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Comment by goda90 | Hacker News Reader

Better hope your stalker isn't friends with a law enforcement officer either: https://deflock.me/

They also used to monitor MAC addresses from various wifi access points, the MAC addresses of your computer don’t change. But now I think the vendors started fixing that.

To be clear, you absolutely can randomize your Mac on most devices nowadays.

I think per-AP randomisation of wifi mac has been the default on any mobile device I've checked in the past five years at least. Haven't examined bluetooth as closely.

It's been the norm on mobile devices for a while. It isn't as normal on desktop but I think most OSes do it nowadays, it might need to be enabled though.

Do you know if they also monitor bluetooth devices?

Like all cars have one and if should be detectable.

Also, most recent cars have DCM which are always sending data, including position to the car maker.

They have Bluetooth hardware but doesn't appear they monitor with it based on available information.

https://www.ryanohoro.com/post/spotting-flock-safety-s-falco...

https://www.cehrp.org/dissection-of-flock-safety-camera/

Bluetooth doesn’t have the signal strength beyond 20ft. Even then it requires a handshake pairing to send data as every device shares spectrum.

BLE transmissions go much further last time I experimented with them [0]. However the problem of anonymity comes into play since they frequently generate new MAC addresses.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38252566

> since they frequently generate new MAC addresses

This has not been my experience.

If you’re referring specifically to cars, you might be right: I’m not sure if they implement the MAC randomization most consumer products do, most of my testing was on those

> Bluetooth doesn’t have the signal strength beyond 20ft

Oh dear.

I think you will find a directional antenna can rather increase this by several orders of magnitude.

and 20 feet is not that short.

Those overpass things with cameras and transponders can definitely still pick it up within this range.

Plus like many have written, it's not even difficult to extend that range with cheap hardware.

Way back in the day (2010), I worked for a company using Bluetooth scanners to measure traffic speeds. We could get about a 500' range with custom hardware.

The real fun part at the time was that every Bluetooth device pretty much was always in pairing mode, and that MACs didn't rotate...

Eventually those both happened, but in ways beyond my comprehension (I worked on the software side), the hardware guys could still pick up the signals to track cars.

I can almost assure you NYC subway does this.

Retail stores do too just fyi tracking you through the store. But it’s not pairing and it doesn’t have long range.

TPMS is also common and detectable.

This is tire pressure monitors for those that don't know.

Didn't even cross my mind...

I believe the tires themselves have RFID chips in them. There are some various RFID readers embedded in highways and roads that quietly track all tires that go over them.

Wait, why on earth are these wireless? Apparently they're battery powered too??

What possible reason is there for them not to just be plugged into the car's power and computer? I'm sure there is a reason, but it never once occurred to me that that would be the case. What a strange system.

they are basicly integrated with the valve stem, there would be a wiring problem to solve

>What possible reason is there for them not to just be plugged into the car's power and computer?

The part where they are a sensor in a wheel and therefore have constant turning. Are you interested in engineering a system that can cheaply and reliably provide power and signal through a constantly and one direction turning joint? That's not a trivial problem, and most solutions are things like contact brushes on a turning bearing surface which would instantly foul in a tire and brake dust filled environment or a sealed puck of mercury channels that nobody wants to install on every single car in the world.

There are two ways tire pressure monitoring is done. The normal way is to piggy back on the tone wheels that ABS uses to monitor wheel rotation speed, as a flat tire has less circumference and therefore rotates faster. This has the down side that you need to "calibrate" it and people suck at doing that, it can't tell you raw pressure values at all, and for a while it wasn't normal for cars to have 4 independent ABS tone wheels so you couldn't always pinpoint which tire was flat. This method has no consumable parts, has no batteries, and sends no radio signals so is not trackable.

The other method is putting a battery powered pressure sensor and radio in the valve stem of each wheel. This method is retrofittable, will always give you raw pressure values and doesn't need any calibration (but does need pairing). However, the parts are more expensive, they are somewhat consumable and make tire changes more expensive and time consuming, and are constantly sending trackable signals that can be automatically dragnet surveilled. Don't buy this method.

Simply putting a fake plate would bypass that. Truckers usually have a pulley system on their plates to avoid tolls, so maybe more normal drivers will implement such a system or find a way to create something that messes up their camera OCR.

That would probably flag you immediately for a plate that doesn't match the car, a plate that does match but seen in two places that would be impossible to travel in that time.

That event would go in the same bucket as the other ten million alerts where the system got confused between visually near identical models or some de-badged sports car.

The fact of the matter is that the powers that be can't overtly use the dragnet in the way that the "how dare someone skip a $2 toll" and "muh two ton death machine" crowds would like to see because the other 99.5% of the public will be all "hey WTF" and politicians will pass laws to pander to those people. The dragnet operating powers that be would rather retain the ability to use the dragnet unfettered even in bad ways so they normally reserve its use for "serious" things.

