RFID for Automobile Tracking 439
mindless4210 writes "The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration has called on four of the largest RFID manufacturers to jointly develop dedicated short-range communications technology systems for a trial as part of the agency's efforts to cut road fatalities in the U.S. by 50% within 10 years. The DSRC prototype initiative is a prerequisite for introducing new roadway applications such as issuing alerts to drivers about impending intersection collisions, rollovers, weather-related road hazards, or warning a driver that his vehicle is going too fast to safely negotiate an upcoming curve. The FCC allocated the entire 5.9 GHz band to DSRC applications some time ago, making the development much more feasible. Any DRSC system would require DRSC technology to be built into new vehicles."
Goodbye privacy (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the article that I originally posted [dailywireless.com] to slashdot.
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2)
The Man is out to get us guy. But I got my M-16. The only way they'll put RFID in my car is by prying away my cold, dead hand
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with you on the privacy issues, I just don't think we will be given much of a choice on whether these go into cars or not (unless you can successfully lobby the government not to).
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:5, Informative)
in fact most of what they want has nothing to do with rfid at all...
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, I read the article--I posted the damn thing.
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2)
"We have both kinds, FM _and_ AM!"
TW
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
There is clear mention of using the technology for toll road systems..
"Proponents of the technology maintain that DSRC systems will also be able to replace existing highway RFID applications such as automatic toll collection systems like EZ-Pass. "There is nothing that current systems do that DSRC systems won't be able to do in a breeze--while it's idling in fact," says Richard Schnacke, vice president of industry relation
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
The car might not, but the tires [aiag.org] will always have them.
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about you, but I don't have much faith that I have ever had any privacy while in a vechile on a public road.
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2)
In some ways, using a car does seem to lessen you privacy, primarily in that law enforcement seems quite confident in searching your vechile without a warrant.
Best way to smuggle drugs? The local bus system.
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2)
I think we all make mistakes like that now and then... and paying for them would be a very healthy reminder not to do it anymore.
Are you listening to me Bill Janklow?
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2)
They'll put it in your license plate. (Score:3, Insightful)
Your state will just put it in your license plate. Watch for it.
After all, they already hang a number on your car and require it to be visible - to eyes and to OCR cameras. Why not require it to be readable by radio, and save themselves some cost and flakeyness by replacing cameras with transcievers?
Re:They'll put it in your license plate. (Score:2)
I've wondered about something pertaining to this. Is there anyway you could mount a cover for you plate that was maybe polorized or something? Basically can you cover it with something that makes it perfectly readable by the human eye, but, would screw with a camera trying to read it?
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:2)
What if they throw in the tinfoil undercoating at no extra charge?
Re:Goodbye privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
"it's for your safety" (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] such as issuing alerts to drivers about impending intersection collisions, rollovers, weather-related road hazards, or warning a driver that his vehicle is going too fast to safely negotiate an upcoming curve
Riiiiiight... they're wanting this system incorporated to protect you. They'd never dream of setting up receivers in traffic lights at (major) intersections to track the movement of people. Watch: it will be a crime to disable these systems, "for your safety" of course.
Yeah, yeah; I may need a tinfoil hat. Ask yourself, though, do you feel safer?
I feel safer already (Score:2)
I'll learn to hack my car so I don't have to deal with it. Even if my car gets it's own tim foil hat. But..... all those idiot, dumbass drunks out on the road at 2am will get busted and not hit me. I do feel safer.
Re:I feel safer already (Score:2)
Re:I feel safer already (Score:2)
Re:"it's for your safety" (Score:3, Insightful)
That is all.
Re:"it's for your safety" (Score:4, Interesting)
Massive Big-Brother issues here. They could build up multi-year databases of everywhere you've driven. What stores you shop at (everything from grocery shopping to sex-toy shops). Where your friends' houses are. Whether you go to chuch/synagog/mosque, and how often. Whether you meet your secretary every month at the local no-tell-motel for an affair. Yep, by correlating records they can see who you regulary meet up with and where. The data mining protential is enormous.
Oh yeah, they can also track speeding with it. A great excuse to implement such tracking, and the least of our worries.
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Re:"it's for your safety" (Score:3, Interesting)
RFID Overlord (Score:5, Funny)
RFID couldn't be used at this stage to track all the cars in the USA
so the chance of it impinging on your privacy is rather low.
