Aussie Speed Cameras in Doubt Because of MD5 1004
An anonymous reader writes "A speeding case has been thrown out in Australia after the Roads and Traffic Authority admitted that it could not prove the integrity of speed-camera photos. 'The case revolved around the integrity of a mathematical MD5 algorithm published on each picture and used as a security measure to prove pictures have not been doctored after they have been taken.'" I wonder if Australian police are as (radar gun) trigger happy as they are in certain parts of the U.S.
Fun.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Good luck... (Score:2, Interesting)
American traffic magistrates (at least in WA) would not even understand what an "algorithm" is. They will just see another glib speeder trying to scam the county out of $162.
(Warning for visitors: WA has one of the most zealous state highway patrol forces in the nation. Just don't exceed 10 over the limit here.)
Re:Depends on the state (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good luck... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good luck... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm, i've gotten very few traffic tickets in my life in washington... and there are areas that I make damn sure to speed +10mph over and +20mph over.
the first time I got a ticket was when I was younger and going really +85 in a 55, and got a ticket for going 10 over. I didn't argue that one. I got another ticket for going 10 over in a small town.... it was inbetween a 30mph zone and a 45mph zone... The cop did in all fairness see a sign that said 30 from his angle of view, where I saw a sign "slow down speed zone ahead". The judge threw that out.
All the other times i've been pulled over have been for trivial offences such as a tail light being out, my license plates lights being out, failure to signal/turn signal light being out. Not that I don't replace those bulbs or anything, guess they only last a few years. One case right on red with sign... the sign was confusing as it was a 5 lane intersection, but there was a sign and I knew better.
Pulled over once because I put my year sticker in the "wrong" spot 10 days before my tabs were do... cop in all honesty thought they were expired. I explained that I put them there cause my year stack was full. He told me I need to get in there with a razor blade. I explained in friendly terms that I broke the razor and you could still see it sticking out of my year tabs. He just said "oh".
So three moving violations in my life, one thrown out, one paid in full, one midigated. One I feel was unjustified, one totally 100% justified, and one I just saw the judge to prove I had insurance and got a big discount for saying hello and not wasting his time.
I was hoping someone else would post this story (Score:3, Interesting)
My question is how long before this sort of defence gets used against evidence in the form of video surveilence in general? How long before a bank robber can argue that the bank's security camera footage isn't secure? Or is this simply a classic case of a judge that does not understand, and a roads and traffic authority too apathetic and sure of itself to provide what's needed for the correct judgement?
I have no love of the RTA. In NSW it's now 3 points off your license for going over the speed limit by a single kilometer/hour, and 6 points for the same if it's a long weekend or holiday period. So basically you can now lose your license for doing 1 kilometer over the limit twice over a 3 year period.
Good riddance (Score:5, Interesting)
The extraordinary thing is that around the burbs, often I have to put my foot on the brake going down small hills just to ensure I don't edge over the limit. Perhaps sales of brake pads and cruise control equipment have increased substantially since the introduction of these fuckers. Both my parents have received speeding fines in the last few years, having gone for over forty years with a clean record.
As an aside, a few years back, one chap was flashed by the camera as he drove by and promptly responded by swerving into the offending machine, taking it out all together. Unfortunately, these cameras have a bunch of wire connected to a nearby van, which stores all the data. The cops simply lifted the last photo taken and arrested the guy. Though a tad rash in his response, I still consider him a legend.
Re:Don't speed (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps you should hang way back of the driver so that if he does anything unexpected you have a larger time to assess the risk and react.
Or when I'm in heavy traffic, and an ambulance comes up behind me and there's no clearance to pull to a different lane.
I recently saw this happen just yesterday! But it was a fire-truck. I did have enough room to move into the next lane, but the car behind me didn't. So the car behind me sped along, right past a police-car. The police-car could have reacted, and didn't. So I'm guessing that you are allowed to speed up, to get out of the way for them. Having said that, there is a reason you can challenge speeding fines. I've seen people do so, and not have to pay it (the reason they got off was because the camera didn't take into account the context of the situation, and the judge felt the context allowed the person to do the speed he was). But systems shouldn't be devised around exceptional circumstances like the one you suggested. That's why they have the check put in place, in allowing you to challenge a speeding ticket (and representing yourself so you don't have to pay for a lawyer).
Or when I'm minding my business on a one-lane highway, doing somewhere around the speed limit, and some drunk moron comes flying up behind me leaving me nowhere to go but forward in order to avoid being hit.