> Truckers usually have a pulley system on their plates to avoid tolls

You mean like James Bond's rotating license plates ? Got a pointer to this stuff ?

Just search for it.

I found video review of $80 in seconds.

There's also videos online of cars flipping it right before they cross a toll by plate.

I would not do this. This is serious fraud and antisocial behavior.

"Usually" is an astonishingly aggressive claim here.

that's not related to flock safety (company) is it?

Yep. Their brand of ALPR cameras have spread like a plague very quickly all over the US

Interesting I had actually considered getting a job there at one point ha... it's like Anduril you know, seems like a cool company but the purpose... Also doubt I'm qualified but yeah.

I noticed that in Abrego Garcia's recent indictment they were able to figure out he was in 2022 based on ALPR pulls that showed he was actually putzing around Texas. My understanding was most ALPRs were being stored for no more than 30 days but apparently that isn't the case, since it appears they did not start to build the trafficking case until this year.

Government run ones had limited time due to civil liberties concerns. However, since it’s a private company…

There's networks of these things, so you can't trust what is said. The host agency may keep for 30 days, but exchange data with third parties, through organizations like NLETS, private collaborations and informal exchange. I'd assume with NLETS searches that the Feds have an overwatch capability and spy on the spies so to speak.

This stuff started with "drug corridors". Police and Feds can and do track vehicles on the I-95 corridor from Maine (and Plattsburgh to NYC) down to Miami as early as 12 years ago. NYT covered it a few years back -- basically they get multiple LPR hits and are usually able to do facial recognition on front seat passengers. If you driving Florida->NYC and stop for a cheesesteak in Philly, you may get some attention up the road.

There's also a growing network of commercial LPR services. Most tow trucks, many parking garages and some delivery vehicles scan and correlate license plates -- repo guys can find wanted cars in hours these days. Also, most traffic cams are saving 24x7 video with LPR.

Every semi truck these days can be factory equipped with cameras which are all stored in the cloud and analyzed as the service provider sees fit. And if they're not factory equipped they probably have a 3rd party solution in the cab and the same thing is being done.

Why don’t they just use facial and gait and heartbeat recognition everywhere? London and other cities already have CCTV cameras, and an AI can quickly figure out wherr you are. In China it has been deployed at scale!

It probably has, but I have not seen public sources that have reported it.

I’m sure as part of one of our many states of emergency in the United States deployments will be accelerated. NYPD has an extensive camera network in Manhattan that probably does this.

In some of the Fani Willis court proceedings they dredged up ~10yo cell phone location data like it was nothing about people who weren't relevant enough to warrant special attention 10yr ago.

Is that accurate? The Willis proceedings were about events around 2021, so that's only 4 years at best

They introduced stuff from a really long time ago as evidince of people knowing each other or dealing with each other. Like "you were at X's house then so clearly you knew them" type thing. I don't recall exactly what the context was because the big takeaway was the retention of records.

In a security interview I was questioned about an interaction on a public payphone 15 years prior, back in 2006 (transcript from 1991). They apparently had transcribed logs of all conversations (on that phone? All public pay phones?) that were part of a searchable database. My involvement at the time in a (tiny, unknown , knowable only in retrospect later from the time of the transcript ) political student organization was apparently enough to get flagged.

Back in 2006 that was an eye opener for me.

https://www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-searched-license-plate-c...

https://docs.flocksafety.com/developer-hub/docs/introduction

https://www.flocksafety.com/devices/flock-nova

The images and video clips are stored for 30 days. The metadata (OCRed plate, and timestamp) are stored forever. Sorry I mean “may be stored indefinitely”.

Source: the privacy policy of the shopping mall near me, who installed these things even before the city did.

UPDATE plate_scan SET soft_deleted = 1 WHERE now() - scan_date > 30

Private ANPR in public spaces is unlawful in the entire EU. The US needs to get a GDPR equivalent to protect basic human rights from corporate surveillance.

For a given definition of "public".

Driving into a supermarket carpark? Most will have time-limits controlled by private ANPR cameras.

True, but they can't track vehicles on public roads, and they cannot store or persist the number plates for any other reason then access control.

And Lowe's (hardware store) has signed an agreement with them to put them on their properties. Vote with your wallets.

"Retail giant Lowe’s is another customer, according to two former Flock employees and confirmed by the company. Scott Draher, vice president of asset protection at Lowe’s, said in a statement that Flock cameras are “just one example of a multifaceted approach” to combat shoplifting. He declined to comment on how many of its stores have Flock cameras or if it provides camera feeds to law enforcement."

https://ourcommunitynow.com/P/americas-biggest-mall-owner-is...

The map of ALPR nodes show that some are installed by "Flock Safety" when you click on a single one and view the details.

So I would assume those two things are directly connected.

Just speculation though. Don't have time to verify currently.

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