Hackers Can Jailbreak Digital License Plates to Make Others Pay Their Tolls and Tickets

www.wired.com

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/23027398

Yet another case of just because you can...

20 comments

There are so many things that just shouldn't be digitized. I get it but... Just no.
- What is there to get?
  
  You can slap a screen on just about anything that doesn't need it and people will want it.
I don't even need a hacker for this. I have been getting someone's violations for the last 3 months despite the offending car having a totally different plate, model, make and color. They still insist it's my fault somehow.
- You might consider contacting your local news, the mix ups are cleared up real quick once public shaming is involved.
This didn't take long
The basic law of tech. If it exists it can be hacked. Its a matter of when not if.
- It doesn’t even matter if there is a benefit to doing so. It will be hacked because it exists. Simply because it is there.
But why were the license plates in jail?
Umm... correct me if I'm wrong, but why are we acting like license plates is some super duper fancy tech.
I can hack my physical low tech license plate too... all I need is paper, a color printer and some tape.
Or if we want to go super high tech and expensive, get an LCD screen or tablet to cover the license plate so you can change it on the fly.
License plates aren't some super duper complex thing... people have been forging, and stealing them off of other cars since they've come out. The actual hinderance is that if you are pulled over and your license plate doesn't match the vehicle you are in, you are likely in a world of extra charges.
- I see what you're saying, but IMO the newsworthy information in the article is that there are electronic plates available to begin with. It just seems like such a bad idea from every angle you look at it. The hacking of them is simply stating the inevitable but it is just one issue in a large pile of BS even an honest purchaser would have to deal with using these things.
  
  It does free up our prisoners for other slave labor tasks
  
  I also think they are a bad idea, just for the general scale issue if not anything else. If person X from GeneralScammyHack country wants to steal my plate to sell on the darknet, they have to get on a plane, find my house in suburbia, break into my garage and even then find a proprietary screwdriver or hit the snap on truck before they come. Point is, they can't hack it. Same with my license, like they need to come take my wallet or I need to lose it. Basically all I have to worry about is Methany peeling my plate off at the 7-11 and committing some super low level impropriety, maybe a local murder or two. I'm not going to find Jason Bourne using my plate in New Jersey or anything like that, and if I do, it's just odds and quite an involved level of forgery.
What a terrible idea.

20 comments