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.
Nah, too easy to filter. Make them clone MACs they’ve seen, and simulate trips around the city.
Is this concept viable? Interesting.
Small single board computer with a solar battery could spam fake bluetooth MACs all day and night. You would need additional hardware to fake the 4G signals (and this would be illegal) or things in the unlicensed bands like tire pressure monitor sensors.
Your setup would cost about as much as theirs and they have infinity money, so absent some rich sponsor you’d be limited to screwing with a few nodes. A more effective use of battery power would be an angle grinder (this would also be illegal).