However, with estimates of a 50% reduction in road deaths.. That's quite a dividend.
I for one welcome our new RFID overlords
Simon.
Re:RFID Overlord (Score:2)
Only one problem... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only one problem... (Score:2, Funny)
1. Open microwave door
2. Drive in car
3. Close microwave door
Re:Only one problem... (Score:3, Funny)
If you get desperate there's more nutrition in the steering wheel than the seat covers.
Re:Only one problem... (Score:2)
Don't you know that you can't put metal in a microwave?
What this means is that you are going to have to wrap your car in tinfoil.
Does this mean? (Score:2, Redundant)
In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In related news... (Score:2)
If people start getting busted for speeding thanks to these RFID tags, and it becomes public knowledge that thats the REASON they are getting busted, then used cars sales will shoot through the roof. Maybe I should invest in carmax.
Not only that, but they just created a new, illegal, black market for non-RFID vehicles.
Imagine that.
Re:In related news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bridge mounted systems take a quick reading of each and every car passing by them, if they do not provide RFID info a picture would be taken and it's license plate information hit against a database to determine if the vehicle should have such a system.
A month later, you as an owner of a black-marketed RFIDless car receive a fine and a court summons for driving an illegal vehicle.
..Population Control... (Score:2, Interesting)
And plus, if we put RFID tags in cars, Ashcroft has won. And thats no good.
Re:..Population Control... (Score:4, Insightful)
One of those children might have been the next Albert Einstein.
Re:..Population Control... (Score:2)
I really hope you ride a motorcyle, so that you can ONLY take yourself out.......actually, that would be a great way to "handle" repeat DWI offenders.
DWI in cars have this nasty habit of killing OTHER people, whil
Re:..Population Control... (Score:2)
More law enforcement? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:More law enforcement? (Score:2)
Re:More law enforcement? (Score:2)
Re:More law enforcement? (Score:2)
RFID - looking forward 20 years from now (Score:5, Funny)
applications such as issuing alerts
(while seated in a board meeting, 28th floor overlooking metropolis, a small internal voice speaks)
"Sorry for this brief intrusion. This is your government speaking. The RFID tag embedded in your ass notified us moments ago. It appears as if you want to fart. This is just a warning - farting now, may be a bad idea, and could have unexpected consequences, and possible adverse career effects."
yes!! (Score:3, Insightful)
watch fatalities, gas consumption drop and attitudes improve.
I am for that 100%
No mention of tracking (Score:5, Informative)
The article makes no mention of using this technology for anything other than alerting drivers about road conditions and paying tolls. Even the article title here on slashdot is misleading in that regard.
Re:No mention of tracking (Score:3)
Did slashdot people cry out about VIN on cars as well?
Re:No mention of tracking (Score:2)
Except for the moment....NOTHING in your car is transmitting your VIN or any other information to an outside party ...
Re:No mention of tracking (Score:4, Insightful)
If Ashcroft and company can find some way to turn this system into a tool for the "war against terrorism", you can damn well be sure they will.
Re:No mention of tracking (Score:3, Insightful)
Mission Creep. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No mention of tracking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No mention of tracking (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Which indicates that it broadcasts a unique tracking code for your car on demand.
Once you have that as a fairly standard feature in most cars then it becomes trivial to set up such scanners for any of a hundred "good" reasons. And for that data to be recorded in a database somewhere. Obviously if it's being used to pay tolls it must be illegal to tamper with them. And the more it gets used for the more mandatory they become and the harsher the laws surrounding them become.
Once i
And this just in from Virginia, (Score:4, Funny)
RICHMOND, VA (AP) -- The House of Delegates has sent a bill to Gov. Warner making blocking RFID on cars illegal. They also appropriated $5 million to the State Police to equip trooper's cars with RFID blocker detectors and have set aside a portion of that money to buy RFID blocker detector-detector-detectors and made the posession of RFID blocker detector-detectors illegal. Any further detector-detectors will be made illegal barring a Commonwealth-wide brain explosion trying to understand it all. Virginia State Troopers are renowned as the Grey-Wheeled Wild Weasels because their cruisers resemble law-enforcement scale versions of electronic warfare airplanes used in Vietnam. The average cruiser has 4 alternators and 20 batteries used to power hundreds of radios, radars, VASCARs, remote rectal probes and other detection equipment, thus rendering the Old Dominion deserving of its nickname.
