A surveillance company plans to add sensors to automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) that would mean the devices, as well as capture the license plate of passing vehicles, would also sweep up unique identifiers of mobile phones, wearables, and other Bluetooth-enabled devices in those cars, potentially letting law enforcement identify specific drivers or passengers.
This sucks and shouldn’t be happening, but is also relatively simple to counteract if you turn your Bluetooth off. Of course most people won’t, which is why it sucks and shouldn’t be happening.
Also, most Bluetooth devices today - the ones they seem to be tracking, anyway - are using Resolvable Private Addresses, meaning the devices exchange not the MAC address directly, but a crypto key that can be used, in correlation with the current time, to determine a pseudo-randomly generated address and establish connection…
I’ve implemented Bluetooth tracking in my home (using ESPHome and in-house triangulation - I have appropriate nodes all over my home for this), and needed to extract the IRK for my iPhone and Apple Watch (but same goes for Android devices).
They may be able to track older Bluetooth devices (headphones and such), and older built-in Bluetooth systems in cars (not sure if they can be disabled tbf), but modern phones? Not unless they illegally tap into the phone somehow and extract the key for predicting the addresses.
I wonder if it gets to be like browser fingerprinting where turning your Bluetooth off itself becomes a data point in combination with your make, model, dents and dings on your car, etc.
What if you’re using it?
Dont.
leaving the house with a dumbphone on a faraday bag and that’s it
Drive a car made later than 2007? Too bad they’re profiling the car electronics already.
I’m routing my cellphone through VoIP in my house to a landline phone… I will be not using a cellphone in the near future. all calls to the house, if I’m not home… too bad, leave a message.
oh you need me to have a phone for mfa? too bad… I won’t use your service or I’m going into the building. it’s 1998 lifestyle for me now.
If you’re really doing this, that’s amazing, call the media, a documentary needs to be made about you.
😐
Sadly not a surprise, this is why I switched back to wired headphones some time ago and like how Graphene turns Bluetooth off automatically if not in use.
they’re fucking weaponizing TMPS sensors now??
