Collaborate Disseminate
Headlights. Indicators. Trunk releases. Seatbelts. Airbags. Just about any part of a car you can think of is governed by a long and complicated government regulation. It’s all about safety, …read more Continue reading Chinese Regulators May Kill Retractable Car Door Handles That Never Should Have Existed
As a classic car enthusiast, my passion revolves around cars with a Made in West Germany stamp somewhere on them, partially because that phrase generally implied a reputation for mechanical …read more Continue reading A Tale of Two Car Design Philosophies
The company Flok is surveilling us as we drive:
A retired veteran named Lee Schmidt wanted to know how often Norfolk, Virginia’s 176 Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader cameras were tracking him. The answer, according to a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed in September, was more than four times a day, or 526 times from mid-February to early July. No, there’s no warrant out for Schmidt’s arrest, nor is there a warrant for Schmidt’s co-plaintiff, Crystal Arrington, whom the system tagged 849 times in roughly the same period.
You might think this sounds like it violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. Well, so does the American Civil Liberties Union. Norfolk, Virginia Judge Jamilah LeCruise also agrees, and in 2024 she ruled that plate-reader data obtained without a search warrant couldn’t be used against a defendant in a robbery case…
The company says customer contact information was stolen from a third-party service provider’s platform.
The post Automotive Titan Stellantis Discloses Data Breach appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Continue reading Automotive Titan Stellantis Discloses Data Breach
Fears around children is opening up a new market for automatic license place readers.
Continue reading Automatic License Plate Readers Are Coming to Schools
Two articles crossed my path recently. First, a discussion of all the video Waymo has from outside its cars: in this case related to the LA protests. Second, a discussion of all the video Tesla has from inside its cars.
Lots of things are collecting lo… Continue reading Self-Driving Car Video Footage
Policy experts say the implications of Donald Trump’s executive order for EV owners—and the EV-curious—won’t be clear for a while. Continue reading Trump Says He Ended the ‘EV Mandate.’ What Does That Mean?
Not everything needs to be digital and “smart.” License plates, for example:
Josep Rodriguez, a researcher at security firm IOActive, has revealed a technique to “jailbreak” digital license plates sold by Reviver, the leading vendor of those plates in the US with 65,000 plates already sold. By removing a sticker on the back of the plate and attaching a cable to its internal connectors, he’s able to rewrite a Reviver plate’s firmware in a matter of minutes. Then, with that custom firmware installed, the jailbroken license plate can receive commands via Bluetooth from a smartphone app to instantly change its display to show any characters or image…
Fifteen years ago I blogged about a different SQUID. Here’s an update:
Fleeing drivers are a common problem for law enforcement. They just won’t stop unless persuaded—persuaded by bullets, barriers, spikes, or snares. Each option is risky business. Shooting up a fugitive’s car is one possibility. But what if children or hostages are in it? Lay down barriers, and the driver might swerve into a school bus. Spike his tires, and he might fishtail into a van—if the spikes stop him at all. Existing traps, made from elastic, may halt a Hyundai, but they’re no match for a Hummer. In addition, officers put themselves at risk of being run down while setting up the traps…
Continue reading Friday Squid Blogging: Safe Quick Undercarriage Immobilization Device
DeFlock is a crowd-sourced project to map license plate scanners.
It only records the fixed scanners, of course. The mobile scanners on cars are not mapped.
The post Mapping License Plate Scanners in the US appeared first on Schneier on Security.
Continue reading Mapping License Plate Scanners in the US