RFID? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RFID? (Score:2)
beep! (Score:2, Funny)
I hope it doesn't beep, that could get annoying real fast.
Who sets standards to warn you (Score:5, Insightful)
Who decides when a car is going to fast??? I live in Michigan and if your going the speed limit that's to slow. Would they warn you based on a spped limit or what the road is rated at. The expressways here are rated for safe speeds at 20 or 30 miles an hour faster than the speed limit. This is also different depending on the car. A jeep can topple over easier than a grand prix (for example). Who decides these things????
Re:Who sets standards to warn you (Score:2)
Although it would be awesome if they actually did account for the particular vehicle you were driving. It would just be too great to be allowed to go twice as fast in my little sports car than some idiot in his Hummer, legally!
Imagine if speed limits were actually t
Re:Who sets standards to warn you (Score:2)
Re:Who sets standards to warn you (Score:2)
What.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's get the idiots off the road.
Re:What.. (Score:2)
RFID to track you (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RFID to track you (Score:2)
To isolate x,y, and z, you need at least four points of reference.
Think of it like this, two mikes, and a gunshot. You can calculate the difference in arrival times between the two mikes, but there will be an infinite number of points (in 3d) that solve for that. There will be at LEAST 4 points that solve for it in two D (that's off the top of my head, but think of mirror images across the line between th
The benefits do not require identificatication. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the DSRC prototype initiative is NOT a prerequisite to introducing the proposed new roadway safety applications. None of the proposed safety applications require individual identification of a vehicle. An application could issue the planned alerts and warnings without specifying or identifying the vehicle or its owner. If you are issuing a warning about a road hazard, or that vehicle is going too fast to make an upcoming turn, the identity of the vehicle and of the owner are irrelevant.
Sell your LoJack stock (Score:2)
The Glass That's Half Full (Score:4, Interesting)
With driving habits like that it's only a matter of time before someone is injured or killed. I may see one patrol car a week on this long heavily travelled stretch, usually on Friday.
Short of trackng drivers with a satellite the authorities aren't going to know it even happened. Then there's the matter of who was driving the car. Much to my chagrin, after a hit and run, I found the San Jose, CA, police could care less if I have a license number, description of car and could identify the face of the driver. Just fill out the forms and your insurance company will take care of it.
It's hard to feel one way of the other about this. How does John Ashcroft feel about it? I'll probably trend the other way, but I don't think this will solve anything.
Much infrastructure required (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again, perhaps they could team up with private companies to install this and WiFi into street lamps, kinda like this plan [theregister.co.uk] in the UK. That might get things rolling a bit faster.
Easier, cheaper, way. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easier, cheaper, way = no way! (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists (agan, works in my area)
3.Zero tolerance for liquored-up drivers
4. Restricted permits for new drivers (no rush hour, no driving between sunset and sun-up, etc).
5. Governors on all engines so that it's not possible to exceed the speed limit
6. Increased penalties for racing, reckless driving, etc.
7. Removal of so-called "restricted permits" for people who have accumulated too many demerits.
8. Mandatory retesting for anyone who has lost their license because of moving violations or booze.
9. Get rid of "road tanks" (SUVs) that make people think they're invulnerable.
AND
"...there's no such thing as a "right" to drive. It's a privilege."
I hate when people try to justify socialism or communism.
How do you KNOW 100% that the seat belt laws work, or that helmut laws work? The ONLY thing that is known is that it raises revenues for police departments.
It serves to add confusion to honesty. There ARE instances where it's OK not to have on a helmut on and there ARE instances where you may not have your seat belt on (ie, getting your wallet out or scratching your unmentionables) - you want to have to go and explain that in court? You want the judge to believe you?
I'm in agreeance with points 6, 7, and 8. but the others are nonsense and then justified with "right and privelege talk" - it is MY right to do whatever I want in this country - it is MY responsibility to make others safe and NOT infringe on the well being and laws of this country!
Re:Easier, cheaper, way. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you define that to mean the very top end of the class, you can just bite me :-). I need my SUV to cart around materials to fix my house (large sheet goods etc.) DON'T get me started on the idiots (Menards/Home Depot in this area) who let you "rent their truck" to take stuff home, when the damn truck is never there and you can't just sign your name to a waiting list, you have to waste your day HOPING that the previous fool returns it on time. You think that if I need to work on my house I have time to spend sitting in Home Depot waiting for Godot?
