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References for US highway Traffic Monitoring by Cellphone Tracking
Note:To reduce the spam potential and various
liabilities, I have not included the individual email addresses in this
blog posting. Should you want contact the projects' people, you can
usually find the email address via their respective Web sites. -JDA States which are testing cellphone tracking systems for monitoring traffic
flow:
- Missouri
http://www.modot.mo.gov
Pete Rahn, Director DOT
Kevin Keith, Chief Engineer
Ernie Perry, Director of R&D - Maryland
http://www.mdot.state.md.us
http://www.chart.state.md.us
Mike Zezeski, Director of CHART
Glenn McLaughlin, Contract lead
David Buck, PR
Michael Tarnoff, Researcher - Virginia
http://www.virginiadot.org/infoservice/news/is-newsctr-bio-sorrell.asp
http://www.virginiadot.org/comtravel/smart-traffic-center-nova.asp
Connie Sorrell, Chief of System Operations
Neil Reed, IT Manager, Smart Traffic Center
Stephany Hanshaw, , Admin. Smart Traffic Center - Georgia
Mark Demidovich - US Department of Transportation
ITS Joint Program Office (JPO)
http://www.its.dot.gov/
Bill Jones, JPO's ITS Technical Director - American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
http://www.aashto.org
Valerie Briggs, Program manager for transportation operations
System Vendors: Wireless Companies who are supplying tracking data:
- Sprint Nextel Corp. with AirSage
Georgia and Virginia
- Cingular with Declan
Maryland
Articles:Other References: J.D. Abolins
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1.12.05 02:43
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From Georgia (the US State): A Fracas Over Shcool Video Surveillance of a Boys' Lavatory
This story from a Georgia TV station's Web site: A
Jasper County mother says her 8th grade son found a video camera taping
in the school bathroom this week. But now, he is the one in trouble.
Cindy Champion says her son, Mac Bedor, and a few of his friends took
the camera out of the ceiling because they felt it violated their
privacy. Champion says her son brought the camera home to show her that
afternoon. She says when she contacted the Jasper County Comprehensive
School, she found out high school principal, Howard Fore, put the
camera there. She says Fore told her he put the camera in the boys'
bathroom to catch students vandalizing. Champion says her son is now
suspended for taking school property. Quite
a messy situation. The news story doesn't provide some useful details,
such as was there a notice of the privy surveillance, what was visible
in the video capture, and such. While
the school has an interest in deterring vandalism, this approach raises
a big question of how far should surveillance be allowed to go. Also,
intended or not, is this level of surveillance providing an education
in being a prisoner? (Or at least a resident of a highly monitored
society where almost nothing is private.) There are less intrusive
measures to deterring vandalism. For example, periodical lavatory
checks by staff and the hallway cameras can narrow down the suspects.
Oh, speaking of deterring vandalism, was the school really seeking
to deter or to trap? While trapping and prosecuting or disciplining the
vandal might serve a deterrent purpose, more often a camera as a
deterrence would entail notification that the place is monitored. Also,
a camera that is secretly placed in a loo area can be easily
interpreted as the work of pervert rather than the school's
administration (which we hope do not include perverts <g>  . The self-help remedy the boys used to removed the offending
camera is problematic. There are low impact ways of dealing with
discovered cameras. If the boys did not know who installed the camera,
they or their parents could notify the school authorities. Documenting
the camera's existence by photographing it, etc. is helpful. Warning
others of the camera. Covering the lense in a non-damaging manner. And
so on. Pulling out a device on somebody else's property usually results
in more problems.
J.D. Abolins
19 Dec 2005 - Minor edit to correct a typo in the entry's title.
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4.12.05 19:05
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ID Analytics: Much Stolen Data is Not Exploited
Yesterday, Bruce Schneier's blog's entry Most Stolen Identities Never Used pointed to a much needed reality check about data breaches involving "personal" data. The entry pointed to the reported findings
of by ID Analytics, Inc.'s analysis of four data breaches involving
approximately half a million consumer identities. They found that
relatively few of the identities breaches were exploited for criminal
financial gain. [PDF of the full report] I'll get back to the ID Analytics report shortly, but
first some roundabout comments. In
the recent months, hardly a week goes by without reports of businesses'
databases being breached and their customers' personal data being
exposed to fraud. Taking the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse's chronology of US data breaches
since the 15 Feb 2005 Choice Point incident, it would appear that over
51.5 million Americans have had their personal information compromised.
That's almost one in six Americans! The 51.5 million is the total
number of individuals whose record were reportedly breached. Not clear
how much of an overlap there may be. (I.e.; how many peoples' data was
exposed in more than one breach.) The number of individual affected in
a given breach ranges from a little over a hundred to 40 million. One
incident, an intrusion into CardSystem's data represents almost four-fifths of the 51.5 million total. But
snarfing of one's data in these breaches doesn't automatically mean
that the culprits are exploiting everyone's data. It's nothing new.
Years ago, there was much media to-do over Kevin Mitnick having nicked 20,000 credit card numbers
from Netcom. But not so often mentioned was that there was the absence
of any indication he exploited any of the numbers for financial gain.
It appears that the 20K cc #'s were treated as a hacking trophy in
their own right rather than the raw material for financial
exploitation. I am not saying that the data breach is not a problem but
let's not confuse the possession of the data with the actual
exploitation of the data. The possession, yes, provides the potential
for fraud but the possession itself is not the fraudulent exploitation. Going
back to the ID Analytics findings, I see they support that difference
between breached data possessed and the ultimate financial exploitation
of the data. The ID Analytics press release notes,
ID Analytics’ fraud experts believe
the reason for the minimal use of stolen
identities is based on the amount of
time it takes to actually perpetrate
identity theft against a consumer.
As an example, it takes approximately
five minutes to fill out a credit application.
At this rate, it would take a fraudster
working full-time – averaging 6.5 hours
day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year – over
50 years to fully utilize a breached
file consisting of one million consumer
identities. If the criminal outsourced
the work at a rate of $10 an hour in
an effort to use a breached file of
the same size in one year, it would
cost that criminal about $830,000. ID
Analytics noted it appears that the individual's risk of fraud is
higher if one's data was in a small breach compared to a massive one.
Another significant factor may be the degree of clear indication that
the data itself was targeted. For example, a systems crack to get
account data points to the data itself being the target. But the loss
of backup tapes or a stolen computer might be an accident or theft for
the computer as a resaleable device. ID Analytics findings also
remind us there is a difference between identity fraud and account
fraud. The former is the criminal use of one's identity info to create
new accounts or illicitly obtain benefits due to oneself. Account
fraud, a more common crime, is the fraudulent use of existing accounts
via stolen data. This is why I prefer the term "identity-linked fraud"
over "identity theft" as catch-all term. Real identity theft is
relatively uncommon and more devastating to the victims than account
fraud. Yet to fully exploit my own identity,
J.D. Abolins
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14.12.05 05:00
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