Insecure wheels: Police turn to car data to destroy suspects' alihis Dec. 23. 2020, 9:18 AM EST By Olivia Solon In June, 2017, a murder of Ronald French occurred in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. It was a cold case. For more than two years, Kalamazoo County sheriff's detectives investigated the murder without making any arrests. Then, according to police records obtained by NBC News, one of the detectives learned of an emerging eld digital vehicle forensics which focuses on extracting the treasure trove of data stored in an automobiie's onboard computers. They returned to French's 2016 black Chevy Silverado pickup truck. which had been stolen around the time he vanished. and discovered timestamped recordings of someone else's voice using the hands~free system to play Eminem on the radio at the time ot'French's murder. The voice. according to the police report obtained by NBC News. belonged to Joshua Wessel. now 32. who used to tinker on cars and motorcycles with French. Wessel's voice was identied by relatives. including his wife. key evidence that allowed investigators to reconstruct his movements and the final hours of French's life. the police report says. In July. Wessel was arrested and charged with French's murder. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial subject to psychiatric assessment. Digital Frontiers in recent years. investigators have realized that automobiles particularly newer models can be treasure [roves of digital evidence. Their onboard computers generate and store data that can be used to reconstruct where a vehicle has been and what its passengers were doing. They reveal everything from location. speed and acceleration to when doors were opened and closed. whether tests and calls were made while the cellphone was plugged into the infotainment system. as well as voice commands and web histories. But that been for forensic investigators creates fear for privacy activists. who warn that the lack of information security baked into vehicles' computers poses a risk to consumers and who call for safeguards to be put in place. "I hear a lot of analogies of cars being smurtphones on wheels. But that's vastly reductive ," said Andrea Amico. founder of Privacydeurs, which makes a free app that helps people delete their data from automobiles and makes its money by offering the service to rental companies and. dealerships. "If you thin]: about the amount of sensors in a car, the smartphone is a toy. A car has GPS, an accelerometer. a camera. A. car will know how much you weigh. Most people don't realize this is happening." Treasure chests Law enforcement agencies have been focusing their investigative efforts on two main information sources: the telematics system which is like the "black box" and the infotainment system. The telematics system stores a vehicle's tumbytum navigation. speed. acceleration and deceleration information, as well as more granular clues, such as when and where the lights were switched on, the doors were opened, seat belts were put on and airbags were deployed. Source: Solon, O. (2020, December 28). Insecure wheels: Police turn to ear data to destroy suspects' alibis.NBC News.Retrieved from htt s: www.nbenews.eom tech tech-news snitehes-wheels o|ice-turn-eardata-destro - susgctsalihisanSlSSS The infotainment system records recent destinations,call logs, contact lists, text messages, emails, pictures, videos, web histories, voice commands and social media feeds. It can also keep track of the phones that have been connected to the vehicle via USB cable or Bluetooth, as well as all the apps installed on the device. Together, the data allows investigators to reconstruct a vehicle's journey and paint a picture of driver and passenger behavior. In a criminal case, the sequence of doors opening and seat belts being inserted could help show that a suspect had an accomplice. "I'm sure everyone is aware of how much forensic data is on the phone," said Lam Nguyen. director of the Defense Cyber Crime Center. a federal forensic laboratory and training center. "What people don't realize is a lot of that is being transmitted to a car just because you register the phone with the car." But compared with the security on smartphones. the security on the systems is much ttlmsier, digital forensic and privacy experts say. Drivers typically don't have to unlock a vehicle's infotainment system with a passcode or a ngerprint. as they do with smartphones. That means that. with a warrant. law enforcement officials can sometimes extract incriminating text messages. calls or files from an automobile far more easily than they could from a suspect's cellphone. "If you've committed some heinous crime and we can't get into your phone. we can get peripheral data that has been synced to your car." Nguyen said. "The contact list. calls made. text messages. In almost any criminal investigation. communication with the victim or co-conspirators is hugely important. Taking that with the telematics you get how many people were in the car. how many doors opened - and it all paints a strong picture.