Yes there are morons out there who buy SUV's for stupid reasons like thinking they'll be invulnerable, but there are plenty of us who have practical reasons not to want a pickup (did I mention that the pickup has the same "invulnerable" problem?) and not able to settle for a "regular" car.
Re:Easier, cheaper, way. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I know the standard Slashdot line says that anonymity is a good thing. In this case, I say it's not.
Check out drivecam.com. They've got a commercial product that records video for 10 seconds before and after an accident. Keeps the drivers honest, but imagine if everyone (or a large portion of the population) had these installed. Imagine that you could manually trigger the capture by hitting your horn. I'll bet that'd make some folks think twice about weaving in and out of traffic or running red lights.
Such a device wouldn't even be too hard to implement. You could do it with a single-board Linux box, a couple of USB cameras, and a cheap accelerometer. Maybe $300 or less in hardware. Convince the insurance companies of their merits and maybe they'd be free.
So cry all you want about the lack of privacy. As long as you're driving on public roads, with other people's lives depending on your behavior, you've got no right to be anonymous.
Re:Easier, cheaper, way. (Score:4, Informative)
Driving is something you have to earn, just as, for example, the "right" to practice medicine. That's why you have a license or permit. You earn the privilege to drive on public (shared) roads. You lose the privilege when you get bombed out of your skull, because then you're endangering other peoples' safety.
Besides, lots of people live without cars. Until the last century, that was the norm, wasn't it?
Re:Easier, cheaper, way. (Score:2)
If this is a new driver, logically, how can they have much experience? BTW, Need for Speed and Vice City don't count :-)
Most new drivers end up getting into accidents at night. The combination of reduced visability (fewer landmarks, reduced depth perception, partial night blindness,
Re:Easier, cheaper, way. (Score:3, Insightful)
We already do here in Quebec. New drivers, (I'm not talking about learners permits, but "real" driving permits) have many restrictions in their first two years, including, for example, a blood-alcohol level of 0.00. None. Nada. Their permit is destroyed on the spot. They're also allowed fewer (much fewer) demerits before their license is revoked. Enforcement isn't
Fundraising (Score:2, Insightful)
Link RFIDs to the already instated Cameras and the auto-fined-mailer and youve got a steady stream of income from speeders.
Not that this would _EVER_ be abused for something like this. Its for our saftey.
*cough*
Combine it all! (Score:2)
"Hey irving47! You wanna slow it down a bit? You have 10 seconds to comply!"
nothing to worry about... (Score:3, Insightful)
This will mostly amount to another alarm to annoy the driver....
"bing! you are exceeding the speed limit for this zone...."
"bing! there WAS a 13 car crash 3 miles from here underneat the "no reported road problems" sign...."
I wonder about data storage (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other side, there's two things that I believe in:
a) Visible Law Enforcement
b) Leave the rest of us alone
You don't "punish" the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. You want to make the roads safe? Get more cops driving out there. Last time I checked, having more police (assuming good training, obey civil liberties, etc) on the roads tends to majorly disrupt crime of most kinds - whether its speeding, accidents, selling drugs, whatever. Those of us that are innocents will wave to the nice policeperson as we drive by knowing that Mr. Cruise Control keeps us from getting pulled over, while the idiot who likes to ride my bumper because I don't want to go 80 in the 65 MPH zone will think twice before passing on the right shoulder.
Without making me feel like a criminal in my own car because it has to remind me how to drive.
Just my $0.02. I could be wrong.
This could be useful (Score:2)
Excellent. So I'll be able to send a message to the jerk behind me, telling him to "STOP FRICKEN TAILGAITING, YOU NIMROD!"
Either that or share MP3's...
New use? (Score:2, Funny)
Better yet, how about the number of hottie in the convertable next to me?
Is tracking *ever* ok? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess my real question is this: when is it OK for the government to implement surveillance, tracking, monitoring, etc. in order to save lives? Or are we so afraid of own governments that we can't afford to allow such things?
Minority report? (Score:2)
RFID only works with cooperation. (Score:2, Insightful)
RFID for vehicles seems crazy to me. RFID only works when the tags are carried by cooperative people.
