It turns out that the new electronic license plates being issued in Michigan, California, and at least one other state have GPS trackers in them, which allow anyone to track the location of the car that they are attached to. The government having the ability to track everyone all of the time disturbs me enough, but complicating this is the fact that securing them from outside parties tracking them is something that apparently didn’t occur to the company that makes them.
White hats were able to hack into the plates, giving them the ability to see the GPS location, name, address, and other information about the registered owner. In addition, they were able to alter the plates to make them appear to be dealer tags.
This is a bonanza for criminals. A robber sees someone buy something that they want in a store, so they track you through your tag so that you can be robbed in a remote location. Cut someone off in traffic? It would be easy for them to find out where you live. Is your wife pretty? Maybe they can track her home for some easy raping.
This is a major security fail. Remember, just because you don’t do business on the cloud, you are still vulnerable to cyber crime. I am not sure how I would defend against this, but the time to figure that out is BEFORE these plates become mandatory where YOU live.