Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

California's Wireless Toll Tags Proven Insecure, Hackable

by Tim Stevens on August 27, 2008 at 12:06 PM

California's Wireless Toll Tags Proven Insecure, Hackable
Nearly every state in the Union has a toll highway somewhere, and most states have employed some sort of automatic, wireless tag system to speed commuters through the booths that stand between them and their destinations. Many have complained that these tags are just another tracking system the government uses to keep an eye on where they're going (and how fast they're traveling to get there), but others have voiced concerns about security. It seems these are valid concerns, at least in California, where the FasTrack system for automatic toll collection has been shown to be easily hackable.

Security expert Nate Lawson has shown that he can not only access the tags and retrieve a user's account number, but can also modify an existing tag and reprogram it to have someone else's. This means that he could walk through a parking lot, wirelessly scan someone's transponder hanging in their window, then reprogram his own and drive on another customer's tab. In fact, he's already successfully scanned his own tag and reprogrammed others to share its account information. There are other systems in place at the toll booths, like cameras that photograph license plate numbers and drivers as cars go through the booths, but that's no excuse for the woefully bad security on these things.

Right now it's unlikely that many are exploiting these tags, so you won't see us trading ours in and going back to stopping and paying in cash -- at least not yet. [From: Technology Review]

Tags: fastrack, rfid, security, toll, wireless

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular