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National Car Tracking System Proposed For US

Posted by timothy on Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:56 AM
from the arrogance-of-power dept.
bl968 writes "The Newspaper is reporting that the leading private traffic enforcement camera vendors are seeking to establish a national vehicle tracking system in the United States using existing red-light and speed enforcement cameras. The system would utilize Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to track vehicles passing surveillance cameras operated by these companies. If there are cameras positioned correctly the company will enable images and video to be taken of the driver and passengers. The nice thing in their view is that absolutely no warrants are needed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars."
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  • Inductive sensors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by seanadams.com (463190) * on Wednesday September 17 2008, @11:57AM (#25041011) Homepage

    Here's some food for thought:

    The coils of wire embedded in the pavement, which are used to monitor freeway traffic and to control traffic lights, could detect the type of car that is passing over by the waveform it produces at the sensor. With some clever signal processing you could distinguish roughly the shape and size of the vehicle.

    These sensors are everywhere - you might pass a hundred of them in a day. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to then see that if you could gather data from enough of these sensors, you could track a particular vehicle over the course of many miles. Combine this data with the camera images and you can also identify that vehicle.

    • by riker1384 (735780) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:03PM (#25041109)

      How would it tell my Civic from the millions of other Civics?

      • by Jeremiah Cornelius (137) * on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:20PM (#25041413) Homepage Journal

        This is my Civic.

        There are many like it, but this one is MINE.

      • by Lobster Quadrille (965591) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:30PM (#25041629)

        I guess they could require you to attach some kind of placard to the back of your car with a unique combination of numbers and letters on it....

        I dunno though, the logistics of doing that kind of thing on a large scale are pretty limiting.

      • heuristics (Score:5, Insightful)

        by seanadams.com (463190) * on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:38PM (#25041803) Homepage

        How would it tell my Civic from the millions of other Civics?

        Obviously the system would have a degree of certainty that is dependent on the number of cars on the road, the uniqueness of the car in question, the number of sensors, etc.

        The key premise is that cars don't just randomly appear and disappear from the road. They pass over sensors in a predictable sequence. You would use all kinds of heuristics. For example, you might predict when a given car should pass the next sensor, and then if you see that same signature at around the expected time, you can be pretty sure it was the same car. Correlate that with additional data about the cars nearby it and you can increase the degree of certainty. It's not simple, but it's feasible.

        • Re:heuristics (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Mysticalfruit (533341) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:58PM (#25042203) Journal
          So, how long before someone puts an electromagnet on the bottom of their car connected to a circuit that generates a random power output? Better yet, they hide the whole thing inside their muffler or gas tank so the whole thing would be hidden.

          If this system is matching on some magnetic profile, you could end up making your magnetic signature look just like some other cars signature.

          Just imagine if the system thinks car X goes by sensor A at 9:00 and then sensor B at 9:01 and those sensors are 10 miles apart. Suddenly car X owner gets a speeding ticket in the mail.

          Or what if someone driving along has a device under their car that consists of a grinding wheel that is feed by a magazine of rare earth magnets. I would imagine coating the ground with very magnetic powder would probably screw the system up, not to mention what it would do to the cars behind it as a fine dusting of magnetic powder goes into their engine.
    • Re:Inductive sensors (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ironsides (739422) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:16PM (#25041315) Homepage Journal

      With some clever signal processing you could distinguish roughly the shape and size of the vehicle.

      It doesn't take a lot of imagination to then see that if you could gather data from enough of these sensors, you could track a particular vehicle over the course of many miles.

      That is a big if. Those sensors are not very precise and I'm not sure it could do much between differentiation of vehicles. I have been stopped at a light and had at least three near identical cars of very close length and weight right around me. I don't believe that the sensors would be able to differentiate between models that are even four years apart from each other.