When this happens you must report it to the police immediately. In the best case scenario, you provide enough information for the drunk-driver to be charged. Worst-case scenario, you've laid down the foundation for a defence in speeding (and then challenge the ticket, if the American system is anything like the Australian one, you'll be given the benefit of the doubt).
Speeding cameras DO stop people from speeding (it's stopped me in any case). But they aren't fool-proof, which is why the system does have checks and balances. Take advantage of them!
Re:Good luck... (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, on a well-maintained highway, at a time when there is little or no other traffic, with a good driver and a well maintained vehicle, the fact that a person is driving 85 in a 55 does not necessarily mean that he is presenting an unreasonable risk to himself or others.
Re:Better than trigger happy (Score:4, Interesting)
So if you get caught speeding by one of those cameras then you're an idiot.
Actually, I kind of like the idea that enforcement of the law can be, in some circumstances at least, automated. There would be very few cases where speeding can be justified and, assuming that all equipment is working properly, it's a binary test: either you were over the speed limit or you weren't. There's not a lot of grey area there. I know a lot of people complain about them with arguments about revenue raising, but I have no problems with them whatsoever.
Re:loophole? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a catch-22. Nobody wants to be killed by a speeder, but nobody wants to pay to stop that from happening. The closest to a solution to this that the police departments have is to use cameras - they're cheap enough that they can afford them.
And when the police ARE funded to semi-reasonable levels, they get complaints that it has become a Police State and that it's impossible to do anything without a cop being around.
Hey, I do understand the need to be able to converse with an accuser. It should be absolutely fundamental to any legal system that NO evidence can be admitted into a court without being questioned or even questionable. There's way too much room for abuse, otherwise.
I also understand that the Government is taking a lot of money as it is, and that a lot of people would prefer a SMALLER Government and Civil Service. That's fine, I don't have a problem with people believing what they like.
Here's the catch, though. If you reduce the size of the Civil Service and reduce the money they can spend, how are they going to get all these police they'd need to monitor the streets to any reasonable level?
Personally, I think they should shift a few billion off the military and put it into domestic programs. A few billion into social security, five or six billion into education, maybe the same into emergency services, perhaps another ten or fifteen billion into science programs. The military would likely not notice that much and probably wouldn't need as much if the domestic infrastructure were taken care of.
In the end, though, we're all wanting something out but not willing to put what it takes in. Whether that's in policing or anything else. Fix the attitudes and the problems will take care of themselves. (A fundamental lesson demonstrated by Open Source, interestingly enough.)
Re:this report ain't to reliable (Score:2, Interesting)
I call bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
Just two weeks ago I was first on the scene when a dickhead drove his BMW into a telephone poll. It was in a residential street street on a sharp corner and he was driving like it was the Le Manns. I was just about to walk down that street with some friends when a telephone call held us up. We heard him speeding down the road and then the screech of tires as he lost it on the corner. Lucky for him his airbag saved his life. However he wiped out 50m of sidewalk ( lucky nobody was walking there), crossed to the wrong side of the rode before crashing ( lucky there was no oncoming traffic ) Destroyed a wooden fence ( lucky there was nobody behind it ).
The first thing I felt like doing after I saw he was ok was hauling him out of the car and kicking his arse or possibly putting his head in the door and slamming it shut a few times.
Please people, get some perspective before you all start shitting yourself with this libertarian nonsense.
That's the point a lot of people are missing. (Score:2, Interesting)
And perhaps not including the judge.
The designers probably just included the MD5 just to scare the defendant. Whether or not that was their intent, they've proven themselves unqualified to be building these.
The red herring of the vulnerabilities aside, the only way you could really make a non-reputable speed camera work is to have the speedometer constantly broadcast the speed and a public key permanently assigned to the car (or perhaps the driver or the license plate?), and the camera would have to record the radar speed and the license plate (and the car, just to be sure) and hash all of it with the camera's private key, and hash it all again with the defendant's public key.
But that kind of gives the lie to the whole project, because the defendant would have to produce his private key to prove that the photos are not faked.
Ergo, this is requiring the defendant to testify against himself.
US speed laws relaxed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Correction... (Score:5, Interesting)
It probably wouldn't bother me so much if they would take those officers running speed traps and put them someplace genuinely useful, like busy intersections where people die all the time because asshats are always running the stop lights.
Re:Fun times for all. (Score:1, Interesting)
They are basically a little PC in a box. They have a camera attached and the sensors on the road which hook up to the serial port with a ISDN link to send the photo.
