Your License Plate Might Be Livestreamed On The Internet

The hellscape of modern privacy concerns has gotten wider with reports that more than 100 Motorola traffic cameras and license plate scanners may have been livestreaming everything they’ve captured. According to Jalopnik, one security researcher discovered that if the cameras in question weren’t set up properly, they could be publishing all of their information to the open internet, rather than private servers. That means your neighbor could be tracking your Corvette in revenge for the straight pipes you installed last week.

The Servers Weren’t Particularly Secure, Either

Privacy expert Matt Brown discovered the vulnerability after purchasing a secondhand Motorola Reaper HD license plate reader on eBay. By logging into the device, he could access the private network it was connected to, allowing him to stream everything it had captured. Brown also discovered that if the Reaper wasn’t configured correctly, everything it recorded was published live to the internet for all to see, no logins required.

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It gets worse. Using the information available from the used camera, privacy advocate Will Freeman wrote a piece of code that could extract data from unencrypted Reaper devices. Researchers discovered data from 170 different devices and could even track the movements of specific citizens’ vehicles using the data. Such data could be used for nefarious reasons, including stalking individuals, tracking down exes, or even monitoring the movements of politicians.

Freely Available Information

Adding to the safety concerns, the Reaper is designed by Motorola to process license plate information in real-time and provide officers with that information without any prompting. Freeman says someone could relatively easily write a script that could map that information to specific times and locations, making it easier to guess the movements of a particular vehicle. Nobody likes traffic cameras, but they’re necessary.

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Freeman, who is an open critic of traffic and license plate cameras, says that the proliferation of these readers in the US represents a huge privacy risk. For its part, Motorola has committed to rolling out a patch that will close the loophole Freeman and Brown were able to exploit. As more high-tech cameras roll out in various parts of the country, it’s critical that government agencies fully evaluate every element thereof to maintain the safety and privacy of users.

Source:
Jalopnik