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I am somewhat alarmed that no-one in the mainstream media seems to have brought up the privacy issue. Does no-one wonder how safe the data would be (not very), and under what circumstances would future governments feel able to use it?

It seems, btw, that Mr Darling has been putting out this idea since mid-2002 or even earlier.

The plan was probably hatched as part of the justification for GALILEO the European Union funded rival to the USA NAVSTAR and the Russian Russian Federation GLONASS Global Postioning Satellite systems.

We will be keeping a watch out for any Ministry of Transport civil servants or advisors , and of, course, ex-Ministers, who end up lobbying for GALILEO or other companies who stand to make billions out of this scheme.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/index_en.htm

Since when did the mainstream media care very much about your privacy ?

US military GPS satellites never orbit above +54 degrees north. That is, they never go above the lake district. From there on, all you see are ones to the south, getting progressively lower in the sky, and ones popping up in the north. This has two consequences. First, you get an exceedingly accurate fix on the northern plains of places like siberian tundra. Second, you get an awful fix in towns, as no satellite is ever vertical. Maybe scotland will be a bastion of privacy -no ID cards, no GPS tracking.

Another issue with the media reporting is that "a successful trial" is reported as a sign that a technology, be it ID cards or GPS-controlled speed limits, is ready for prime time. In "a trial", a group of self-selected people who have no need to subvert the system are demonstrated as not having subverted the technology. That is not a success. A success would be if people who had a financial incentive to subvert the tech to avoid payment, speeding tickets (ubiquitous speed traps would be a side effect of this, wouldnt they: your car would report you), or actual identification. Look at all the attacks on the london fee zone as an example: copied car plates, foreign cars, etc.

This is an outrage. The gas tax accomplishes the same thing, with the added benefit of encouraging fuel-efficient cars. These left-wing a**hole legislators have sold out both the environment and civil liberties in their greed for more taxes.

Steve Loughran probably knows more about GPS than I do. God knows, that wouldn't be difficult.

But I am pretty sure that the GPS receiver on my boat doesn't have any problem telling me which side of the Marina pontoon I've berthed onto - a distance of perhaps six to eight feet.

So it's not a simple as that, as usual.

My mobile phone sized GPS receiver also gives similar levels of accuracy, when it has a direct line of sight to 4 satellites, a process which can take 5 minutes or so from switching it on, during which time which you can travel quite a distance in a car or on a motorbike.

Nevertheless, it simply is not reliable enough to plot a journey say from the M25 into the centre of London, as there are many tall buildings, many not so tall buildings but narrow streets, overhanging trees etc. which really do come into play because of the latitude of the UK, and as Steve says, because there are no GPS satellites almost vertically above the UK. This is not usually a problem for a boat, even in harbour, unless it is on the north shore of Scotland etc.

This may change somewhat in the future with GALILEO, but even so there are going to be plenty of "blackspots" which also coincide with traffic congestion

That is why several commercial vehicle tracking systems use their own dedicated radio beacons for position fixes in cities (mobile phone cell location data is not accurate enough to help delivery drivers, or to provide security for armoured vans, let alone to enforce road tolls or criminal electronic tagging, and the coverage even in cities is also not 100% due to tall buildings, metallised windows etc.), but none of these have ever been scaled up to cope with 30 million vehicles simultaneously.

If the Department of Transport was only talking about Motorway tolls, that would be a huge challenge, but they are insanely plotting total surveillance of everything.

Maybe they plan to abuse the 150,000 lampposts:

http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/2005/05/lammposts_in_th.html

£1.34 a mile at 70 miles an hour equates to over £93 an hour ! Any savings in fuel tax or vehicle duty are only going to be £2 or £3 pounds an hour. I refuse to believe that the scheme will be "revenue neutral"

What happens if you are delayed by a road accident or congestion and a section of road switches over to a premium toll rate ? Will your insurance premiums go up as people sue the insurance companies of those involved in the accident that causes them to incurr extra toll charges ?

You can already see people speeding and jumping lights to avoid a measly £5 charge when the London Congestion Charge kicks in.

Where has NO2ID website gone?

www.no2id.net had technical problems since yesterday evening, but it seems to be back online now. I have been assured that it was not under Denial of Service attack.

Hello to the group,
sorry if this seems a negative message, but before I start posting
messages about specific ways to fool gps systems I think it's best if
I invite any interested people to a new group I have set up called
GPShacking, which can be found using the directory search function.

I've made a black box which fits in between a gps receiver and a pc
or palmtop that's running some mapping software and lets you change
your position on the map at the touch of a button.

It could also work when fitted to cars with telematic and vehicle
tracking equipment, though experimentation in that area should be the
sole responsibility of the vehicles owner.