When RFID tags are carried by people who may not be cooperative, or in situations where they can be damaged or switched to another vehicle, there can be chaos. Remember the RF of RFID refers to "Radio Frequency". That means they can't be put in a steel box. They must be exposed.
The government of the state of Oregon in the U.S. proposed to tax people by the number of miles they drove in Oregon counti
first off (Score:3, Insightful)
It would only be a matter of time before any warning was deligated to 'background noise'/
Secondly, I imagine this turning into the device that Corbin Dallas had in his cab in 5th element.
In the year 2010 on the freeway (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple miles down the roadway, My GPS beeps and tells me that I should take an alternate route, there is congestion ahead. I'm sick of this because everyone else gets the same message and everyone is told to take the same alternate route. I'll ignore the advice today. Chances are, enough people will leave my route so that it will open up.
I use my voice activated phone to call the office and tell them I'll be a bit late, traffic is heavy.
The road ahead is jammed, it is not moving at all. I swerver to the right to make an exit but my radar screams! I look over my shoulder and see a car a hundred feet behind me. The alarm doesn't think that is enough room. I hear someone say "Go ahead" and I make my lane change. This intercar communication is pretty cool but it seems like almost every night you hear about a case of road-rage where someone got really pissed about what they heard. Maybe it isn't great for people with anger managment problems. I say thanks and catch my exit in a nick of time.
Golden Arches show up on my LCD display and I push the icon to place my drive through order. I'll swing in and pick up my coffee and muffin and my bank card will be debited. It is pretty cool how they know so much about you but I've heard that there are some slammers out there who routinely debit people as they drive by. It hasnt happened to me yet though.
I arrive at work and turn my car over to the valet. He can drive it slowly without the key within one mile of where I dropped it off. It is a nice service to use in this part of the city, things are pretty congested around here. I'm not worried, I can tell where my car is from my desktop, I can also monitor the wife and the kids!
I don't know how we did it back in the first part of the century! Only problem is that I gotta work 13 hours a day to pay for all this convenience!
Here's where this would be really useful (Score:3, Interesting)
Luckily they're both fine. But, as expected, this driver had no insurance. Since it seems most accidents are caused by the uninsured/underinsured, why not use this technology to keep the cars off the road?
You could put in rfid readers at the gas pumps, which would look up your VIN (embedded into your rfid, or hashed, or whatever) before allowing you to pump gas. The insurance industry would gladly fund the product. Your rates would go down when everyone is insured.
There are a few issues to work out, such as how you fill your lawnmower, but creative people could solve those with little effort.
Reduce deaths? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Make the driving tests more difficult, meaning less bad drivers pass them.
2. Mandate annual vehicle inspections - many States / counties don't require them and they should. You don't need a brand-new vehicle to run the kids to school, but on the other hand, your twenty-year-old falling-apart-at-the-seams POS needs to be retired.
3. Put the money into hiring more cops to actually crack down on traffic violations, like running red lights, etc.
4. As a follow-on to #2, offer federally-assisted trade-in vouchers with a sliding rule - the older your car * the poorer you are = higher trade-in amount.
5. A Federal plan to repair the trade-ins from #4 that are worth fixing, if it gets another few good years from them.
6. Subsidise clean-fuel vehicles - electric, hybrid, etc. Get rid of gasoline/petrol gorram it!
Just my $0.02 writing as a 28 year old who learned to drive last year and passed the Florida driving test first time despite not doing very well.
Damien
Re:Suprise. (Score:2, Interesting)
so without any proof to say otherwise from you, i'd say you are very wrong...
Re:Suprise. (Score:2)
RFIDs do not transmit RF. Rather you need a RFID "reader" that transmits a signal to the RFID to see if you have any tags in your tires.
You still might have tags in your tires.
Re:You've been speeding (Score:2)
I live in Michigan. Everyone speeds. If your not speeding you have been or are getting pushed off the road and become that accident. So, pretty much everyone will get filled up on points and have to license. There goes the state. And, NO, this will not sto
Oh come on!?!? (Score:2)
Here's an idea. Instead of placing RFID sensors all over creation to identify vehicles and "make things safer", how about installing short range transmitters in all of those same locations and only have receivers in the cars. If an accident occurs, simply light
Re:Asscroft testifying on TV (Score:3, Funny)
Please, don't make fun of our president.
It Hurts The Country.(TM)
m-