Just had a disturbing thought about electronic logging devices the other day.

Discussion in 'Trucking Electronics, Gadgets and Software Forum' started by Farmerbob1, Nov 23, 2019.

  1. Farmerbob1

    Farmerbob1 Road Train Member

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    For the last few years there has been a growing concern that China is embedding back doors into hardware and software that they are manufacturing or coding for communications devices.

    ELD's would be a #### good way for someone with deep penetration into the ELD market to map out where US manufacturers of military equipment send their shipments, the routes that are taken, the schedules used, and the staging points and rest areas most frequented.

    While this sort of data isn't going to be truly useful outside an actual attack on the nation, there is a lot more data that can be inferred from truck traffic. Metadata on troop readiness or when the supplies at bases are lowest. It night even be worth China's time and effort to try and create accidents for truly high tech shipments of cutting edge equipment, either to destroy it, or capture samples. It really doesn't take much to force a truck at speed to wreck in some stretches of mountainous interstates.

    So, does anyone know if the US government has ever seriously considered that the ELD networks might be compromised and providing China with enormous amounts of metadata that can be used to generate some rather accurate frameworks of data that would be useful to know if we were to ever become adversaries?
     
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  3. King Michael

    King Michael Light Load Member

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    Just wow.

    LOL. .. Eld data will not in any way shape or form tell China anything about our troop movements.
    Piece of advice ... Turn off fox News.
     
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  4. Farmerbob1

    Farmerbob1 Road Train Member

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    Not troop movements. Supplies. The US Military makes VERY little of what they use. I would say they make NONE of what they use, but I might be mistaken, as there are military prisons, and there might be minor manufacturing of simple products happening there.
     
  5. Razorwyr

    Razorwyr Road Train Member

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    If they have real time access to the information, it could....but they'd have to know what they are looking for. If there are 300 trucks staged at a base and they all leave with BOL info in the ELD and logged as loading, then there is a massive troop movement off that base.... but I'd think they would have an easier time figuring all of that out with spy satellites rather than hacking into every company's eld info and tracking each individual truck and compiling mass amounts of data to do real time analysis.
     
  6. King Michael

    King Michael Light Load Member

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    ELD's do not supply any of this info... Wtf? Think about what you are saying... FYI... ELD's get there data from your ECM Your ECM is NOT connected to any sensitive data whatsoever. Furthermore, even if it was, it isn't able to record anything other than your vehicle speed, direction time running and anything else your company determines is necessary .
     
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  7. D.Tibbitt

    D.Tibbitt Road Train Member

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    Time to put in for hometime bud
     
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  8. Farmerbob1

    Farmerbob1 Road Train Member

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    ELD devices send GPS data every time they do a status update. Loaded call? GPS data. Every time you change duty lines? GPS Data.

    If someone has a back door into major ELD providers, they could mine out a lot of area-specific data very quickly.

    For instance, collect all duty changes within 1/8 mile of the GPS coordinates of a munitions supplier. Then track those loads, identifying GPS data with each stop of each load.

    Monitor for six months. Bam. You now have the network of common delivery paths and timetables, and where the munitions are staged and offloaded. You also know if the deliveries are made regularly, and how many times per month.
     
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  9. Farmerbob1

    Farmerbob1 Road Train Member

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    LOL, I'm sitting in a hotel, my truck has a cracked head and a bad EGR cooler. The shop and the warrantee people are starting to talk to each other after diagnosis was completed.

    I'm not seeing home any time soon, gonna have to hustle to make some money before the end of the year.
     
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  10. Tx Countryboy

    Tx Countryboy Road Train Member

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    If someone mixed the ingredients wrong my beer could taste like crap & kill me too.
     
  11. Tx Countryboy

    Tx Countryboy Road Train Member

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    Lots of if's in this world so calm down. Worst they could do is ruin your engine first.
     
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