There is a bunch of other stuff in the box like thermometer and shock detectors so the box can raise an alarm if it thinks it's being bashed or stolen
Re:Better than trigger happy (Score:3, Interesting)
Add to that the "vauge" traffic laws and often people being ticketed just didn't have a clue what the law was at that time. In Salt Lake City it is common to only have one or two speed limit signs over a streach of a mile or two. Whats worse is that often the speed limit changes and no sign is put up. Where Fourth South turns into Foothill the speed limit changes and there is no sign. Where Foothill becomes I214 the speed goes from 40 to 65 with a minimum of 45. There is no sign for almost an 1/8 of a mile to notify drivers of this.
The worst abuse of "revinue collecting" is the highway cities in Idaho. The speed limit goes from 55 to 25 anytime you enter city limits and they make it a point to put bushes infront of the signs. Instand $130 ticket right there. Worst case is the sign going into Cascade. It got knocked over a few years back and it took a year and a half to fix.
Re:Good luck... (Score:4, Interesting)
The point was that he was driving THEIR cars better than they were and showing that they were nowhere near as good as they thought they were. You can't keep a car driving near its limits if you don't know the car well. Yet this old guy drove their cars much better than they did. They didn't respect this guy at first because he was old and saddly after proving these young idiots wrong, they were still fast talking and making excuses.
Of course I expect the old driving instructor to be much better than them. What was funny was that this old guy who the young hoons would not identify with as being a fast driver, handed them their asses in their own boy racer cars. As far as old racing drivers go, the instructor did not look the part either. Imagine you're an 18yo with some crazy hotted up 600kW Supra and your grandfather, who normally drives the speed limit in his Volvo, shows you how to drive it hard.
These hoons were humiliated. The point of the show was a challenge to the hoons to prove that they were good enough drivers to speed. They all failed.
Re:Correction... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't, and have never, lived in what you'd call a 'bad' neighborhood. And yet on three separate occasions, at three separate homes (one I was housesitting for a friend), I had some incredibly stupid burglars attempt to break in while I was home, and up, and the lights were on. On all three occasions I called 911 while the attempted break-in was in progress; two times the cops failed to respond because all available units were busy doing something else (what? cracking down on noise complaints? eating donuts?), and the third time they showed up TWO HOURS after the call. In all of these cases I ended up running off the crooks myself (once with hilarious results, when I scared the crap out of a would-be burglar and he charged straight into a woodpile).
Incidents like these tend to make me irritable. I can't get a cop when a break-in is happening right then and there, but the city seems to have plenty of money to pay for cops who...bust speeders. Yeah, got their priorities real straight, they do.
Perhaps I'd be somewhat mollified if the traffic cops went around handing out tickets to aging Boomers who drive their minivans/SUVs like they were tanks, or to those fucking idiots who talk on their cell phones while weaving back and forth across lanes/blasting through stop signs/etc., but these people seem to get a free pass....
Max
Speed limits in theory and practice (Score:3, Interesting)
It helps that the police don't enforce the limit too strictly; I drove 80mph past troopers chilling in speed traps many times, and they just didn't care. I hope they are waiting for the assholes that tailgate and weave at 110mph.
Re:The F State (Score:3, Interesting)
No, that's not quite how self-defense law works down here, and the sheriff's office most definitely could prosecute the assailant for firing into an occupied vehicle, discharging a firearm within city limits, and a host of other offenses. They did have an eyewitness to the shooting, plus there is going to be evidence inside the vehicle that a firearm was discharged.
I also like the comment "so long as America keeps passing dumb laws like that" - as if Washington D.C.'s Draconian gun laws have made the first bit of difference there.
Re:Depends on the state (Score:3, Interesting)
There are some circumstances where speeding is simply not acceptable, such as residential areas. However, most interstate highways (in the US anyway) are easily traversable at speeds in excess of 100, with a few exceptions. Driving fast is not, in and of itself, a cause of crashes. In Germany, for example, traffic fatalities in 2004 were 7.1 per 100,000. [google.com] Meanwhile, with our "life saving" speed limits in the US, our traffic fatalities in 2003 (most recent data) were more than double that at 14.66 per 100,000. [dot.gov] Clearly it's possible for people to drive fast without a higher number of fatalities.
Driving is an inherently risky activity, and it's impossible to remove all human error without removing humans. I just don't believe that speed limits are much more than an inconvenience and a cycle of tickets funding enforcement and government. If there are more accidents when people are speeding, I believe it's because they haven't had proper training; speed limits don't generally let anyone come close to approaching the limits of their vehicles' abilities, and it gives people the illusion that they can make any turn at any speed and stop on a dime. Furthermore, people tend to focus more when driving faster because they don't get lulled by the relaxing pace of 55MPH. People who are reckless will be reckless regardless of the law; it's just an inconvenience for the rest of us. But that's just my opinion.