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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the sigint dept.

A Virginia company states that it is developing a texting detector for traffic police.

From the article:

"The technology works by detecting the telltale radio frequencies that emit from a vehicle when someone inside is using a cellphone," said Malcolm McIntyre of ComSonics. "Cable repairmen use similar means to find where a cable is damaged - from a rodent, for instance - by looking for frequencies leaking in a transmission," McIntyre said.

What do you think? Privacy risk? Revenue generating false positive detector? Technically feasible?

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Blackmoore on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:25PM

    by Blackmoore (57) on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:25PM (#94952) Journal

    hands down - Revenue generating false positive detector.

    why? do you realize your cell phone continually checks with the local network? that smart phone apps not only talk with the towers but reach out and communicate with online services.. not rally much different than texting..

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by strattitarius on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:31PM

      by strattitarius (3191) on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:31PM (#94955) Journal
      Even if they can determine it is actually a text message, can they determine which direction? As far as I know there is no danger of somebody's cell phone receiving text messages... it's only once the person acts upon it. So will they also verify with a visual that the person was reading/typing?
      --
      Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by khedoros on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:32PM

        by khedoros (2921) on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:32PM (#95218)
        And even if the direction can be determined, how would they know which phone in the car is sending texts? Or if it's even a person sending them, and not an app that can send automated texts? What about other services that would be as distracting (or more) than texting, that just looks like a stream of encrypted data of unknown content and purpose? I'd have to assume that the system also photographs the driver and license plate, for later examination by a human (maybe with suspicious-looking cases flagged by an algorithm?). Otherwise, there are just too many possibilities to differentiate, and most of them are perfectly legal.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Dale on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:31PM

      by Dale (539) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:31PM (#94956)

      Alternatively, my wife could be texting. My two kiddos aren't of an age to be using texts, but it isn't that far off. How would they show that the driver was the one doing it versus any of the other occupants in the car? I don't talk while I am driving but I will pass the phone to my daughter to talk to my wife if she calls. Unless they are going to make anyone using a device illegal I don't see how they are going to use this in any practical way.

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by MrNemesis on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:03PM

        by MrNemesis (1582) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:03PM (#94980)

        Just goes to show that mobiles need to have a legally mandated ability to scan and log users' finger and ear prints whenever someone touches the screen/keys so as to determine who is using the phone. Even better if mesh networking is used to talk to the in-car biometrics system to judge whether the same fingerprints on the steering wheel match the fingers using the phone - then you'd be able to automatically configure cars to take a picture of the driver and upload to the local police's twitter feed as well as to the user's facebook page so as to name and shame at the same time. Scanning and keeping the finger and ear prints on record in the phone and in the car would also mean saving the police a lot of time and money whilst almost entirely eliminating theft (of both cars and phones) and dangerous driving within a few weeks of being introduced.

        --
        "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
      • (Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:14PM

        by Foobar Bazbot (37) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:14PM (#94985) Journal

        An awful lot of cars on the road have only one occupant -- if a foolproof remote texting detector existed, a reasonable policy would be to only issue tickets to drivers without passengers. (Of course, being a reasonable policy, it's not the one most police forces would adopt.)

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:54PM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:54PM (#95193) Journal

          But again, you can't tell if its inbound or outbound. Or maybe its outbound via an auto-reply-bot that a lot of new phones have which reply "I'm driving now, I'll reply later" to any incoming text, and even some inbound calls.

          My car offers me the ability to reply via voice, (and the voice translation, while often hilarious, is overall pretty good).
          It reads my texts to me, an I can speak replies without ever touching the phone.

          It seems to me that those capabilities being built into smartphones and cars would remove any pretense of probable cause. This technology seems to me to have arrived a decade too late to be of any value.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Leebert on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:28PM

        by Leebert (3511) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:28PM (#94993)

        This.

        I rented a car a couple of weeks ago, and the radio refused to Bluetooth pair while the car was driving. Mind you, it was the PASSENGER trying to pair it. The Law of Unintended Consequences kicked in such that, since we were in stop-and-go traffic, I stayed stopped a little longer than I probably should have for safety just to give it enough time to complete the pairing.