I wish to extend my welcome in advance to everyone who joins the
group, and am looking forward to extending ideas surrounding this
topic, which may be more relevant to UK members at the moment in
light of the recent announcement to introduce gps based congestion
charging methods.

Best Regards
Chris Barron

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GPSHacking/messages

A lot of companies in US rely on vehicle tracking and a lot application service providers emerged, such as TrackYourTruck to provide this service to companies.
The service is close to be an utility and the purpose is business only - better logistic equal to better service.
However the fear of losing privacy still remains.

Folks, get your facts right.

1. GPS works at any latitude/longitude
2. To spoof GPS takes equipment costing ~£30,000. I know, I've got one.
3. To interrupt the GPS signal between the GPS device and the charging system is all very clever in theory, but that overlooks one small important fact, don't you think the boxes will be sealed? Also, it's not difficult to put the GPS processing and the charging system on the same chip, thus rendering hacking virtually impossible.

The easiest way to fool the system is to cover the antenna. They will then need roadside monitoring stations like speed cameras to check your system is working, and this will cost millions. Yey great, higher taxes to cover it, and everyone pays more to companies like mine to develop the technology. Cheers folks!

@ Happy -

>1. GPS works at any latitude/longitude

It simply does *not* work reliably in all the "dead zones" within our urban environments where there is no clear view of 4 GPS satellites. That is why all the commercial vehicle tracking systems have to use other technologies instead or in addition.

>2. To spoof GPS takes equipment costing
>~£30,000. I know, I've got one.

Maybe you have some prodessional equipment which costs that much, but I doubt if it was designed to spoof or replay a GPS signal just for a single in vehicle unit. If it was then you have been overcharged !

>3. To interrupt the GPS signal between the GPS
>device and the charging system is all very
>clever in theory, but that overlooks one small
>important fact, don't you think the boxes will
>be sealed?

That is irrelevant. The unstoppable man-in-the-middle attack is between the GPS signal and the antenna.

>Also, it's not difficult to put the GPS
>processing and the charging system on the
>same chip, thus rendering hacking virtually
>impossible.

Sealing the "electronic money" part of the system into the unit could actually make it even more vulnerable to "hacking". There will have to be a way to change the prices or times or locations of any toll system, so unless every in vehicle unit has to be sent back to the factory every time the government tinkers with the taxes, there will be a way of re-programming these units, which will almost certainly be vulnerable to abuse.

You just have to look at the "pirate" Satellite or Cable TV decoder electronics market to see that people will commercially supply the demand for cheap GPS spoofing or replay units , once there is a potentil mass market of 30 million or so vehicles inflicted with such NuLabour surveillance devices.

>The easiest way to fool the system is to cover
>the antenna.

Obviously, given the weakness of the GPS signals and that the in- vehicle GPS unit has no way of telling a genuine signal from a spoofed or replayed one.

How would you prevent whole areas from being subjected to Denial of Service attack GPS signal jamming ?

>They will then need roadside monitoring stations
>like speed cameras to check your system is
>working, and this will cost millions.

We already have these on the roads right now. The front end number plate / location time date logging technology is easy. However, systems like the London Congestion Charge or even the German Motorway tolls have proved just how useless and unfair the back end systems for enforcing fines are. They seem to be as much about grabbing as much revenue as possible from the public, as any sort of proper road management. This will be magnified by orders of magnitude if Darling's plans ever get implemented.

>Yey great, higher taxes to cover it, and
>everyone pays more to companies like mine to
>develop the technology. Cheers folks!

Not if we can influence the politicians to drop these mass surveillance plans.

LETS SAY U WANNA JACK A SECURITY TRUCK AND U WANNA PUT SOME KIND OF BLANKET OVER THE TRUK TO BLOK GPS SIGNAL TO BE ABLE TO MOVE THE TRUCK STEALTHILY, IS THAT POSSIBLE OR NOT?

@ SIMON - iz u a gangsta ?

I worked for a company many years ago that used a satelite tracking system to keep a check on the location of mobile personnel(StarTrak I think it was called!?). Experimenting by staff led to the discovery that covering the receiver / transceiver with oily rags / tin foil had an effect, as did unplugging the control unit, which could then be plugged back in again and reqiuired an engineer to reset the hung device!

I worked for a company many years ago that used a satelite tracking system to keep a check on the location of mobile personnel(StarTrak I think it was called!?). Experimenting by staff led to the discovery that covering the receiver / transceiver with oily rags / tin foil had an effect, as did unplugging the control unit, which could then be plugged back in again and reqiuired an engineer to reset the hung device!

I will, without any conscience, do what ever I can, even if it means physical violence, to fight this to my end.