cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48289957
Defense contractor Leonardo is promoting a new technology called SignalTrace that will package plate cameras with sensors that can scrape unique identifiers tied to your smart devices and make that data available to law enforcement.
Police, border security, and other government agencies already comprise Leonardo’s customer base, and with this technology, those clients seek to correlate footage from these cameras to phones, tablets, wearables, AirTags, and, naturally, the electronics inside cars themselves.
If SignalTrace can pick up your Bluetooth headphones, you can be sure it’ll also be looking out for your vehicle’s 5G hotspot, infotainment system, and even its tire pressure monitoring sensors. The company includes pet microchips as a potential entry point to tracking.
Oh no, I wasn’t clear - they said removing the TPM sensors themselves required specialized equipment. Which I suppose is technically true, but it was the work of an hour and a harbor freight manual tire changer. So it “requires” equipment any stoned hillbilly either owns themselves or is owned by someone they know. Or they could just have a tire shop do it.
The car I drive is modern-ish, from the last decade, but it is a really, really basic car. It doesn’t even shift it’s own gears. The instrument cluster and center console don’t even have screens in them. There is certainly not any 5G antenna, as the car predates the commercial 5G rollout.
Oh yea. It’s just replacing a valve stem. I guess the computer might bitch some if it doesn’t have any, but electrical tape fixes that light.
I guess balancing the tire after would be the hardest part.
I didn’t even have to balance the tire. I only broke the bead on one side, and pushed the tire sidewall back enough to get my hand in there and pull the sensors out. They are very lightweight and didn’t throw the balance off that I could notice.
I do have a persistent TPMS warning light, but some work with a screwdriver had the bulb out. My truck was different, it has a warning light and a warning message on the cluster LCD screen, but with Forscan I was able to just disable the TPMS function.