        I get they're legal scared, but this kind of arbitrary limitation on technology is really annoying.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by cykros on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:50PM

        by cykros (989) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:50PM (#95062)

        That, and with modern voice to text being as usable (I hesitate to call it "good") as it is, coupled with modern cars being bluetooth enabled, often with a screen, there's absolutely nothing to stop you from entirely legally sending text messages without touching your phone at all. Granted, verifying what you've written on the screen can be a danger, but definitely not any moreso than using a GPS navigation system.

        This sounds like someone just capitalizing with a product that won't actually be that useful but sounds useful enough that it'll probably rake in plenty of money regardless.

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:15PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:15PM (#95109) Journal

          It is my belief that in the state I live in talking on a cell phone while driving is illegal whether or not it is in your hands.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:33PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:33PM (#95162)

            That is probably incorrect. Many states forbid it to newly licensed drivers, but all of them let regular drivers use handsfree cellphones.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_cell_phone_use_while_driving_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:00PM

            by frojack (1554) on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:00PM (#95199) Journal

            Don't know how accurate or up to date this is, but Wiki has a page on this:
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_cell_phone_use_while_driving_in_the_United_States#Laws_by_state [wikipedia.org]

            It seems that many states are banning young / learner-permit drivers from ANY USE of a cell phone.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 2) by cykros on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:00PM

            by cykros (989) on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:00PM (#96451)

            IANAL, and we are definitely not in the same state, as here in MA, everything is totally swell if you talk on your cell phone while eating a sandwich and adjusting your GPS nav system. And if you're doing 25 or so over the speed limit down the breakdown lane at rush hour, well...that's technically illegal, but chances are, nobody will stop you over it.

            But texting and driving...no, can't have that.

            Anyway, I must now step away from the computer to ice my brain.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by jcross on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:53PM

      by jcross (4009) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:53PM (#95004)

      Not only that, but SMS messages are actually sent in the "spare" bytes of the very control channel channel messages that keep the phone synced with the tower anyway[1]. These are being passed back and forth constantly, and the only thing changing will be the content. It's remotely possible that the different message content creates a different frequency signature, but it doesn't seem like it would be a reliable effect to exploit.

      [1] http://stackoverflow.com/a/17226574/745831 [stackoverflow.com]

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:04PM

        by frojack (1554) on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:04PM (#95201) Journal

        A text message would come across that signaling channel as a long burst, which would stand out from normal traffic.

        But with more and more "texting" tools using the data channel these days, and avoiding traditional SMS channels this method of detection would become increasingly ineffective anyway.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:29PM

      by EvilJim (2501) on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:29PM (#95274) Journal

      you can tell the difference from the interference pattern, receipt of txt produces less bzzt bzzt bzzt than sending. I once had my phone go nuts and buzzed for a solid minute before I turned it off as it seemed like someone was trying to listen in or something that transmitted lots of data, this was before smartphones, had no internet on that one.

  • (Score: 2) by gman003 on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:37PM

    by gman003 (4155) on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:37PM (#94961)

    "Privacy risk? Revenue generating false positive detector? Technically feasible?"

    Yes, hell yes, and only if you consider that "hell yes" a positive thing.

    How do they plan to distinguish texting from, say, a smartphone downloading emails and maps and updates (with zero user input)? How do they plan to distinguish "receiving a text" from "sending a text"? How do they plan to distinguish a passenger texting from the driver texting? What happens if I use TTS as a driver to send a text - I think that's actually legal here but IANAL.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Snotnose on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:47PM

      by Snotnose (1623) on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:47PM (#94964)

      How do they plan to distinguish "receiving a text" from "sending a text"?

      The uplink and downlinks use different frequencies, differentiating a "send" from a "receive" is a piece of cake.

      What's harder is detecting the text at all. I don't know about GSM, but in CDMA every second or so the phone sends a "hey, ya got anything for me?" message to the base station. The base station sends back a yay or nay. This request/reply only takes a few bytes, but the packet size is 256. This is how SMS messages are sent, in the otherwise wasted 140 bytes of these messages.