    • Re:Inductive sensors (Score:5, Informative)

      by jschimpf (628722) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:34PM (#25041723)
      Been there done that. Worked with a company that did traffic sensors and could see the waveforms from vehicles. We could and did identify makes and models of cars. BUT take that same car and drive north or south over rough road for a while and you get a different waveform ! (Hint the car is now magnetized differently). Anyway yes you could identify specific cars of the set the company owned. But this would not extrapolate to those same models in the wild driven differently or with a different magnetic history. As just driving the car will change the waveform.
    • Re:Inductive sensors (Score:4, Informative)

      by onkelonkel (560274) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:47PM (#25041959)
      Nope. The sensors detect the change in inductance of the loop and do a "presence / no presence" decision. Google "Reno A&E" for all the details on loop detectors. The "signal" from a loop will vary depending on loop size, shape (round, rectangle, diamond, quadrupole (figure 8)), length of the lead-in wires, depth of the loop in the pavement, height of the vehicle above the ground (ie your lowered honda civic might have a bigger signal than the 3/4 ton pickup with the off road lift kit. Vehicle speed will change the signal, as will alignment in the lane.
      • by pwizard2 (920421) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:32PM (#25041653)

        It's easier to just put RFID chips in license plates and install sensors on the side of the road. They will do this eventually.

        That will eventually give rise to tinfoil body kits.

      • Re:Inductive sensors (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Obfuscant (592200) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:33PM (#25041701)
        It's easier to just put RFID chips in license plates...

        No, it's easier to just read the RFID tags in the tires.

        What is this "The Newspaper" credit? Did something happen after I went to bed last night that left us with only one?

  • by jollyreaper (513215) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @11:57AM (#25041015)

    I cannot possibly foresee a way that this could be turned against the public in some horrific Orwellian fashion.

    • Re:I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ethanol-fueled (1125189) * on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:04PM (#25041115) Homepage

      "To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars."

      Here in california we already have the Amber alert system tied into those highway warning signs and I see about 1 Amber alert every month or two. What percentage of cars on the streets are stolen? Not a whole hell of a lot either way, so we're going to rape everybody's privacy and invite abuse of sweeping power just for anomalies? It's not like this database will prevent a nuclear attack!

      Here's an obligatory horror story from TFA:

      In the past, police databases have been used to intimidate innocent motorists. An Edmonton, Canada police sergeant, for example, found himself outraged after he read columnist Kerry Diotte criticize his city's photo radar operation in the Edmonton Sun newspaper. The sergeant looked up Diotte's personal information, and, without the assistance of electronic scanners, ordered his subordinates to "be on the lookout" for Diotte's BMW. Eventually a team of officers followed Diotte to a local bar where they hoped to trap the journalist and accuse him of driving under the influence of alcohol. Diotte took a cab home and the officers' plan was exposed after tapes of radio traffic were leaked to the press. Police later cleared themselves of any serious wrong-doing following an extensive investigation.

      I'm going to build motorized, retractable cover for my front license plate if this system is implimented. Fuck that.

      • Re:I'm all for it (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jah-Wren Ryel (80510) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:22PM (#25041471)

        Here in california we already have the Amber alert system tied into those highway warning signs and I see about 1 Amber alert every month or two.

        Hell, amber alerts are just a bunch of fear-mongering bullshit. The number of children kidnapped each year who actually end up dead or 'permanently' missing is roughly 100 and has been for decades - the amber alert nonsense hasn't dented that statistic. All the others are either custody fights gone extra-legal or runaways, in each case the child is not in any immediate danger that would justify spamming the entire state.

        • Re:I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cgenman (325138) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:45PM (#25041937) Homepage

          California Child deaths by cause [childdeathreview.org].
          Cause Number of Deaths Mortality Rate
                  Natural 3,923
                            Perinatal Conditions 1,508
                            Congenital Anomalies 836
                            Neoplasms 322
                            Respiratory Disease 157
                            Circulatory Disease 146
                            Nervous System Disease 183
                            SIDS 153
                  Unintentional Injury 1,149
                            Motor Vehicle 746
                            Drowning 134
                            Fire/Burn 20
                            Poisoning 44
                            Suffocation/Strangulation 73
                            Firearm 25
                  Homicide 508
                            Firearm 395
                  Suicide 155
                            Firearm 54
                            Suffocation/Strangulation 75
                            Poisoning 8

          Comparatively: Number of Amber Alerts in California 2003 - 24. Role of Amber Alerts in recovering those children - Questionable [boston.com].

