Police and Lawyers Love E-ZPass 736
John_Schmidt writes "The AP is reporting that police are using EZ-Pass records to solve crimes. Lawyers are also getting the records to use in divorce cases. The article also mentions that the NYS Thruway has sensors to read the cards along the highway (not just at toll booths) but says the data is scrambled and not stored."
How soon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You passed between milepost 1 and 15 in under 6 minutes, here's your speeding ticket.
And why not??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How soon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Answer: Not long at all.
Freedom of Choice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Convenience? Privacy?
Decisions, decisions.
Re:How soon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How soon.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if the highway is not busy most (if not all drivers) are violating the law by speeding. It's bad because it creates a style of thinking: "it's ok beacuse everyone's doing the same". No need to mention that many people are dead from speeding.
But, I repeat again, if the highway speed is unreasonable low then you should use your democracy, with which you are so proud you have it, and change the speed limit signs.
I don't think that anything's wrong with tracking my speed. One way or another cops are doing it anyway. Let's them just do it in a style of 21 century :)
Re:Instant Alibi!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
New level but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How soon.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not soon enough, IMHO. Imagine how many countless lives could be saved by using this technology to get wreckless assholes who can't drive safely off the road. So called "privacy advocates" be damned, there's absolutely nothing a reasonable person could consider private about the speed of a car on a public road.
License plate cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And why not??? (Score:3, Insightful)
The non-toll sensors mentioned in the article are intentionally designed not to identify users, just to allow the Thruway authority to track the average speeds on the road. The state authorities really don't have much incentive to write speeding tickets for reasons reasons other than safety in New York State, because the fines are payable to the city or town in which the ticket was written, even if by a state cop. For that reason any "You couldn't get from Point A to Point B that fast!" ticket in NYS would have the instant problem of all the mayors from A to B fighting over who deserves the money.
Re:INVASION OF PRIVACY (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize you meant that as a joke, but some of us don't want our whereabouts known at every second of every day. This has nothing to do with paranoia (beyond the standard healthy dose), or a penchant for illegal activities. I just don't want my every move tracked.
Also, realize that this has a huge potential for abuse... I go through a toll perhaps once a month. If I had one of these EZ Passes (or the local equivalent, the TransPass), I would not notice for up to a month if someone stole it and had earned me quite a bit of debt. Now, even aside from the bill, what happens when my TransPass record for the past month shows me regularly visiting a mistress, or a crime scene, or some other place I've never gone, all because someone thought ahead of time to cover their tracks and use a stolen TransPass? Yeah, suuuuuuure the police/divorce-attourney will believe someone nabbed by pass and I just didn't notice...
This boils down to the classic argument about speed cameras - they don't prove a driver, just a vehicle. Although some may justify the inconvenience (personally, I find it reprehensible) of getting a ticket after loaning out your car to a friend, the situation goes from "annoyance" to potentially "pound-me-in-the-ass-prison" or "lose-everything-to-ex-wifey" when records like these suffice as "evidence" of the actual driver in court. I do not consider that even remotely acceptible, nor should any of us.
Re:Metrocard vs EZPass (Score:3, Insightful)
How soon for personalized spam? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ofcourse, I prefer to remove my EZ-Pass (Score:3, Insightful)
EZPass uses RFID -- Radio Frequency Identification. The point is you're still being tagged unless you put it in an anti static bag or farraday cage. Your trick blocks any cameras from taking pictures of your EZ Pass, yes, but don't you think the cameras at many toll booths grab your license plate as well?
Re:How soon.. (Score:1, Insightful)
i was exhonorated when they discovered that the satalite system makes guesses to the mailing adresses near were your at to reach the name of the town were a regular map uses post ofice to post office for exaxct milage.
but i did recieve a fine on the jersy turnpike for reaching my exit at 10 mph faster than the speed limit. the bitch about that was i needed to do that speed to stop from getting run over.
it has been that way for a while, i've been out of a truck for over 5 years. your fears are a reality.
IBM Commercial (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How soon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That means you're doing over 150 miles per hour. You deserve a ticket. :)
Re:How soon.. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a pretty funny definition of 'wizening up'
Re:How soon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That would make it highly obvious to criminals that everyone was being tracked. Criminals would cease using EZ-Pass.
A properly designed mass surveillance systems must be unobtrusive; you have to give the target the illusion that he or she is not being monitored. If the target is aware they're being tracked, they'll modify their behavior to "look good" for the cameras.
Whether you're more concerned about property rights or nonintrusive government, consider that as implemented, the EZ-Pass tracking system is one where the designers and participating governments have chosen to pass up the huge revenue from 10000 speeders a day, and they did so in order to increase the odds that the sonofabitch who stole your car last week gets nailed to the wall the instant he hits the interstate. Dude, that's a feature, not a bug!
Re:How soon.. (Score:4, Insightful)
First off, if everyone on the 55 MPH freeway is driving a 75 MPH and you're moving at 20 MPH below the speed of traffic, you are yourself creating a potential traffic hazard, so you would be more likely to be involved in an accident, possibly the result of road rage, at the speed limit than at the speed of traffic.
How can someone be dead from speeding? If the road is wet and someone skids and wraps around a telephone pole at 60 miles per hour, do you really think the effect is going to be that different than at 55 miles per hour? If they're driving faster than that in the rain, the issue is that their car is going faster than it and/or the driver can safely handle in those conditions -- it has little to do with what number appears on the sign.