      --
      Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Alfred on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:57PM

        by Alfred (4006) on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:57PM (#94976) Journal
        So I conclude that the only way to tell if there is a text is by packet interception and packet inspection. This rings of wiretapping so I think it could be fought in court and won easily. My communications should be private until there is a search warrant. But IANAL.
  • (Score: 1) by Webweasel on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:52PM

    by Webweasel (567) on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:52PM (#94969) Homepage Journal

    So cars never have passengers right?

    --
    Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:15PM (#94987)

      And newer cars do not have a cell radio in them... Onstar works by magic I guess.

    • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:40PM

      by EvilJim (2501) on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:40PM (#95280) Journal

      I'm seeing a lot of this assumption - if the cops are smart they will use the device to identify *possible* activity from afar then confirm visually. it is an indicator of possible illegal activity, not a definate result. - the cops will need to be taught this though.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Blackmoore on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:56PM

    by Blackmoore (57) on Thursday September 18 2014, @01:56PM (#94975) Journal

    it just hit me.

    This isnt just about fining people under the pretense of a false positive.

    This is about generating a false positive to then search the contents of your phone, and your car.

    This is about creating a situation where the police can get away with looking into any car, and your phone at any time - for no reason other than the false positive.

    .
    .
    this is facism.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Foobar Bazbot on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:20PM

      by Foobar Bazbot (37) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:20PM (#94991) Journal

      this is facism.

      No, facism would be if they disproportionately ticketed drivers whose face is different than the police officer's.

      This is fascism.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DrMag on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:52PM

        by DrMag (1860) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:52PM (#95003)

        Unfortunately, the two are often highly correlated.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:17PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:17PM (#95013)

      That makes no sense: In the US, police can and do look into cars and phones without a real reason all the time. Here's the procedure:

      Step 1: Pull the vehicle over for "unsafe lane change" or other minor traffic offense (that the vehicle in question may or may not have actually committed).
      Step 2: Claim you smell marijuana in the vehicle when the driver opens the window to talk.
      Step 3: Order driver from the car, and handcuff them. Rough them up a bit if you like.
      Step 4: Demand to search the vehicle. If they refuse, call in a K-9 unit, and the K-9 handler will ensure the dog false-alerts.
      Step 5: Tear the car up looking for the pot (that may or may not actually exist) or any other evidence of criminal activity.
      Step 6: If you still don't find what you want, drop some you brought with you in a conveniently incriminating location. Or claim that the handcuffed driver assaulted you.
      Step 7: At this point, you can take their cell phone as evidence, and do as you please to it.

      Since you're not familiar with this, I'm reasonably certain you're white, and don't have black or Hispanic friends with whom you've ever discussed the police. There's a reason NWA had very unkind words to say about the police.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:21PM

        by Blackmoore (57) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:21PM (#95047) Journal

        sadly; I'm white; and I've experienced that too. of course at the time i had a wife and child in the car. and no cell phone.
        I dont care to think about it too much.

      • (Score: 2) by cykros on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:54PM

        by cykros (989) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:54PM (#95068)

        Step 2: Claim you smell marijuana in the vehicle when the driver opens the window to talk.

        Guess that might work, as long as they're not police in Massachusetts [hightimes.com].

      • (Score: 2) by _NSAKEY on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:39PM

        by _NSAKEY (16) on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:39PM (#95122)

        That sounds a lot like this video [youtube.com], in which the kid went through a DUI checkpoint in Tennessee and filmed his interactions with the police.

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by dpp on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:54PM

          by dpp (3579) on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:54PM (#95174)

          Ugh...why'd you have to post that?
          ( asking self why'd I have to watch that...)

          I remember the blissful days before cameras being so common/convenient, as well as publishing this type of thing to the internet... back when I could lie to myself - "It's probably not as bad as I think it is."

          It's been a slow and constant erosion of rights, and slow and steady increase in policing power and abuses.

          I hope this isn't misconstrued as hyperbole, as I mean this as an accurate description - the US has become a "Police State".
          You aren't safe from invasion in your own home, on the streets, or to travel about freely. People can, and are, unlawfully detained and abused by a government bent on keeping people in fear - leading to submission, expansion of government's power, and as studies have shown ...even more consumption/consumerism.

          Since the topic of government is about politics, I'll note that at various times in the past I'd optimistically thought each of the (only two!) parties might change the course. However, both have shown they near equally support continued expansion of government control over people's lives, and erosion of privacy and rights.

