From: Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 10:12:47 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: ON THE ROAD TO NOSINESS? THE SAME GEAR THAT WOULD SMOOTH OUT TRAFFIC JAMS
Message-ID: <199310291710.AA04040@eff.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Forwarded message:

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 16:44:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dan Gillmor <dgillmor@det-freepress.com

 DETROIT FREE PRESS
 DATE: MONDAY October 18, 1993
 ED: METRO FINAL
 PAGE: 10F                    SECTION: BIZ     LENGTH: MEDIUM
 ILLUST:  Photo
 BYLINE:  DAN*GILLMOR*
 DATELINE:
 MEMO:  BUSINESS MONDAY: TECHNOLOGY


                      ON THE ROAD TO NOSINESS?
                THE SAME GEAR THAT WOULD SMOOTH OUT
             TRAFFIC JAMS COULD BE USED TO SNOOP ON YOU

     The next time you're stuck in stop-and-go traffic, steaming
 because you're late, consider the promise of smarter cars and
 highways. Then consider the possible impact on your privacy.

     The idea  behind intelligent vehicle highway systems
 --IVHS, the in-crowd acronym for smart cars and highways -- is
 alluring. By using computers and other electronic gear, we
 could squeeze many more cars, trucks  and buses onto existing
 highways and help everyone get where he or she is going more
 quickly and reliably.

     IVHS is just one of the advances in communications and
 information technology that are  transforming our lives. But it
 also could let government and private snoops peer into our
 lives in new and scary ways.

     "There is a lot of good that can come from IVHS if it's
 done right, but there's  also a need to assure that privacy and
 individual rights are maintained," says U.S. Rep. Bob Carr, D-
 Mich., a strong advocate of IVHS.

     IVHS isn't a single technology. It's an expanding grab-bag
 of gadgets, computers and brains. Among them:

 * An experiment now under way in Oakland County. Cameras keep
 track of traffic on  major streets. They relay information to a
 computer that tells the traffic  lights when to turn green,
 yellow and red. The result, according to road officials, is
 smoother-flowing traffic.

 * Projects in Europe and Japan. One is Prometheus, a European
 system designed to help  cars avoid collisions, plus in-car
 computers that give information on how to steer around
 congestion.

 * Pathfinder, a California-based car-to-computer communication
 system that includes dashboard displays  about upcoming traffic
 jams.

 * Proposals for electronic tolls -- which economists and
 traffic planners generally agree would be an  efficient way to
 reduce congestion and pay for upkeep. The reasoning,  which
 makes sense, is that you should pay more to use the highway at
 rush hour than at 2 a.m. How would that be done? Highway and
 vehicle sensors, which wouldn't slow traffic like old-fashioned
 toll  booths, would know when you use  the road and bill you
 accordingly.

     Those and other emerging IVHS technologies hold out the
 long-range promise of fully automatic highways and cars: You'd
 get into  your car, tell it where you're going, and the car and
 the roads would do the rest.

     Backers of IVHS include the Big Three automakers,
 Michigan's state government and  its major universities. They
 see a potential mother lode -- much of it likely to be mined
 from taxpayer's pocketbooks -- as well as public benefits.

     Let's think about this.

     Assume for the moment that IVHS actually will  work and be
 affordable.

     What worries me, and ought to worry you, is how IVHS could
 be used to pry into your life. A rule of thumb: The smarter the
 system, the more Big-Brotherish it could be.

     Specifically, the smarter the system, the more easily it'll
 be able to track your every move.

     Oakland County's relatively primitive traffic-control
 system uses cameras, but officials with the  county road
 commission say the cameras only sense motion. They don't
 monitor license plate numbers or take pictures of drivers.

     Spy on motorists? "We're opposed to it and have no
 intention of getting  into it," insists Brent Bair, managing
 director of the Road Commission for Oakland County. "We can't
 afford to get involved in stuff like that."

     I believe him. But questions I'm raising aren't about
 what's here today, but what's coming tomorrow.

     Bair thinks I'm being alarmist. I hope he's right. But
 suppose some future road officials decide to install new
 cameras and higher-capacity transmission  lines, allowing the
 system to scan locations, license-plate numbers and drivers'
 faces into the computer.

     And what about other IVHS systems that include
 communications devices in vehicles that talk  with a central
 computer and get instructions on the best route.  Will the
 computer keep records of where the car has been, and when?

     These concerns apply to electronic tolls and just about all
 other  IVHS technologies. Will the information be used solely
 for traffic control and billing? If not, who should have access
 to it, and for what purposes? We need to answer all of these
 questions now, not  after the fact.

     "Most people are honest and wouldn't misuse the
 information, but we do need protections, just in case," says
 Dale Rubin, professor of law at Willamette College of Law in
 Salem, Ore.,  and the author of several papers on IVHS issues.

     I'm no Luddite who fears anything new; IVHS undoubtedly can
 make our lives better. Still, before we spend a few bazillion
 dollars on this brave new  world of transportation, we should
 consider just how much liberty we're willing to trade for
 mobility and convenience.

                           ******

Dan Gillmor                       Internet: dgillmor@det-freepress.com
Detroit Free Press                CompuServe: 73240,334
306 S. Washington                 313-691-2400 Voice
Royal Oak, MI 48067               313-691-2420 Fax
(Standard disclaimer: Neither the Free Press nor I speaks for the other.)






-- 
-=> mech@eff.org <=-
Stanton McCandlish     Electronic Frontier Foundation Online Activist & SysOp
"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood of
ideas in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." -JFK
NitV-DC BBS 202-232-2715, Fido 1:109/? IndraNet 369:111/1, 14.4V32b 16.8ZyX
Join EFF!  For more information about membership, send mail to eff@eff.org