California's Wireless Road Tolls Easily Hackable 354
An anonymous reader writes "Nate Lawson, a researcher at RootLabs, has found a way to clone the wireless transponders used by the Bay Area FasTrak road toll system. This means you can copy the ID of another driver onto your own device and, as a result, travel for free while others foot the bill. Lawson also raises the interesting point of using the FasTrak system to create false alibis, by overwriting one's own ID onto another driver's device before committing a crime. Luckily, Lawson wasn't sued before he could reveal his research, unlike those pesky MIT students."
Re:Cameras at every toll booth (Score:2, Interesting)
cameras / scanners (Score:4, Interesting)
No Authentication = Easy Crime (Score:4, Interesting)
When you have the ability to send the same data over and over again without any form of authentication or obfuscation - yes, it can be copied and used by anyone else.
There are ways to prevent this:
Use a rolling code, like my garage door, key fob, and online banking fob uses.
Use another form of authentication, like color of vehicle, plate number, or something else easily identifiable on the car.
These are about as secure as my Speedpass fob that I can use to purchase fuel and snacks at Mobil stations. If its stolen, anyone can use it.
Re:cameras / scanners (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't have the newspaper article on hand, but a couple years ago in Toronto, someone was avoiding tolls on the 407 (Ontario's only toll road). They put their license plate on hinges, and attached a piece of string to it that ran through the car to the front. A tug on the string, and the plate flipped up.
And he would have got away with it if it wasn't for those meddling-- well, Ontario Provincial Police doing a blitz on the highway specifically looking for speeders, dangerous drivers and toll-evaders.
Re:Alibis? (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if this worked for an alabi like TFA implied, you could get into trouble real quick if you didn't know the final destination of the car. What? You tell the police you went to X? Well the car you gave your ID went to Y. The car also is still driving around town and went through two toll booths while you were in police custody.
Re:cameras / scanners (Score:3, Interesting)
Where I live, it's common for thieves to steal license plates and slap them on their car before committing a crime. It raises far less attention than a car with no plates, and even if bystanders copy down the offending plate number, such information is useless.
Combine a stolen plate with a stolen ID, and it would be very difficult to track down a one-time offender disregarding something like facial recognition (drive through the tollbooth every day at 8 AM, though, and I'm sure they'd catch on pretty quickly).
Another loophole is those temporary 30 day tags you get when you purchase a new car. In many states they are not unique, not trackable (in our state they just have a sharpied 6-digit expiration date in big numbers), easy to fake, and nobody thinks twice about them.
Re:Cameras at every toll booth (Score:5, Interesting)
As the other poster said, there have been cases where the private company running these cameras weren't making enough money, and shortened the yellow light, or even rigged the cameras to take pics while light was yellow, but, showing red on the ticket. Studies have shown that in a VERY high percentage of cases, if they extended the length of the yellow light at troublesome intersections, that the number of people running red lights almost dropped to near zero.
One of my other problems with the system here...was that the cameras aren't only taking pictures of light runners. They have still and full motion cameras...they showed a case of cars sitting there at a red, and a car going around the front one and running the light, all in full motion. That means the cameras are running all the time...I don't like that.
I'd heard that someone was bringing suit against them in that they are unconstitutional in the state of LA...in that they aren't on every intersection, and the law states something like there has to be equal enforcement on all LA roads,etc.
Re:Cameras at every toll booth (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple solution (Score:3, Interesting)
As a Dutchie, I'm completely stunned at the thought that any government will let privately owned companies run the traffic...
If you know a hack, DON'T TELL anybody! Fool... (Score:2, Interesting)
If you know a hack, DON'T TELL anybody! Fool... Really. What's the point of holding a press conference to point out a way for techies to save money? If you have studied for years for skills to design, program, and build a device that can defeat the automatic removal of money from your bank account, then for goodness sake's, don't tell anybody. Use this knowledge discretely for the benefit for your family and your people.
Spend the money that you save on your children. Or have some children if you don't have any. Or give it to your favorite charity. Or help someone that you know that is hurting in these bad times. Or put the money that you save under the mattress to support your own bad times that may come in the future.
No one in a giant corporation is going to give you anything for pointing out security flaws that allow people in the tech community to save money. They are going to take the money that you save them and bribe politicians to give them massive tax breaks! Don't you pay attention to the news? All giant corporations are corrupt to their very core. If you find a way to keep them from taking your money, well don't tell them.
There wouldn't be the need for toll roads if the state highway administrations had not been ripping off the funds for the past fifty years. Illinois is the third most corrupt state in the USA (after Rhode Island and Louisiana). Toll highways is only the latest and greatest scam.
Be real. The country is falling apart after forty years of absolute corruption. Take care of yourself and your family first. Then give your money to giant corporations and the super-rich tax-avoiders that control them.
Anonymous clubs (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps this can be used to create privacy clubs, where they all travel on cloned cards and all share the bill. Their movements couldn't be tracked via this system as long as multiple people were using it.
I hope this wasn't posted already... I searched the thread for "Anonymous" and then felt kind of silly.
It's worse than that, Jim! (Score:3, Interesting)
It was suggested that the reading and reprogramming could be accomplished so quickly that one could set up an antenna near a busy highway and read IDs from vehicles while assigning them the ID of the previous vehicle.
This would result in a huge shuffling of IDs that would be a bureaucratic nightmare for the state and a huge pain for FastTrac's customers. The state is trying to get as many people as possible to adopt this system, and a major hack like that could possibly reverse their momentum.
Re:Cameras at every toll booth (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, it'd be quite easy to switch to electronic tolls altogether. Everyone should get one (a transponder) to keep the flow of traffic moving (also, think of the cumulative fuel and maintenance saved if no one had to stop for cash tolls). If you go through and your transponder isn't working, they should read the plate and send a bill as Canada does. You'll always miss a few people because of dirty plates, but toll authorities could always strike back by requiring toll registration tied to the RFID tags now placed in all tires.
Aren't all RFID systems intrinsecally vulnerable? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cameras at every toll booth (Score:4, Interesting)
So you consider the use of licence plates for cars a slippery slope?
There is a very visible difference between taking a stroll on the sidewalk and controlling a several-ton metal hunk at high speeds.
I sort of agree with your sentiment, except that I percieve using a car on the road is a privilege, and strolling on the sidewalk a right.
Re:sounds familiar (Score:3, Interesting)
Hardly surprising for anybody in the business of computers and wireless devices.
If it's possible to hack - it will be hacked.
Another way to keep under the radar is to pay cash.
There are cameras at the toll booths, but they aren't a big problem for anybody with some simple skills.
Re:sounds familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm waiting for anyone out there who doesn't like these systems to cause a little chaos.
Imagine grabbing the ID of the mayor as he drives by(pretty damn easy) then it's just a matter of wandering through a carpark programming every tag with a matching code.
Re:Cameras at every toll booth (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cameras at every toll booth (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't opt out of paying for the roads. Therefore no, he shouldn't be banned.
If he runs someone over because he's drunk and kills them - toss him in an electric chair and be done with it. The next guy will think VERRRRRRY carefully - not about what BAC he's going to blow but if he's actually OK to drive safely. Some people can drive fine (or nearly enough) with a BAC above .10. Others have issues standing up unaided at or below .04. It varies per person. To make matters worse, studies have shown that distracted driving (cell phone - hands free or not, makeup, newspaper, eating, kids) or driving while tired can be AT LEAST as imparing as being drunk.
Here's a suggestion - make people responsible for the outcome of their actions. Don't criminalize things if no one is being hurt, inconviniences, or suffering some kind of loss. It seems like a brutal system (let the DUI's go free and kill someone) at first but if we attach REAL penalties that match the ACTUAL loss the dumb people will be weeded out plenty quickly.