          Sad state.
          Police State.

          "A people should not fear its government, a government should fear its people." ~ V

    • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:23PM

      by EvilJim (2501) on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:23PM (#95272) Journal

      Here in New Zealand, the cops dont even need to manufacture a reason to pull you over, we have random breath testing stops, then they just say they smell pot and they can compel you to allow them to search. once had a stupid cop claim he smelt pot in my mates car and we hadn't had any for weeks.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:28PM (#94994)

    An app that texts a letter to a false number every 5 seconds. Most have unlimited texts anyways. just a mother way for them to have probable cause.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by halcyon1234 on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:39PM

    by halcyon1234 (1082) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:39PM (#94997)
    They police already have a very reliable "texting while driving" detector. It uses a sophisticated photon processor, and a pattern recognition filter. Okay, here's how it works:
    1. Copy sees a car driving erratically. Drifting between lanes, harsh stopping, near impact, etc. His brain recognizes the pattern of "there's a fucktard driver".
    2. He pulls closer, and looks at the driver. Driver is not watching the road. Most likely, is constantly looking down into lap. Only one hand is on the wheel, the other is in lap or off to side, corresponding with the direction of his gaze. If driver is extremely stupid, instead cop can see device in hand, above the dash, being used. If it's night, cop gets an assist by the fact that the driver's face is lit from beneath by glow of device. Cop has now used his EYES to SEE the driver texting.
    3. Ticket. Should be an instant revocation of license and 1 year ban, followed by lifetime ban, but that's a topic for another day.

    I've heard from cops that these distracted driving tickets are the balls-easiest to give out AND defend. They don't just say "that person looks like they're distracted". They observe the driver. They pull up RIGHT BESIDE THE DRIVER. For a significant amount of time. If the cars are stopped, they'll fucking WAVE at the driver. And yet, the driver does not notice the marked police car right beside them, with the uniformed officer literally waving at them. All that goes into the notes.

    Hell, in Toronto, there's an expressway called the Allen Expresway. It ends at a traffic light forcing a left or right turn. No matter the time of day, there's a lineup at the end of the Express, and you'll be sitting 3-4 cycles of the light to get through. It's a lined avenue-- subway tracks on one side, cement wall on the other. Homeless people will often be on the wide boulevard at the end, since they can walk up and down the line. Okay, got all that?
    The police put plainclothes officers on that boulevard, walking up and down with big signs that say 'I AM A POLICE OFFICER. YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET A TICKET.' [nationalpost.com]. Shoved the signs in people's faces who were texting. And those people DID NOT NOTICE. Police are literally coming up to people and saying 'Hey, buddy, looks like you're distracted. Why not put away the cell before the actual uniformed officer just down the way gives you a ticket'. And these drivers DO NOT SEE!

    So given all of that, why in the hell would any force want to invest money in a janky, half-baked, unreliable piece of technology? Handing out distracted driving tickets is already dead easy. Drivers who are distracted are literally too distracted to even notice there's a copy gathering a mountain of evidence against them in plain sight. Maybe slap a camera on the cop for fun so they can film the person for 30 seconds texting and being too distracted to notice the cop holding a camera in their face. Fuck, don't even give them lapel cams. Go to a Thrift Store, buy a bunch of those massive, bulky old-school camcorders. Mount a light on it. You'll still get your footage.

    --
    Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
    • (Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:57PM

      by pnkwarhall (4558) on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:57PM (#95071)
      This.

      Technology isn't the best solution to every problem. I know, it's a surprise! We have these super-sophisticated, walking-talking computers called "people" that, if they care about what they are doing, are really good at it. The popular idea right now, to make police officers more accountable by equipping them with personal video recorders, is useful in all sorts of ways - one being the idea in parent's last paragraph.

      You know, if you think about a lot of technological "solutions" being offered by various companies, it's pretty easy to see that the "problem" they're solving is that there's a person involved. Take the person out of the mix and Whala! Problem solved.
      --
      Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
    • (Score: 2) by Leebert on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:50PM

      by Leebert (3511) on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:50PM (#95230)

      Why don't we just skip #2 in your list? I don't really give a rat's WHY the driver is driving dangerously. The texting and hand-held laws are arbitrary and superfluous.

      • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:35PM

        by EvilJim (2501) on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:35PM (#95277) Journal

        would you still say that if you knew someone who had killed a pregnant woman while txting like I do? fortunately the baby survived.

        • (Score: 2) by Leebert on Friday September 19 2014, @01:28AM

          by Leebert (3511) on Friday September 19 2014, @01:28AM (#95315)

          would you still say that if you knew someone who had killed a pregnant woman while txting like I do? fortunately the baby survived.

          Yes. Why would a pregnant woman being killed by a texter be any worse than a pregnant woman being killed by a guy reading a book or a woman putting on makeup? And that's the problem with laws like these. I'm absolutely sorry about your friend, I truly am. But telling a tragic story as a reason to pass a bad law doesn't make the bad law good.

          Enforce the laws we have. If the person's driving like a nutcase, I don't care why they're driving like a nutcase, just get them off the road. If the existing law isn't good enough to take care of that, then fix the general case law; don't create a new law covering only one of countless ways one can be distracted. Because then you've only fixed ONE problem.

          • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Friday September 19 2014, @01:59AM

            by EvilJim (2501) on Friday September 19 2014, @01:59AM (#95324) Journal

            in many cases they don't drive like a nutcase, it's just that one unfortunate moment of inattention, I used to txt and drive with my old nokia, never had one situation of bad driving as I could do it without looking at the phone. nowadays with smartphones that is virtually impossible without speect to txt, etx I'm generally against superfluous laws, but this is one that makes sense to me. what currently existing laws would cover the situation where someone is doing something generally considered dangerous but not driving like a moron?

      • (Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Friday September 19 2014, @03:16PM

        by halcyon1234 (1082) on Friday September 19 2014, @03:16PM (#95518)

        Why don't we just skip #2 in your list? I don't really give a rat's WHY the driver is driving dangerously.

        I mostly agree. Any dangerous/distracted driver should be shitcanned. It's already codified in most highway traffic laws.

        The texting and hand-held laws are arbitrary and superfluous.

        I mostly disagree. Again, I agree, there's already laws on the books to take down dangerous and distracted drivers. But it's becoming more and more apparent that this particular class of drivers are more dangerous, more distracted, and more unrepentant about their blatantly obvious lack of ability to drive or care for the safety of all on the roads.

        I've read through the Ontario version of this law. I know lots of people call it "no texting and driving" laws, but the actual wording boils down more to "You aren't allowed to even touch a information sending-or-receiving device that isn't part of your dashboard". The reason I'm not completely against this seemingly redundant law is:

        • "distracted" driving is an entirely arbitrary judgement call. As is careless driving. The officer can say anything is careless, if it caused you to drive carelessly. But then it's up to the judgement (or lack of judgement) of the officer, and up to the courts to then prove. It's extremely loose and willy nilly. The "no texting" laws codify the behaviour much better. It completely eliminates the argument of "Well, *I'M* a good enough driver to do this dumb shit". No you aren't. And even if you were, you aren't allowed to.
        • Since it's a new law, you can attach new fines and punishments to it that are above and beyond those prescribed by existing laws. This allows you to create extremely harsh punishments for extremely horrible behaviour, while at the same time denying those punishments to "normal" careless driving. Like, if a sleep-deprived new mother gets in a fender bender, gets charged with careless driving (example). She's guilty, sure, but it's much more reasonable and understandable to see how she did that, and the punishment should fit. There is no possibility she'll face 10 years in prison or a permanent driving ban because of a vindictive lawyer or judge. And on the other hand, someone who was texting and driving, even if they didn't kill anyone, can still have their license revoked, because that' the minimum punishment for the crime they were convicted for.
        • It did allow them to launch a PR campaign about the issue. And since this is a social problem, not a technological one, that's the most effective weapon.

        Sure, both those points could be addressed by adding amendments to existing statutes. But if you're going to go through all that effort, best to just make a new law to avoid muddying the existing ones.