Again, I'd like to see some conclusive studies that speed limits actually help these situations. There's always a political or emotional spin on statistics released. How many of people killed in 85 MPH accidents were drunk? How many managed to fall asleep at the wheel? How many were talking on a cell phone? Obviously it helps somewhat but I'm curious just how much.
Logical follow on [was: Re: Invasion of Privacy] (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How They decide speed limits (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How soon.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure it's law that any form of legal tender must be accepted for government services.
I'm also relatively sure that any private sector seller must accept legal tender as a method of payment also. But I may be wrong.
(legal tender, of course, being cash)
Get a clue. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh yes, our dear Slashdot, where tinfoil is headwear and 1984 is the bible.
Rent a clue.
People organize and strive to obtain more control over their environment. That tendency includes both governments obtaining more control over their citizens/subjects and citizens/subjects defending themselves against such control.
But institutional groups (such as governments) tend to go on for a long time, accumulating ever more power, while individuals are replaced from time to time. So if nothing is done about it the tendency will be for governments to accumulate ever more power, and become ever more oppressive, until they become so tyrannical that they're attacked from within and/or without and eventually overthrown (which may end up with an even worse situation).
The founders of this country recognized that tendency of government to accumulate ever more power. They prescribed a system of institutional restraints. But, because the government would eventual work its way around it, they ALSO prescribed ongoing watchfulness by the citizenry, so they can use NON-violent means to back the government off before it goes so far that only violent means will work. "Eternal Vigilance is the price of Liberty."
Which is EXACTLY what is going on now: New tech makes for new opportunity for spying and oppression. The government starts using it because there's no specific rule against it and it helps them "do their jobs". Eventually the citizens catch on and raise a ruckus. Sometimes this ruckus results in the creation of specific rules to suppress the misuse and restore the status quo ante (or even improve on it).
Slashdot is all about new uses of technology. "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters." And what matters more than government misuse of new tech to oppress the citizens?
So of COURSE it shows up here. Of COURSE it makes up a significant fraction of the news items. Anybody can post, but ordinary citizens greatly outnumber the elite controllers. So of COURSE the bulk of the voices are against the new misuses of technology.
No tinfoil hats required.
This is a very healthy process. It's exactly what the founders of the country prescribed, to keep the country from developing into a tyranny and prosperity from degenerating into civil war.
Ridiculing the people criticizing the government's misuse of technology is NOT "conducive to these ends". But it does tell us something about the ridiculer:
Either he's a fool -
or he's on the wrong side.
Re:How They decide speed limits (Score:4, Insightful)
That's how the roadway designers originally established recommended speed limits (by observing behaviour and implementing rules to accomodate the majority of drivers). Politicians tend to use speed limits as revenue generation schemes and "please think of the children" emotion-tugging.
Re:How soon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Speed check by Radar"
"Unmarked patrol cars"
"Speed check from Aircraft"
How is "Speed check by EZPass" much different?
It's different because it doesn't require any effort on the part of the Government. Meaning it is the start of a slippery slope towards an automated police state. Machines just do what they are programmed to do without regard to individual circumstance, and without being able to offer any assistance in true emergencies (like rushing someone to the hospital).
Re:How They decide speed limits (Score:4, Insightful)
God, how I'd love to see someone get a ticket for going slower that the status quo speed, parked over there in the penultimate fast lane (2nd from left) on a 10 lane highway with people passing on left (when they can) and on the right.
If people are passing you on the right, you're breaking the law. You must move to the right except to pass.
If you change lanes without signalling ahead of time, you're breaking the law and endangering people. If you slow to 45 to take an exit without a signal on, you should get hit, then given a ticket. You are a hazard on the road.
But no, american "culture" is that you must drive, you must be able to drive and damnit, drive how you please and where you please. Just don't speed in front of The Man. Aside from drinking and weaving that's the only offence you'll get nailed for.
Re:How soon.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Get a clue. (Score:5, Insightful)
Atrox
Re:How They decide speed limits (Score:1, Insightful)
And instead of the police enforcing safe driving by ticketing people cruising along in the leftmost lane without passing anyone....
Christ I wish someone would enforce that one. I hate it when there is some asshole just cruising along in that lane for no reason and it's blocking traffic.
Ruling Innocent Men (Score:5, Insightful)
-- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
Re:I have a solution to this problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Like you keep your nose clean? Have you ever:
All of these things are illegal (at least in my country). This does not mean they are wrong. 'Just don't do anything wrong' is a very broad statement, and does not solve the bigger problem of getting fair laws. In fact, it was illegal in my country (South Africa) to have sex with a person of a different race or the same sex, to speak against the government was not illegal but often punished. If everyone had taken your view, we would still be in the old apartheid era. That Mandela dude was just a troublemaker -- he just 'shouldn't have done anything wrong'.
OK, now I'm entering rant mode. America itself was founded on lawbreaking. The Boston tea party? I could go on, but I suppose I should have ignored you. The problem is that the laws aren't always fair, meaning that not everything 'against the law' is 'wrong' (and vice versa). Think about that.
Re:Thought it'd be more balanced... (Score:2, Insightful)
Automated speed limit enforcement contributes to the second goal but not to the first. If anything, speed cameras (for example) catch speeders objectively regardless of their appearance.
Re:My '94 Escort (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting, as driving is done in a public place.
Re:How soon.. (Score:2, Insightful)
If bad guys are stupid enough to use an EZ Pass, I'm glad the cops are smart enough to figure out how where there were on their way to/from the crime scene.
As for the non-bad guys: you simply have to assess your own level of tolerance in the calculus of convenience vs. privacy.
Re:How soon.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Answer: I don't want to think about that.