In the face of economic crisis and cries for help from those affected by it, this program offers hope to those who may be losing hope or have lost hope all together due to financial difficulties and homelessness. “It never occurred to me that the [speed cameras] were also handy tools for wreaking revenge on enemies and authority figures. That was clearly a lapse of imagination on my part.” Aside from the pranking itself, a secondary effect may be to diminish trust in the legitimacy of valid tickets (particularly since it was reported some perpetrators used similar-looking cars to the victim’s). The victim will receive a $40 ticket in the mail weeks later. It works like this; each car has a GPS unit. Each car has a speed-limiting unit, which contains a map of the roads in the UK and their speed limits and since GPS is there, knows where the car is, and prevents the car going faster than the speed limit. Good quality and access to the data collected would help to address this (e.g., are the photos provided with the ticket? High or low res? Color or B&W? etc…) as better data should make it easier to prove there was fraud. But on whom does the burden of proof lie? Maryland Students Use Speed Cameras for Revenge Students in Montgomery County, Maryland use fake license plates to send speed camera tickets to enemies. Maryland plate, photo by Amy the Nurse/FlickrHigh school students in Maryland are using speed cameras as a tool to fine innocent drivers in a game, according to the Montgomery County Sentinel newspaper. Because photo enforcement devices will automatically mail out a ticket to any registered vehicle owner based solely on a photograph of a license plate, any driver could receive a ticket if someone else creates a duplicate of his license plate and drives quickly past a speed camera. The private companies that mail out the tickets often do not bother to verify whether vehicle registration information for the accused vehicle matches the photographed vehicle. Arks of Safe Haven is intended to provide a Safe Haven for all who enter and answer the prayers of those in need as well as provide spiritual support, comfort and hope in the midst of the Great Tribulation. According to the Sentinel, students at Richard Montgomery High School have also participated, although Montgomery County officials deny having seen any evidence of faked speed camera tickets. We have identified a vulnerability in the Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) used to issue digital certificates for secure websites. As a proof of concept we executed a practical attack scenario and successfully created a rogue Certification Authority (CA) certificate trusted by all common web browsers. Those individuals who have been affected by recent economic downfalls can register on the message board, and connect with others who have also registered and who are able to offer their help and assistance. Arks of Safe Haven does not charge for their services or accept monetary donations, but instead provides an “Ark of Safe Haven” and encourages acts of kindness towards those in need whether it is providing employment, or shelter in the form of an extra bedroom, unused property or a work for room and board agreement and also tangible items such as food, water, diapers, formula, clothing, & many other personal Items. The assistance of Arks of Safe Haven is available to all who are in need, regardless of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. France Telecom observed today that 3 major underwater cables were cut: Sea Me We 4 at 7:28am, Sea Me We3 at 7:33am and FLAG at 8:06am. The causes of the cut, which is located in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia, on sections linking Sicily to Egypt, remain unclear. Most of the B to B traffic between Europe and Asia is rerouted through the USA. Traffic from Europe to Algeria and Tunisia is not affected, but traffic from Europe to the Near East and Asia is interrupted to a greater or lesser extent (see country list below). Part of the internet traffic towards Reunion is affected as well as 50% towards Jordan. A first appraisal at 7:44 am UTC gave an estimate of the following impact on the voice traffic (in percentage of out-of-service capacity).France Telecom immediately alerted one of the two maintenance boats based in the Mediterranean area, the Raymond Croze. This France Telecom Marine cable ship based at Seyne-sur-Mer has received its mobilization order early this afternoon and will cast off tonight at 3:00 am with 20 kilometers spare cable on board. It should be on location on Monday morning for a relief mission. Priority will be given to the recovery of the Sea Me We4 cable, then on the Sea Me We3. By December 25th, Sea Me We4 could be operating. By December 31st, the situation should be back to normal. With foreclosures and homelessness numbers skyrocketing, the need for a place to connect with others who are ready and willing to help is in desperate need. This unique venture connects these people via an extensive network and online message board forum, that is moderated personally by five ministers who will have a hand in making these connections happen. In 2007, Ireland