          In terms of children-saved-per-dollar, we could be doing a lot more for children by educating and enforcing laws about swimming pool fences, or cleaning the air in our major cities. Or, for that matter, getting drivers to pay attention to the road and stop running over the kids.

      • by halcyon1234 (834388) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:26PM (#25041551) Journal

        I'm going to build motorized, retractable cover for my front license plate if this system is implimented. Fuck that.

        Jeeze, if you're going to buck the system, why not go all the way and fuck up the system? Don't just hide your plate. Make it work for you.

        Take a ride past your local police parking lot, and jot down two or three license plate numbers. Then use a good quality laser printer and make yourself some copies of those "plates". With luck they'll never notice they're effectively tracking themselves

        Or heck, just copy ANY plate(s). Randomly switch them around. The system will think cars are vanishing and reappearing all over the place. Or maybe you'll get even luckier, and it will snap a shot of two of the same plates at the same time, and cause a referential integrity error in the system, crashing it.

        The minute the implement random manual spot checks by humans to ensure the integrity of the data, slap a Goatse on your plate. You should burn out the employees pretty quickly with that one.

        Whatever you do, be creative. The more you can clog the system with crap, the lower their cost:profit^H^H^H public safety ratio goes down. Make it hit a critical point, and the system will be abandoned.

      • Re:I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mcsqueak (1043736) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:31PM (#25041643)

        Not a whole hell of a lot either way, so we're going to rape everybody's privacy and invite abuse of sweeping power just for anomalies?

        That has been the justification behind every major piece of "security theater" installed since 9/11. Some sort of random, one-off attack happens and you have this momentous knee-jerk reaction as entire industries are created or transformed in order top deal with this "new grave danger".

        Just look at all the hassle we have to go through at the airports because some British nutjob tried to blow up a home-made shoe bomb. Or all the 3 oz container rules because of some rumor that you could assemble a chemical bomb from component parts in an airliner's lavatory.

        I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but with all of the lobbying that goes on at the state and federal level, combined with what companies are able to get away with these days, it's not surprising our liberties are given away for new, lucrative profit creating endeavors.

        • by Leebert (1694) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @02:50PM (#25043957)

          ust look at all the hassle we have to go through at the airports because some British nutjob tried to blow up a home-made shoe bomb.

          Yes. I'm sick of removing my shoes. Why, oh why couldn't the shoe bomber have been a bra bomber?

      • Re:I'm all for it (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mcgrew (92797) * on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:44PM (#25041913) Journal

        What percentage of cars on the streets are stolen? Not a whole hell of a lot either way

        More importantly, what percentage of stolen cars are recovered without this Orwellian nonsense? I've had two cars stolen, One back in 1975 when I left the keys on a coffee table at a friend's house and his teenaged daughter and her friends decided to run away, and took my keys, and the one I'm driving now (It's chronicled in the NSFW sm62704 journals somewhere; again, the keys were stolen).

        In both cases the cars were recovered in a matter of hours. If a professional steals your car it won't be recovered at all; it will be in a chop shop in a matter of minutes. Cameras won't help in that case, as the pros use the newer flatbed tow trucks and will simply cover the automobile.

        In an Amber Alert, what percentage of child kidnappings do the police know the make and model, let alone license plate number?

        There's a sig somewhere at slashdot that says "Orwell was an optimist".

            • Re:I'm all for it (Score:4, Informative)

              by mcsqueak (1043736) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:55PM (#25042141)

              You get tickets for missing front plates? I have been driving a car for 11 years without a front plate and I have not got a single ticket in that time.

              I think it's a state-by-state thing. Some want both and some only require one.