        --
        Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MrGuy on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:41PM

    by MrGuy (1007) on Thursday September 18 2014, @02:41PM (#94998)

    Quoth TFA: "The technology works by detecting the telltale radio frequencies that emit from a vehicle when someone inside is using a cellphone" (emphasis mine)

    No it doesn't. It works by detecting the telltale radio frequencies that emit from a vehicle when a cellphone is actively communicating. Mistaking "a phone is talking to a network" for "a human is instigating that communication" is not understanding how cellphones work.

    But that's the thing. This device is expected to be sold to government procurement folks, who want to crack down on texting and driving. Never mind that it doesn't actually, y'know, work. That's not the question.

    The question (from the manufacturer's perspective) is whether they can convince people (who by and large don't know how cell phones work) to buy the detectors. Given that the government bought hundreds of "naked picture" X-Ray scanners that don't actually detect weapons well [propublica.org] and still has in use bomb detectors that don't detect bombs [businessweek.com], I fully expect this device to sell successfully. It claims to solve a problem that the people who buy such devices are concerned about solving.

    Never underestimate the power of marketing to overcome inconvenient "facts," especially when the facts are boring and poorly understood by the audience anyways.

  • (Score: 1) by erichill on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:14PM

    by erichill (658) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:14PM (#95012)

    So when my phone sends a request to Pandora for the next song, I'm going to get pulled over for texting while driving? Can they really tell a difference between a sent text and a sent HTTP GET?

    I think the quantity of false positives are going to be too high for this to be reliable in any way.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:56PM (#95194)

      Yes it would be able to tell. SMS uses a different communication method.

      However, it would not be able to tell the difference between someone in the car is vs the driver vs the car itself vs someone just got a message vs someone caused the phone to spit out an SMS.

      Not all SMS is initiated by a person.

  • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:34PM

    by Lagg (105) on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:34PM (#95023) Homepage Journal

    False positive detector is putting it quite lightly. As far as I know texts are stored in packets (that are pretty much pings kind of like ICMP) that have 140 bytes that are otherwise zeroed out. This is why people who know what they're talking about get so pissed off when it comes to texting fees because they're sent in packets that are going to get sent anyway. So unless they make really invalid assumptions about what is in the 140 bytes of that otherwise zeroed (if they're lucky, I don't know if the spec actually requires zeroing, could just be junk/uninitialized memory) they're going to be pulling people over for their phones doing what is essentially an ICMP ping. It'll quickly flood them with false positives. I guess you could use heuristics to guess if those bytes have things that would generally appear in a text but given how moronic people are with the shorthand it might as well just be uninitialized memory.

    --
    http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
    • (Score: 1) by rcamera on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:37PM

      by rcamera (2360) on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:37PM (#95165) Homepage Journal
      what's false positive? the machine says you were texting, you say you weren't. who's going to win that argument at your traffic court appearance?

      they'll be rolling in dough to the point they can actually afford to properly maintain their tanks [dailynews.com].
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      /* no comment */
      • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:38PM

        by EvilJim (2501) on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:38PM (#95279) Journal

        that all depends on what your txt log says.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @05:05PM (#95076)

    Thought it was a device in police cars that detects a cop's unsafe behaviour and logs it in case he runs over a cyclist.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:29PM (#95114)

    I want the reverse. A service that texts me whenever a cop comes within half a mile of me.

    My radar detector kind of works like that now, many cops just leave their radar guns on all the time because in the past they needed to warm up before they were functional. So they drive around with the radar gun on their dash lighting up everything they drive by. My Valentine1 radar detector with its directional indicators does a great job of telling me when one of those guys is around. I don't even speed, got that out of my system as kid, but having a cop detector is a nice thing because you never know when one them might be in a bad mood and decide to take it out on you.

    One time in the middle of the night I even caught a cop napping, he was set up as a speed-trap in an unlit parking lot right off a back-road. I was totally lost so when my V1 started alerting I said "great, I can ask the cop for directions." But when I pulled up next to his car there was no reaction, so I shined my flashlight in and saw him asleep in the driver's seat. I figured he had set the radar gun to alert for speeders and there was basically no traffic on this road so the boredom got the best of him. I decided not to wake him up, for fear that being caught literally asleep on the job just might make him angry enough to take it out on me. This was before smartphones were a thing, else I would have taken a picture of the guy.