[uyzstvqs]

The site is definitely lacking. It's half in German, half in English.

The concept is that there is this protocol called ITS-G5, which is a European profile of 802.11p. Vehicles and traffic infrastructure can transmit telemetry on 5 GHz. Other vehicles and traffic infrastructure can use it for situational awareness.

This website collects that data using local receivers and aggregates it onto a map, similar to what website like ADSB-Exchange do with ADS-B.

What is concerning is that vehicles appear to broadcast a MAC address. Does this mean that ITS-G5, 802.11p, and C-ITS could be used for persistent tracking?

[softgrow]

Reading the translation of the talk, public transport vehicles have a persistent MAC but for private cars the MAC address changes every 15 minutes.

[rompic]

As discussed in the video they are not resetting the packet sequence number though, making it easy to match them with the other data transmitted.

[ufocia]

That still doesn't seem very private.

[fy20]

For a vehicle with a highly visible unique identifier on the front and rear? In my country basically every private carpark has ANPR cameras, the tech is dirt cheap now.

[subscribed]

It's much cheaper to deploy a dense network of cheap, covert radio loggers.

[interloxia]

Even our tires blast out IDs.

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/exploring-the-privacy-risks-of-tire-...

[Barbing]

Particularly anywhere rural or off the beaten path

[moooo99]

You wouln‘t really have the kind if hardware there. The communication relies on a multi hop mesh that would‘t work anywhere without sufficient coverage.

[izacus]

You do know you have a unique ID displayed on a big tab on the vehicle, right?

[Barbing]

And I don’t want to give Flock more OTA capabilities!

[wumms]

> What is concerning is that vehicles appear to broadcast a MAC address.

Somewhat related: 'Your car’s tire sensors could be used to track you': https://networks.imdea.org/your-cars-tire-sensors-could-be-u...

[alexpotato]

This should be a top level comment as it has a ton of useful info and can be voted to the top.

[antman]

What about the traffic lights on the map do they also have transmitters?

[moooo99]

Yes, they also have transmitters. The traffic lights send out MAPEM and SPATEM messages. They describe the layout of the lanes at the intersection as well as the red/green phase timings of the signal.

In Graz, the city where the authors live, there are 165 of such signals planned.

[firesteelrain]

Did they re invent APRS?