Watch(ed)men
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Security on
The clock is counting down to the 6th of March and the opening of the Watchmen movie. There’s not really much point in watching it, as the real watchmen are among us, and they’re armed with database queries.
Last week we had a meeting with a senior Microsoft VP, who was to brief us on the next steps before the launch of Windows 7. As we sat on the tube we got a phone call - telling us he’d be late, due to some unspecified car trouble.It was only when he arrived, armed with a brand-new anecdote that we learnt just what had happened.
The London Congestion Charge zone is surrounded by cameras, all hooked up to a massive number plate recognition system. As his car crossed through the ring of cameras it was photographed, and the number uploaded onto the system. The car number tripped a rules engine somewhere in the CC database - as it was wanted by the police.
A nearby police motorcycle quickly intercepted his car, and it soon turned out that someone had cloned both its number plate and the taxi company’s petrol card. Someone was using them to defraud garages, getting fuel for nothing.
It took some time to sort things out, and for the driver to prove his innocence (the fact that his car didn’t match the forecourt photographs made a big difference). If it hadn’t been for the cameras and the software behind them he’d have made our meeting on time…
There’s something slightly unnerving about automatic systems sending the police off to stop a car. Any automation can be corrupted, and it’s all to plausible to think of this system being used to delay important business meetings - a real denial of service attack.
Who watches the watchmen? At this point it seems to be no-one!
–Simon
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