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Golden Gate Bridge plans to collect all tolls electronically by September 2012
San Francisco's world-famous Golden Gate Bridge looks much like this right now, but come September 2012 the last of those yellow "cash" signs are scheduled to wink out. That's because the bridge's board of directors voted 13-2 to approve a $2.9 million plan that will replace the bridge's 30 full-time human tolltakers with a fully electronic system. Don't say you didn't see this coming, folks. The existing FasTrak subscription RFID transponder system will continue to work, and there will be a camera-based backup as well -- if you pass through the bridge without a FasTrak pass, bridge-mounted cameras will take a picture of your license plate and you'll get a $6 bill in the mail. Planners estimate the move will save about $19.2 million by the year 2020 in salaries and benefits that would otherwise go to the friendly meatbags who work there now, and should things stay on track the revamped system will debut in February of next year.
FasTrak toll system exposed, could use a serious dose of security
Ah, Black Hat. How we adore you. Each year there's always one speaker who shows up and completely undermines something that most people assume is rock solid. This year, our pals at Hack-A-Day were in attendance to hear Nate Lawson expose California's FasTrak toll system for the security hole that it is. Essentially, toll transponders that are purchased and slapped onto vehicles offer up exactly no authentication, meaning that anyone with an ill will and an RFID reader could wander through a parking lot and lift all sorts of useful information. Think it can't get worse? The transponders reportedly support "unauthenticated over the air upgrading," which means that each tag could be forced to take on a new ID if the right equipment was present. We don't have to spell out "potential disaster" for you, now do we?[Image courtesy of Mindfully]
Virtual Sales Associates poised to harass interactively
Thanks to a beautiful marriage between digital signage company Fastrak and interactive voice response specialist Message Technologies Inc, consumers will soon be able to converse with in-store talking heads who will provide product information along with what we can only assume will be subliminal messages to max out your credit cards. These so-called Virtual Sales Associates will be positioned near particular items of interest ("Steve recommends you only buy iPod-brand MP3 players: always look for the apple!"), and are said to be capable of holding limited "natural language" conversations about said product. To include window-shoppers in their diabolical advertising schemes, retailers can also mount a VSA behind the glass and offer browsers a phone number for chatting up the salesbot. This is good news indeed for retailers like Best Buy, who will soon be able to not only automate the process of providing customers with fake pricing information, but also begin planting the seeds of those rip-off warranties even earlier in the sales pitch.