bought two Israeli Orbiter UAV systems, for $550,000 each. They had lost two of their six UAVs in Chad, where a battalion of Irish peacekeepers are operating. The second one UAV casualty apparently tried to fly back to Ireland, after it lost its communications link with the operator. The Orbiter is programmed to head back to the operator if it loses its comm link. But this Orbiter apparently still had a GPS location back in Ireland in its memory, and headed there. Since Ireland is 5,000 kilometers from Chad, the Orbiter ran out of juice and landed about 4,800 kilometers short of its goal. A British Government report, funded by money taken through tax, argues for speed limiting devices on cars. Argues it will reduce car accidents with injuries by 29%. First questions; 29% of what? what’s the period which is being used to compare against? is it representative? does it just include cars, or lorries? does it include all roads, everywhere, or just (say) cities? what about accidents with fatalities? what about the additional accidents which will happen now, where people previously managed to escape by accelerating out of danger? how do they figure that accidents would be reduced anyway? I’m kinda wondering if they just took existing car accident statistics (how accurate are they? on what basis are they calculated?), looked at those accidents which happened where speeding was involved, and applied some sort of reducing factor they constructed. The designers were trying to provide some appropriate default behavior in case the UAV lost contact with its operator. This is good, and may not have been a big deal in Israel, because most of its UAVs are operated near its borders. No one thought about the possibility of using the UAV far outside a country’s borders. It should have recorded the original operator’s location in order to fly back to that location. What about accidents which would have happened anyway, even if they cars had been doing the local speed limit? presumably this was accounted for in their reducing factor? if so, by how much? how do you decide what reduction to use? According to one news article, students are printing up fake license plates specifically in order to speed past speedcams. The person whose plate was printed then gets a bill for the fine. However, the one story on it that I saw is not convincing. All of the reports of its occurrences seem to come from one unnamed source. One of the quotes may be correct regardless, though: “It will cause potential problems for the Speed Camera Program in terms of the confidence in it.” “I’ve objected to the robotic menaces primarily on the grounds that they were fallible revenue machines for the state rather than legitimate means of protecting life and limb,” said Examiner.com’s J.D. Tucille. In the UK, this is known as number plate cloning, where thieves will find the license information of a vehicle similar in appearance to the one they wish to drive. They will use that information to purchase a real license plate from a private vendor using the other vehicle’s numbers. This allows the “cloned” vehicle to avoid all automated punishment systems:
- Saudi Arabia: 55%
- Djibouti: 71%
- Egypt: 52%
- United Arab Emirates: 68%
- India: 82%
- Lebanon: 16%
- Malaysia: 42%
- Maldives: 100%
- Pakistan: 51%
- Qatar: 73%
- Syria: 36%
- Taiwan: 39%
- Yemen: 38%
- Zambia: 62%
According to the Sentinel, two Rockville, Maryland high schools call their version of cloning the “speed camera pimping game.” A speed camera is located out in front of Wootton High School, providing a convenient location for generating the false tickets. Instead of purchasing license plates, students have ready access to laser printers that can create duplicate license plates using glossy paper using readily available fonts. For example, the state name of “Maryland” appears on plates in a font similar to Garamond Number 5 Swash Italic. Once the camera flashes, the driver can quickly pull over and remove the fake paper plate. First thoughts; you know as well as I do that unit will record your journeys and that data will be available, by law, to the State, and that your car, sooner or later, will be legally obliged to carry that unit. There’s no reason it wouldn’t work, as long as the speedcams don’t also get pictures of the driver (as they do in England). All because powers are granted to a State by a democratic process does not mean the State will use them democratically. What about our right of privacy? of simply being left alone? Here’s another thought; what if there’s an emergency and you need to break the local speed limit? will there be an over-ride switch? if so, what’s to stop it being permanently turned on? will it have a time-out? what if the time-out is too short or too long? and if your unit notices that you are persistently breaking the local speed limit, what’s it going to do? will it report you to the police? will, next time you car is serviced, the record of all your journeys be checked for breaking the speed limit and then you’ll be charged? This certificate allows us to impersonate any website on the Internet, including banking and e-commerce sites secured using the HTTPS protocol.