Got'cha Wherever You Go! iVe ("Mobile Forensics") > Your Car Is Spying On You
Outside of your home, most people spend most of their time driving in their cars, for business or for pleasure - oblivious to the fact that your automobile is generating so much data. And yes, there are companies that can "vacuum up" all your data almost all the time
It's much more than a case of consumer ignorance - HERE'S AN EXTRACT by Sam Biddle
"So data-hungry government agencies have increasingly moved to exploit the rise of the smart car, whose dashboard-mounted computers, Bluetooth capabilities, and USB ports have, with the ascendancy of the smartphone, become as standard as cup holders. Smart car systems are typically intended to be paired with your phone, allowing you to take calls, dictate texts, plug in map directions, or “read ”emails from behind the wheel. Anyone who’s taken a spin in a new-ish vehicle and connected their phone — whether to place a hands-free call, listen to Spotify, or get directions — has probably been prompted to share their entire contact list, presented as a necessary step to place calls but without any warning that a perfect record of everyone they’ve ever known will now reside inside their car’s memory, sans password."
The people behind CBP’s new tool are well aware that they are preying on consumer ignorance
Your Car Is Spying On You, and a CBP Contracts Shows The Risk
A “vehicle forensics kit” can reveal where you’ve driven, what doors you opened, and who your friends are.
"The people behind CBP’s new tool are well aware that they are preying on consumer ignorance.
In a podcast appearance first reported by NBC News last summer, Berla founder Ben LeMere remarked, “People rent cars and go do things with them and don’t even think about the places they are going and what the car records.”
In a 2015 appearance on the podcast “The Forensic Lunch,” LeMere told the show’s hosts how the company uses exactly this accidental-transfer scenario in its trainings: “Your phone died, you’re gonna get in the car, plug it in, and there’s going to be this nice convenient USB port for you. When you plug it into this USB port, it’s going to charge your phone, absolutely. And as soon as it powers up, it’s going to start sucking all your data down into the car.”
. . .The kit can discover “when and where a vehicle’s lights are turned on, and which doors are opened and closed at specific locations.”
The kit, MSAB says, also has the ability to discover specific events that most car owners are probably unaware are even recorded, like “when and where a vehicle’s lights are turned on, and which doors are opened and closed at specific locations” as well as “gear shifts, odometer reads, ignition cycles, speed logs, and more.” This car-based surveillance, in other words, goes many miles beyond the car itself.
Civil liberties watchdogs said the CBP contract raises concerns that these sorts of extraction tools will be used more broadly to circumvent constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. “The scale at which CBP can leverage a contract like this one is staggering,” said Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
MSAB spokesperson Carolen Ytander declined to comment on the privacy and civil liberties risks posed by iVe. When asked if the company maintains any guidelines on use of its technology, they said the company “does not set customer policy or governance on usage.”
Getting Smartphone Data Without Having to Crack Into a Smartphone
MSAB’s contract with CBP ran from June of last year until February 28, 2021, and was with the agency’s “forensic and scientific arm,” Laboratories and Scientific Services. It included training on how to use the MSAB gear.
Interest from the agency, the largest law enforcement force in the United States, likely stems from police setbacks in the ongoing war to crack open smartphones.
Attacking such devices was a key line of business for MSAB before it branched out into extracting information from cars. The ubiquity of the smartphone provided police around the world with an unparalleled gift: a large portion of an individual’s private life stored conveniently in one object we carry nearly all of the time.
But as our phones have become more sophisticated and more targeted, they’ve grown better secured as well, with phone makers like Apple and phone device-cracking outfits like MSAB and Cellebrite engaged in a constant back-and-forth to gain a technical edge over the other.
The kit, MSAB says, also has the ability to discover specific events that most car owners are probably unaware are even recorded, like “when and where a vehicle’s lights are turned on, and which doors are opened and closed at specific locations” as well as “gear shifts, odometer reads, ignition cycles, speed logs, and more.” This car-based surveillance, in other words, goes many miles beyond the car itself.
But as our phones have become more sophisticated and more targeted, they’ve grown better secured as well, with phone makers like Apple and phone device-cracking outfits like MSAB and Cellebrite engaged in a constant back-and-forth to gain a technical edge over the other.
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