road toll transponder hacked

maf at appgate.com maf at appgate.com
Thu Aug 28 01:57:13 EDT 2008


On 27 aug, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> Finally, the transponders may not matter much longer; OCR on license
> plates is getting that good.  As has already been mentioned, the 407
> ETR road in Toronto already relies on this to some extent; it won't be
> too much longer before the human assist is all but unneeded.

We are already there. The London congestion charges are as far as I know
completely based on OCR. The same goes for the congestion charge in
Stockholm. In Stockholm they initially gave out transponders but they
have stopped doing that, probably because the OCR technology is good
enough.

I think that the primary reason they are going for systems like that is
that it is much cheaper to install and run than distributing a lot of
transponders or building and staffing toll-booths. The tracking
capabilities is merely an added bonus.

In Göteborg they have a system with cameras which looks at license
plates at different locations and through that measure how long it takes
to drive certain routes. This system is still under construction but
there are some information billboards where they show the current
driving time to various targets. They say that they mask out the last
digit of the plate and destroy the information after a short while, but
who knows.

	/MaF
-- 
Martin Forssen <maf at appgate.com>              Development Manager
Phone: +46 31 7744361                         AppGate Network Security AB

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