  • by FSWKU (551325) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @11:58AM (#25041025)
    Why does it come as absolutely no surprise that they will sell a way to track your movements with "think of the children"?
    • by zulater (635326) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:04PM (#25041131)
      Even for good ideas I'm against them when they try to play the "it's for the children" emotional card. If the idea isn't good enough to stand on it's own then it's not worth it period.
    • by kadehje (107385) <erick069@hotmail.com> on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:37PM (#25041771) Homepage

      And why am I not surprised when the public buys the "think of the children" pitch hook, line and sinker; when previous measures passed on this logic have done little to anything to address the problems they've supposed to have fixed while at the same time introducing new issues?

      If only people would seriously think of the children when they consider legislation that would sacrifice liberties: what kind of society do you want to leave to you're children after you're gone? Already I hear parents reminiscing about a time when they could play pickup baseball or hang out by the lake until well after sunset without a care in the world. Even though the activities may be different (e.g. playing Madden 2008 instead of touch football on the street), why can't children today get to enjoy the broad freedom to play that their parents enjoyed? And more directly on this topic, a generation who grew up with a rite of passage of driving around with friends and boyfriends/girlfriends at 16 years (and younger in certain areas) is increasingly pushing to raise the driving age to 18. The hazards of our society haven't changed that dramatically in the past 40 years; on average in the U.S. violent crime rates are signifcantly lower than they were in the early 1970s, a time considered to be the "good old days" by many Baby Boomer parents. Child abduction and pedophila have existed for much longer than the past few decades, and I'm curious to see whether there's really been an increase in incidence of these problems or just an increase of coverage of them.

      While some measures like educating children about not getting into a car with strangers and our present Amber Alert system are good, imposing a surveillance society does little to improve actual safety from the ostensible hazards that prompt such measures and at the same time creates new hazards of abuse by government and corporations.

      It amazes me that so many a generation that grew up in a time where the defeat of Nazism and fascism were fresh in our collective minds (their parents experienced World War II firsthand) and our freedoms were cherished as our distinguishing feature from totalitarian Communism can turn its back on the values they were raised with and build an increasingly restrictive society for their children. The same holds true of our fiscal values; a generation raised on thrift is now building an unimaginable amount of public and private debt to leave to their heirs.

      While not every Baby Boomer is guilty of this type of convenient thinking, apparrently there are enough who do to cause these measures to take effect. When someone says to you "think of the children," you really should think of the next generation. If I ever have children, I'll accept a 1-in-1000 (probably even lower, though I'm too lazy to look it up) chance that they'll be abused by a teacher, priest or any other adult over a much higher chance of being abused by a know-it-all government any day of the week. And even if I don't have my own children, I'll have nieces and nephews and friends' kids to think about.

  • DHS' real agenda (Score:5, Insightful)

    by megamerican (1073936) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:00PM (#25041047)

    Now the agenda of the DHS should be clear for everyone. It isn't about catching terrorists, its about tracking every citizen. Most of their money goes to putting up cameras in cities across the US, big and small and putting up "fusion" centers which track everything.

    Call me crazy or whatever you want. It isn't hard to verify everything I said via google.

    • by scorp1us (235526) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:44PM (#25041919) Journal

      When you have an oppressive government, every citizen is a potential terrorist.

      I can only explain it as such: The government expects some massive revolt soon, and it needs to be able to target any organizing into a power structure. Being that roads will be used to get to targets, they need to identify the people they need to watch and see them coming.

      As for why, I have to say it is economic collapse. There is no way we can continue to bail out these banks, have "world police actions", and fund national health care. In true political fashion they will deny it to the last, then spin it. Then when we actually have to know the truth, the ruling party (the rich) will have already adjusted leaving the rest of us with no recourse but to get their heads on a stick... If there is any accountability at all.

      I cannot see any good times ahead for the US. The people I work with and I agree this is the beginning of the decline of the US to a living standard more on par with the rest of the world. But hey, at least we'll have universal health care and/or cheap oil.

