
Cars That Talk to Each Other Are Much Easier to Spy On - rl3
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/cars-that-talk-to-each-other-are-much-easier-to-spy-on/
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nindalf
If I recall my networks course correctly, a device's MAC address is publicly
visible and never changed. If the car is broadcasting, it should be easy to
log this MAC address and track the car across the city. If I'm mistaken about
this, please correct me.

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mahmud
MAC address can be easily changed, with ifconfig(8). Nearly every Unix has an
ioctl(2) request for this. So does NT.

But on mobile you might need a "rooted" device.

I have the following script in my OS X toolbox to allow me to connect to
public WiFis for longer than allowed time.

    
    
      #!/bin/bash
    
      sudo ifconfig en1 ether `openssl rand -hex 6 | sed 's/\(..\)/\1:/g; s/.$//'`

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personjerry
IIRC this isn't "changing" the MAC address, as a reset of the software will
once again begin broadcasting the original. Rather, it is spoofing, i.e.
forcing the software to lie about the MAC address that was built into the
hardware.

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mahmud
Yes, but it's not a _constant_ , but more of a configurable option; change can
be made trivially, and as often as needed.

Unix init scripts for networking can do MAC changes for you every time an
interface goes up.

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pjc50
I'm still unclear about whether the EU "eCall" system (which requires cars to
SMS their location to the emergency services in the event of an accident) will
also have the car attached to a cell all the time.

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J_Darnley
Of course it will. You think governments won't take that opportunity to track
you under the guise of "tracking bad guys"? The same applies to the insurance
black boxes that some want introduced.

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pjc50
I can certainly expect that, but I'm looking for actual confirmation of how
the system works / is supposed to work. It's not a "secret", it's just a piece
of information that's hard to extract.

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dba7dba
Of course! We all know why the toasters were able to wipe out the fleet.
Because the battleships were able to talk to each other!

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jakeogh
The goal is full-spectrum human tracking. Tagging cars is just an obvious step
along the way.