\" Growing popularity More law enforcement agencies nationwide are using the data to solve cases. and they are devoting more and more resources to this new type of crime solving. law enforcement otficers and digital forensic examiners say. That's partly because the main toolkit law enforcement officers and forensic examiners use has drastically expanded its offerings. Berla Corp" a Maryland-based technology company, launched a tool in lot} with the ability to access at] car models. Now, the company says, the number is more than 14.00:}. including vehicles from General Motors, Ford. Volkswagen. BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Privacy implications The growing use of automobile information by law enforcement agencies also has increased because most people don't realize how much information their vehicles are tracking and that they can try to stop it. As automobiles become more automated, with selfparking and other "smart" features, they need more sophisticated sensors and computers, which means autos of the future will collect even more data. digital forensic and privacy experts say. Several technology companies and agtomakers such as Volvo and Bosch, have developed driverfacing cameras to detect whether the driver is paying attention to the road. While the features are designed for safety, they could also he a rich source of potential evidence: video from inside the car. Source: Solon, O. {2020, December 28). Insecure wheels: Police turn to car data to destroy suspects' alibis.NBC News.Retrieved from htt s: www.nbcnews.com tech tech-news snitches-wheels olice-turn-cardata-destr - susgctsalibisanSlSSQ "We are moving in a direction where more sensors and cameras will be required inside the car for driver or occupant monitoring and on the outside for automated vehicles," said Chelsey Colbert, policy counsel at the Future of Privacy Forum, a data privacy think tank. "Car manufacturers need to focus on privacy by design." Data misuse No federal laws regulate what automakers can collect or do with the vast majority of our driving data. The Driver Privacy Act ot'ZCllS regulates a vehicle's event data recorder, a computer that stores a snapshot of information from immediately before, during and after a crash. However, privacy activists are calling for protections to extend to data collected by many of the other computers in an automobile, including the infotainment system. In 2.016, the Federal Trade Commission warned about the privacy risks associated with rental cars' infotainment systems and said that unless user data is deleted. it will be " accessible by third parties including future renters. rental car employees. or even hackers." In May. a hacker known as GreenTheOnly showed how he could access personal details and passwords from buying used infotainment computers for Tesla cars on eBay. He told the electric vehicle blog insideEVs that each ot'the modules he bought had "owner's home and work location. all saved Wi-Fi passwords. calendar entries from the phone. call lists and address books from paired phones, thiit and other stored session cookies Fraudsters can use those kinds of data for identity theft. Amico said. He has been calling on automakers and leasing and rental companies to provide tools and services to routinely wipe a driver's information when a veh ic it: changes hands - -- similar to how data is wiped from recycled phones and laptops. His company. Privacy4Cars. recently sent mystery shoppers to test-drive used cars at 1'2 dealerships. While they were in the vehicles. they checked the infotainment systems to see whether there was any remnant personal information from previous owners. Eighty-eight percent of the shoppers t'ound personal data left on the vehicles, such as home addresses or phone numbers. "One of the most common crimes in the United States is identity theft. But even without that, would you be comfortable knowing that your home address, text mess ages,contacts and call history are all in someone else's hands?" he asked. Pievette agreed, and he has changed his habits to protect himself. "1 don't sync my device to a rental car. i don't want all my contacts and phone numbers oating around out there," he said. although he noted that it required some technical skill to extract all of the data. "There's a little bit of comfort knowing that." In the meantime, Ronald French's family has found that the data has brought them some consolation while the man accused of his murder sits in jail, Hamilton, his daughter, told local news station WMMT. "We're just happy and relieved," she said. "There were a lot of tears and cheers once we found out. Source: Solon,0. (20211], December 28). Insecure wheels: Police turn to car data to destroy suspects' alibis. NBC Nm-5.Reuieved frmrt htt s: www.nbcnews.com tech tech-news snitches-wheels olice-turn-cardata-destr suspectsalibisn 125 1939