  • Dude, (Score:5, Funny)

    by IceCreamGuy (904648) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:01PM (#25041073) Homepage
    Where's everybody's car?
  • by Kreigaffe (765218) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:03PM (#25041101)

    Don't expect to see this go anywhere, not for a long time at least.

    On this side of the pond.

    To my friends in the UK, I'm so terribly sorry. I'm assuming you will have this technology installed and in full swing by next Tuesday.

    • Re:This is America (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy (457657) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:22PM (#25041477)

      Those of us in the UK have been recorded in this way for quite some time now. The police have been happily rolling out nationwide ANPR tracking cameras and databases, and you've guessed it, they rolled it into a neat deal that has managed to avoid much Parliamentary scrutiny using technicalities. There has been a little consternation about that from a few liberal (small 'l') MPs and the Information Commissioner, but right now the good guys are a bit busy to put up serious opposition, what with trying to stop our entire way of life from collapsing because of the impending economic implosion and fighting even nastier surveillance/database measures like the National Identity Register and the National DNA Database.

  • How handy! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rob T Firefly (844560) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:04PM (#25041127) Homepage Journal
    TFA:

    Police later cleared themselves of any serious wrong-doing following an extensive investigation.

    I just love this quote so much, for so many reasons.

  • Hello shadowbox (Score:4, Informative)

    by DaveV1.0 (203135) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:08PM (#25041185) Journal

    At least here in Florida, the law states that one can not obscure one's license plate. But, if one recesses the license plate into the vehicle and uses proper lighting, then the cameras can not see the plate, but the police on the ground can, therefore the plate is not obscured.

    Also, in places like Florida where only a rear plate is used, getting a picture of both the plate and the driver will require the use of two cameras.

  • It should be (Score:5, Informative)

    by Capt James McCarthy (860294) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:09PM (#25041205) Journal

    A huge red flag when commercial entities want to enforce laws. But that's what happens when the Governments start outsourcing.

    • Re:It should be (Score:5, Insightful)

      by roman_mir (125474) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:14PM (#25041285) Homepage

      They don' really want to enforce laws.

      Commercial entities want to create a business opportunity selling and maintaining these systems with possibility of further extension of the technology to other aspects of life.

      The Government wants to keep track of its citizens, because the Government is scared of its citizens. The government also wants to justify taking more taxes from its citizens to buy these expensive technologies and to create new forms of government for regulation of such tech and the new laws that will come with it.

      Nobody cares about 'enforcing laws' and besides, if they wanted to enforce laws they should have started with enforcing of the Constitution first.

  • by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:10PM (#25041217) Homepage Journal

    When my wife and I were in another state, we were using her car, I was driving, and I got photographed running a red light. They sent a citation to my wife, complete with a copy of the photo clearly showing me driving. They demanded that she either pay or give the name and address of the person who was driving. My wife - who is a lawyer - told them that that her husband was driving, and then refused to give name or address. She informed them that is is a protected relationship, that is, you cannot be compelled to testify against your spouse. They gave up on it.

    So register your car under your wife's name, and hers under your name. Don't have a wife? Pay your attourney to register it for you. Attourney/client relationship is privleged also.

    • by Remus Shepherd (32833) <remus@panix.com> on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:37PM (#25041783) Homepage

      This sounds like a great idea, except for one thing. You DID break the law. You SHOULD have paid the fine.

      I'm all in favor of finding ways around the surveillance state. But I wish there were ways for lawful citizens to avoid surveillance that did not also allow criminals to get away.

      And I'll note that we have such omnipresent surveillance because of criminals like you that slip between the cracks. If people would own up and take responsibility for their bad behavior (or, ya know, not behave badly in the first place) then the state might be less inclined to monitor everyone, all the time.

    • by Manfre (631065) <mmanfre@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:40PM (#25041835) Homepage Journal
      That's a great idea! Definitely better than not running a red light.
  • by Whatsisname (891214) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:11PM (#25041225) Homepage

    "You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -- Lyndon B. Johnson

    Seriously, how do these people live with themselves, knowing what they are doing.

