
Loss of Locational Privacy While Traveling in Your Automobile (2013) [pdf] - rfreytag
https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-21/dc-21-presentations/Pukingmonkey/DEFCON-21-Pukingmonkey-The-Road-Less-Surreptitiously-Traveled-Updated.pdf
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March_f6
This is a nice article that highlights some of the more important case law
regarding privacy while traveling in your car. But I think it's important to
make clear that the Supreme Court has ruled that individuals do not have a
reasonable expectation of privacy in their public movements, car or otherwise
(U.S. v Knotts). While most agree that the infallibility and general
capability of GPS does create a new technological perception of privacy in
public spaces, and that an individual does not shirk all expectations of
privacy once they are in a vehicle, one argument is that the technology does
not make something that was previously public now private. Carpenter v. U.S.
is a landmark case right now that will be decided this summer and is distinct
from Jones in that there was no common law trespass to help the court answer
the question about tracking via GPS or cell phone records.

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mirimir
Maybe s/'public now private'/'private now public'/ ?

And even so, one can mitigate somewhat by sticking to back roads.

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abandonliberty
No, your actions in public have always been public.

A certain amount of privacy came from the cost/effort required to monitor
people - you had to have a good reason. So while you could be monitored by a
PI/police, it wouldn't happen to people most of the time.

The privacy laws worked in an era where mass collection/mining wasn't
feasible. Now, they are broken. Everyone's activity is tracked and logged,
referred to for the most minor infraction or mined for indicators of country
of origin, shopping preferences, or political affiliation and activism.

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nerdponx
_A certain amount of privacy came from the cost /effort required to monitor
people - you had to have a good reason. So while you could be monitored by a
PI/police, it wouldn't happen to people most of the time._

Were the existing legal doctrines developed with this in mind as well? Perhaps
it's time the notion that movements are not private gets reevaluated.

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ynniv
Atlanta has an extensive deployment of fixed license plate readers which has
gone mostly unnoticed. I think this falls into the categories of either not
knowing or not caring, and I expect that to continue until there is a
publicized misuse. For anyone interested, the largest deployment is in
Buckhead, then Brookhaven, then Norcross. I have counted almost a hundred and
fifty readers so far, and many more PTZ cameras.

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tbyehl
Not to mention the rise of mobile readers, it's rare I see a Gwinnett or
Dekalb county sheriff car without them. My local PD's newest car has hidden
cameras and is always waiting along the most traffic-choked road, seemingly
doing nothing... but actually waiting for hits on warrants and insurance
violations. Apparently that is more lucrative than the traditional traffic
enforcement for profit, as several acquaintances have had the misfortune of
discovering on the way to my home.

Pro tip: Don't get busted for lack of auto insurance in Georgia, it is
extremely expensive.

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cvsh
Interesting. So salting your plates skirts reflectivity and plate obstruction
laws because a) the plate is still visually unobstructed, and b) the laws
apply specifically to the reflective coating rather than infrared visibility
more broadly?

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dfox
In my experience the readers are not that good and you really don't need to
intentionally do anything to the plate in order for it to be unreadable.
Normal wear and tear is enough at least for the front plate (ie. damage from
road gravel, otherwise uninteresting collisions with various obstacles while
parking and so on).

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jstanley
This was a really interesting but depressing read.

I'd kinda like to drive around with an RTL-SDR and see if I can spot any of
this stuff near me.

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Scoundreller
Should be easy at night if you can detect IR. That's how I'd expect them to
"light" up your plate, so that the pic's exposure time can be short enough to
not be a blur.

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jstanley
It's not just the ANPR though - according to the PDF there is surveillance of
tyre pressure sensors, RFID tags in the tyres, toll passes (even when not at a
toll).

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dfox
It is not mentioned in the PDF but nowadays it seems that collecting wifi and
bluetooth addresses advertised by passing cars is quite common and popular.

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moonka
I'm guessing this was brought up due to the news about ICE using the scanner
technology. [https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/26/16932350/ice-
immigration-...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/26/16932350/ice-immigration-
customs-license-plate-recognition-contract-vigilant-solutions)

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computator
This is an excellent set of slides, but most of the U.S. state maps make no
sense. He explains the colors in the 46-minute video[1], but it's a shame he
didn't put legends on the maps.

[1]
[https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2021/DEF%20CON%2021%20sli...](https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2021/DEF%20CON%2021%20slides/DEF%20CON%2021%20Hacking%20Conference%20Presentation%20By%20Pukingmonkey%20-%20The%20Road%20Less%20Surreptitiously%20Traveled%20-%20Slides.m4v)

I still don't understand what he means by the map for "Latest Model Year for
YOM" [year of manufacture] even after watching the relevant part of the video
(at 19m38s).

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Justsignedup
What exactly is salting a license plate?

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RyJones
Looks like drying salt water on the plate

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dsfyu404ed
So are plates in the Northeast and Midwest immune to readers from first snow
until spring?

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hawktheslayer
The white lettering on black background makes this all the more ominous.

