[104381] in Cypherpunks
Re: IP: Tracking: Bar Codes/Elec.Tags for License Plates
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Sun Oct 18 05:15:03 1998
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 01:58:15 -0700
To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <199810180033.RAA27291@netcom13.netcom.com>
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
> CAR number plates could be fitted with bar codes or electronic tags in a
>move to cut crime.
> Alun Michael, a Home Office minister, said it was "odd" that while
>consumer goods such as whisky bottles could be tagged, valuable items like
>cars were not dealt with in the same way.
Well it should be bloody obvious why not - cars are too heavy to pick up and
run through a supermarket scanner, so there's no need to bar code them. :-)
More seriously, the only way bar codes on cars add to anti-theft security
is by making it easier for routine computerized surveillance to track them,
until it occurs to crooks to change the bar codes when they steal cars
as well as changing license plates. After that, all it's good for is
wide-spread routine tracking of the non-criminal population.
As it is, optical character recognition technology is rapidly improving,
so regular human-readable license plates are as effective as bar-codes.
It's partly due to improved algorithms, but primarily because computer
price-performance doubles every year or two, so yesterday's mainframe
is today's cheap desktop PC and tomorrow's pocket organizer.
The high-end OCR stuff Bell Labs developed for the Post Office a few years ago
needed 100 MIPS - once cutting-edge computing, now a Pentium 100.
And video camera technology is getting much much cheaper as well -
so more places can afford routine cameras and routine computer interfaces.
And much of the privacy loss doesn't need this high-tech stuff -
Applications that don't need to be done cheaply in real-time are easy -
next time you leave the airport parking lot, notice that your receipt
has your license plate number on it, and ask the APCOA worker how they got it
(wrote it down from the videos they made as you drive in)
or who they give the number to and how they use it.
A few years ago San Francisco was planning to close a main city freeway,
so they sent postcards to all the drivers whose licence plates they
videotaped using it, asking them to take alternate routes.
I don't know if they used prison labor to copy the license plate numbers,
but it's pretty common - do you feel good about that?
(OK, they probably also made the license plates as well,
and the idea that the emblem of the state granting you permission
to own a car or travel is a product of slave labor is somewhat fitting....)
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
