Oops…

Hundreds of automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) systems were found wide open on the Internet by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). These systems potentially store years worth of archival data indicating which vehicles drove by a particular place at a particular time. Amazingly, this is not even that big a deal anymore, as it is not beyond the capability of a single decent developer now to create an ALPR system from scratch.

This is a good example of how one’s digital footprint grows over time by factors outside our direct control. It also demonstrates one component of the intractable nature of computer security – incompetence.