where? How about that monitoring strip being in the
entrance to every fast food joint, restaurant, store, mall, etc - now you can
track drivers just like we track browsers. Since we have your name, we can
cross reference your driving and browsing history.

~~~
digi_owl
And if you put a video camera in a strategic location you can capture every
license plate that pass by...

~~~
danielrhodes
This is exactly what I was thinking. As much as these RFIDs seem like a
privacy issue, a license plate is already there and in many ways a more
accessible way to track a vehicle.

~~~
deelowe
Especially now that state governments have redesigned the plates to be more
easily read by OCR.

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amelius
Your shoes probably have RFID tags in them too.

[http://www.rfidjournalevents.com/retail/](http://www.rfidjournalevents.com/retail/)

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xg15
Maybe I'm naive, but this doesn't seem a very big deal in today's world. So
this would theoretically - if you have enough time and power to equip all
intersections with hidden RFID readers mounted below the road - allow you to
collect a sort of poor-man's location history of cars. However, it's
restricted to the things that happen in the area you bugged, it doesn't tell
you anything about _who_ is driving the car and if all routes are done by the
same person and it captures nothing that takes place outside the car.

Compare that to the almost complete, 100% personalized location history you
get when you manage to get your "flashlight" app installed on an android
phone...

------
lifeisstillgood
What is he using to detect the chip? I would like a recommendation on a good
detector

~~~
tim333
The device in the photo appears to be one of these
[http://www.ebay.com/itm/125Khz-RFID-EM4305-Card-Reader-
Write...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/125Khz-RFID-EM4305-Card-Reader-Writer-
Copier-Writer-programmer-burner-USB-FA-/361193718200)

Edit the 125khz ones and 13Mhz ones look similar so not sure which.

------
JoeAltmaier
I know that Goodyear was resistant to tags for many years - they cost too
much. Margin on tires is razor thin.

~~~
bitL
Most new factories are now 99% automated. Literally 5 people running the whole
facility.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Retread is where tags really shine. And that's not automated yet?

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Kenji
I don't see the problem, just wrap your tires in tin foil ;)

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iaw
I suspect these are for inventory and recall tracking. While they could be co-
opted for more nefarious purposes it makes sense from a manufacturing
perspective.

------
bitL
I can't wait to see videos of people trying to put their tires into microwave
ovens to get rid of RFID tags, like what Germans are doing with their IDs :-D

~~~
pdkl95
I suspect passing a degaussing coil over the tire for a while will kill the
tags. If that doesn't work, it's really easy to make an HERF gun.

// Safety Warning - Actually building an HERF gun can be extremely dangerous,
and should only be attempted by people familiar with both high-voltage safety
and radio safety. Seriously, RF burns can be really nasty. //

------
stordoff
I can't say I like the idea of being tracked, but your vehicle already has at
least one ID tag that is easier to read at range - the registration plate.
Coupled with other identifying tag you are likely to be carrying (e.g. WiFi
MAC addresses - I know at least one bank in the UK uses this to measure branch
visit numbers), this doesn't seem like a big deal (from a privacy standpoint
at least).

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boznz
Out of interest I just checked both my cars bridgestone and toyo brands bought
in NZ in 2014 with my 125Khz and a 13.7Mhz (mifare) reader and found nothing,
Could be UHF RFID but I don't have a reader for one of those.

I guess if the state is out to get you that bad you could move to NZ :-)

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ryanmarsh
This seems like a great way to optimize parking spot usage. Could RFID readers
be used to know if a parking spot had tires in it? Could this be deployed
attached to parking meters or in parking garages cheaply? If not how much
cheaper do the readers have to get?

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stuaxo
Tracking is easier and more pervasive with APNR.

------
gnarbarian
I bet they're used for the tire pressure sensors.

~~~
Arcanum-XIII
Nope, the sensor is in the valve most of the time, albeit there's one version
in the tire (not compatible with lot of cars atm)