  • by RichMan (8097) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:15PM (#25041291)

    Your car was determined to be at point 1 at time alpha and point 2 at time beta. 1 and 2 or the same road with a speed limit.

    (D2-D1)/(beta-alpha) - speed_limit = excess_speed

    As the owner of the automobile this ticket has been sent to you under law HTA2009-01 and you are responsible for payment. A picture from point beta is attached for your reference should you not have been driving at the time you can contact the driver and make arrangements for them to reimburse them for your expense.

    Note of this excess speed has been forwarded to your insurance company. Should the automated face recognition software have matched the photo against your drivers license you will also have been assigned appropriate demerits.

    If an extreme hazard was detected in the amount of observed speed we trust that an officer has already contacted you about this issue.

  • IR camera jamming? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sierran (155611) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:18PM (#25041365)

    On a more serious note, I wonder if IR camera jammers [makezine.com] work on these cameras, and if use of them doesn't trip 'concealment' alerts since it doesn't prevent any person from seeing the plate. An LED array around the plate is certainly easier to remotely control and not as suspicious looking. Might be time to actually build one of those like I've been planning...

  • Easily fixed (Score:5, Informative)

    by mlwmohawk (801821) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:19PM (#25041411)

    The vidicon tube is long gone, all these cameras are solid sate which means they are sensitive to near infrared. Conveniently enough, the exact same type produced by LEDs.

    It should be possible to create a high brightness license plate frame which will overload the camera and just leave a very white rectangle where the plate should be in the photo.

    Still, private companies should not be in the business of enforcing laws or tracking citizens. Private companies do not answer to the public and are not regulated in the same way a police officer is.

  • by bjdevil66 (583941) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:27PM (#25041565)

    About 60-70% of AZ residents are welcoming the highway speed cameras with open arms - thanks to Governor Napolitano whoring the state out to Redflex to balance her budget. (The tickets taken by the cameras will not count against insurance points - it's only a fine. Once you pay your "tax", it's forgotten.

    If you speak out against the system, you're branded a speeder, GTA wannabe, and told to, "Just slow DOWN!", or, "Stop breaking the law!" They don't get that it's all about money (and now outright spying).

    Hell, even if the people rose up against the system and stopped this tracking, what's to stop the NSA from doing it under the table with the same system, all in the name of safety?

    I single-handedly hold Scottsdale, Arizona and its town council for bringing this system to the entire nation. If they'd had their heads pulled out and not put the system up on the Loop 101, it wouldn't have gained any traction to go state-wide, and now nationwide. Thanks, guys... I hope you enjoyed that paltry revenue stream while introducing Big Brother to us. Damn, I hate Scottsdale more than ever now...

    It looks like the tin foil crowd got this system 100% right, and the sad thing is that nobody will be educated enough about what's going on to care.

    • Re:public space (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hacker (14635) <setuid@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:13PM (#25041259)

      It is public, until all of that data is aggregated in some unknown and unavailable-to-the-general-public database.

      Do you mind having someone email you a turn-by-turn itinerary for every single place you went, how fast you drove, where you stopped, how long you stopped, and so on... from your front door in the morning until you come home at night, in your email every day? Do you have any major problem with that?

      This isn't about "seeing" you in public, it's about TRACKING your movements in public. Run that through some beta software to track "suspicious" activity, or appear in more than one place that a "known terrorist" was seen (fast food joint and then the carwash? Now you're a "person of interest").

      The implications of this are so massive it is unbelievable.

      • Re:public space (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dgatwood (11270) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:24PM (#25041497) Journal

        Exactly. This is a horrifying privacy invasion, particularly given that it is trivial to create a similar system that doesn't have any of those flaws.

        A modest counterproposal: build a database of all stolen vehicles and all vehicles listed in an amber alert. Set up computer systems on each camera with the appropriate detection and set them to log vehicle plate information that is listed in the stolen vehicle/amber alert database permanently and to store all vehicle information in temporary storage that is overwritten when it is more than three hours old. Provide a programming interface that tells each device to check its temporary storage buffer for a single plate upon request and use this when a new amber alert or stolen car is added to the database.

