Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • June 12, 2025 1:31 PM

@ Bruce, ALL,

Is it just the tip of the iceberg?

I have good reason to think not, nor do I think it’s confined to just civilian passenger transport on aircraft.

I have that feeling as the old film title has it,

“Planes, trains, and automobiles”

Are about as “fully covered” as it’s possible to get and still be overt.

One big problem people in the US have is “credit cards are King” and this unfortunately makes people easy to track.

Back just after 9/11 I had several business trips to Seattle Washington State to do some stuff for a prototype mobile phone tracking system for AT&T.

As I’ve mentioned before it was for car based travel census to replace those people who used to sit at traffic lights and major road junctions with those clicker counters to count vehicle types.

Although the original contract had said “full anonymization” just “route information” using an algorithm I’d designed. When I was out there I was pressured by some very senior managers at AT&T to reveal how to unmask for “Health and Safety” reasons (supposedly for Emergency services for major accidents on freeways etc).

I referred them back to UK management but I’ve got good reason to believe that the “algorithm got changed”…

It was shortly after that, that new “upstream equipment” got installed by AT&T so I strongly expect it was to pull the cell record information in about as near real time as possible.

What most people don’t realise is you don’t need to know what type of vehicle they are in as “driving style” gives it all away.

The thing is the software would track even pedestrians and in effect what they were doing by the way they moved…

So all that’s missing is mobile phone ID to personal information. For most in the US where they live is known by various National and State Government Agencies. And although these records are supposedly “Firewalled” we know that Palantir has been using them to unmask people and by other databases build up extensive profiles.

Breaking the Firewalls down is I suspect the actual reason for DOGiE and Hellon Rusk getting his hads on it to feed into AI. Which kind of leaves the question,

“Why would they do this?”

Well I surely think it’s not for the nonsense reasons given in public statements or to senior politicians.

One thing I did notice back then was that there was a change in attitude to people especially foreigners using “cash” as I always do.

Back last century most small outlets were more than happy to take cash, and larger places like national chains were not to purturbed about it though some checkout staff thought it an inconvenience as “counting change” effected their performance.

Into this century and post 9/11 even small outlets gave you the “evil eye” for tendering cash. As for the big chains I had floor/till managers the till jockies would summon because I was spending more than as little as $10 –in one place–, and they would come to “check my ID” etc and get rude when I said “NO” and then told them they could stick it all back on the shelf and just walked out[1]…

People should realise that “Paying on plastic” is not a conveniance, it’s encouraging the surveillence state.

In the UK the last and current political encumbrants are holding a war on “cash” on the usual excuses.

If you visit the UK do not carry more than £100 on you at any time as the Police are using it as an excuse to say you are involved with drugs. The law actually allows them to confiscate money and hold you for over 24 hours and then require you to prove where you got the money from and what you are using it for. At £1000 or equivalent in other currencies they can confiscate it indefinitely and you have to go to court at great cost in maybe two years time to get it back without interest and a “mark on your record”.

A friend got money out to buy a second hand car and got the full treatment from the Police… And at least they were here when the Court dates kept getting changed. If you are a tourist you will be “out of pocket” and “out of luck” and possibly not even allowed back to the UK…

[1] It annoyed me so much I decided to profit by it and would get fresh food like baked goods and eat part as my lunch as I went around doing the rest of my shopping. If they got the ass I got my lunch for free.