        This does two things: it solves the problem of amber alerts and stolen vehicles as defined and goes one step farther by providing a reasonable buffer time during which if an amber alert is called or a car is stolen, prior records can be searched for the vehicle in question (and only the vehicle in question).

        Include strict laws that absolutely prohibit any extension of the temporary buffer period beyond 3 hours and prohibit any publication, distribution, or transmission of the data stored in the temporary buffer except for a list of detection events for a single plate as queried through the aforementioned interface. Include strict laws that provide criminal liability for knowingly adding a plate to the suspect vehicle database that does not belong to a stolen vehicle or a vehicle listed in an amber alert or other A.P.B.

    • by eosp (885380) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @12:23PM (#25041483) Homepage
      Let me relate an incident that happened to me regarding DUI. If you do not like my language you are free to edit it out, however, I refuse to call a sonofabitch a gentleman of questionable heritage.

      I used to drive tractor trailer over the road. I was so self-employed when the Federal DOT passed their new regulation regarding enforcement and investigation of such, despite the fact that in all the accident investigations involving big trucks, whether at fault or not, the commercial driver was subjected to tox and alcohol screens to determine his condition of sobriety and/or impairment at the time of the accident had returned result of far less than 1% of impaired commercial drivers.

      I entered Utah at the border between it and Wyoming on I-80. Just across the line is a weigh and inspection station for Utah, almost directly across the highway from the same thing on the Wyoming side.

      After being weighed and passed for legal weight I was flagged for inspection and pulled over to the side off the scale. I gathered my log book, my bills of lading, my permit and license books, my Commercial Drivers License and my medical certificate and entered the station house.

      Upon getting inside, I said to the trooper on duty, "I don't know what you need, but I brought it all, what do you want to look at first?"

      He replied, "I don't need any of that I pulled you in for a random alcohol screen."

      I said, "What?"

      He said, "You were number 17, I have four numbers I must pull in to screen for alcohol."

      I asked him, "Did I do something on my approach to make you think I had been drinking?" He answered,"No."

      "Well did I stagger or walk in any manner during the 100 yards walking back here to make you think I had been drinking?" He answered, "No."

      "Well then, do you smell any alcohol on me now, or do you have any reason to believe I am drinking?" He answered, "No, I don't understand why you are so upset if you have nothing to hide."

      I then asked him, " You really don't understand why I am upset that I must prove to you I haven't committed a crime you have no right or reason to suspect me of?"

      He again stated, "I just don't understand why you are so upset if you have nothing to hide."

      I said, "Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the reason I am angry that I must prove my innocence, though you have no reason to suspect me?"

      He said, "Look, this is my job and I have to do it and if you didn't have anything to hide you shouldn't be upset."

      I asked, "Do you really believe that?"

      He said that he did.

      That was three times I asked, three times the dumb sonofabitch indicated he had no concept of liberty or law. Three is all I will give anybody, and sometimes not that.

      I said, "Ok, if you really mean that, take off your pants and your underwear."

      He looked incredulous, then asked, "Are you crazy?"

      I replied, "No sir, I am not. Take off your pants and underwear, we are going to examine your penis for blood and fecal matter to determine if you have been molesting small boys."

      That sonofabitch went through the roof, ranting and screaming and telling me I had no right to accuse him of such a thing. I think he would have shot me if he had had the guts and thought he could get rid of the body before anybody happened along.

      I calmly replied, "It's random, I have no reason to suspect you, but now you must prove you have not been sodomizing young boys. After all, if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't be upset. What do you have to hide? Isn't that what you told me three times that you believed?"

      He was sputtering and yelling at me and soooo red in the face, I thought I might get lucky and the no good sonofabitch would die from a stroke. He screamed at me, "That's entirely different!"

      I told him, "The only thing different is now we are talking about you proving something I have no right to suspect you of. Evidently you didn't believe all that shit you told me, about nothing to hide s