hello CJ, i have heard the UK is the surveillance capital of the world, at least in terms of CCTV density and from what you indicate much further ahead with license plate readers at every juncture, where in this city, only a few intersections have automated license plate readers for speeding or red light ticketing, if not mistaken. perhaps this higher density is the future, then, that is attempting to be advanced as infrastructure itself, where each traffic light and eventually eventually every streetlight is a sensor base for such 'accounting tools' of the state (somewhat like voting in reverse, polling negative dynamics, ubiquitous surveillance infrastructure as new damocles sword) in the US there are radio frequency transponders for toll booths, and high-occupancy vehicle lanes (drive faster in special highway lane if multiple people in car) and black boxes for insurance. i do not have a motor vehicle though assume stickers include RFID for access and scanning, say for parking badges, etc. and then GPS and all that, cellphones, everything indicates an existing capacity to track, if these elements are active & functioning i was tending to think somewhat obliquely about this, such that, it is as if 'everything is above board' with surveillance tools, tactics, and techniques. as if it is in a catalog available as PDF, versus never on the books, that it is part of a black program or black project infrastructure. and this likely involves vehicles in some undocumented way, as would even be reasonable if the threat model involves needing to locate car Z without a person having a cellphone or transponder, who is going to detonate a nuclear suitcase, and you need to locate that car. and so under those circumstances, how do you do that, immediately compare and contrast an unequipped car, no gps, no cellphone, nothing. what is the likelihood that a car is driving around in this day without a signature that could be identified remotely, as if the car is some special autonomous platform for moving about, outside of a security context even, as if a special realm of privilege that is safe from surveillance. to me this is not very realistic as a starting point, given the larger context, and thus consider the lowly photocopier by contrast, or the basic printer used with a computer. even these devices are not autonomous. there are hidden watermarks that allow tracing and copies of any scans and printouts, that level of invisible tracking that could be activated/reviewed if need be in a security scenario so too, vehicles. with certainty. why would a piece of paper require such tracking and not a mode of individual transport. and must it require an add-on or is it a hidden functionality or parameter. must it be an overt, agreed upon, legislated device that is on the dashboard (say gps or cellphone else blackbox), or might it be invisible, built into the car itself, embedded as a hidden data parameter that can only be accessed by knowing how to access & read the output my view of this is civilizational, development of culture, in the framework of Lewis Mumford who placed technological events in a ecological context, as a series of processes in that various actions combine to result in a given artifact or tool, it is not made out of whole technological cloth, instead requires planning, logistics, assembly, and involves issues not only of design though also materials, procurement, etc in this way, mining, the going into the earth to get raw materials and resources that are refined into metals or separated into other elements, say diamonds for giant circular saw blades separated from stone, or also into geological surveying for natural gas, oil, water, steam in geophysics context for power generation, uranium. this is, like with the Bronze age, a leading, cutting edge of civilization, development, its technological advancement pre-uranium mining, post-uranium mining, consider how culture may have changed in awareness, capacity, etc. hydrogen, or other advances in science, tools, technology so, an artifact and assemblage/ecosystem of computers today are likewise tied into this process of mining, esp. of rare earth minerals, gold, silver, that make circuitboards and various transistor or other unique electrical insulator/ conductor, or magnetic properties harnessed to compute with, create screens and displays with, stronger metals Ford automotive, manufacturing plants of the earliest assemblyline for car manufacturing, was based around logistics of lining up, not only workers on the line to piece together cars in a coordinated, orchestrated sequence, it also involved movement of raw materials, their processing, shaping of the steel, trains and railheads, smelters, and electrical generation of power, such that the entire system functioned as a gigantic machine, humans and technology in fluid interaction and then figuring this out in total detail; thus mass produced low-cost high-tech vehicles for sale the economics where ecosystem-based dynamics, the calculus was figured out via Taylorist principles (related to electrical light and clocktime and machine efficiency) and so it was highly connected to this mining of material, which then flowed through this system, and eventually was output into a vehicle as product of the production process part of this issue of raw materials is that, they are valuable and oftentimes wars are fought over natural resources, so they are a leading edge of civilization or national development as they feed into the organization/organism that needs and requires that 'data' to flow into the system and be processed, as part of a transformative value chain that starts as another fragment and then combines with others into an integrated entity or design of some kind. this is somewhat like today, say where just-in-time manufacturing and FABs in Taiwan are used to limit production to only what is ordered for given computers, getting that level of control over production and use of resources, though still tied to fluctuating prices, yet also not in control of the total process, instead distributed or differentiated across various industries and geographies which is why the shipping container is perhaps so symbolic of world order, of ecosystem/ecological world-scale dynamic part of this situation is the securing of resources, which can have diplomatic or contested relations that potentially could threaten the state if lost, or benefit if more is gained so the military is likely highly connected with these realms, whether overtly or as substructure. they likely are attuned to the finest detail of parameters as it relates to state security or its planning and development. i do not believe they could feasibly be disconnected. most obvious oil. its relation to war. in other words, any natural resource that feeds into this system that sustains the state and the state requires for its security and ultimate survival is inherently in a military and defense context. these are not separate industries, in my view or understanding, because the military must have knowledge of how they function and be able to employ them in offensive and defensive scenarios, there is overlap between civilian and industrial and military, also hierarchy by law, such that these realms can be managed by the military in times of war, say for factories to produce other material such as car factories to make tanks, planes, weapons (cf. legally require PC manufacturers to install surveillance tools) so there is always the implicit relation between industries that access natural resources and develop them, that the military has a structural connection and can take over their management within certain parameters or goals aligned with war agendas, etc so imagine this as a layer that may not be overt or activated yet it is always present, always a potential variable in any given item or thing or situation to do with the state. anything. prostitution to drugs to canned soup to making placemats. it is a condition or existential situation of the state in relation to all of its dynamics, and how these could be changed in various situations and how they could be leveraged differently, for better or worse, given their management, orchestration as a single giant ecosystem now at world scale, perhaps beyond cold war boundaries and into another realm of organization, say humans vs. enemies if you take an infrastructure view (itself nearly totally military, roads and highways planned and built for military strategy, GPS, telecom) there is likewise a context in which vehicles exist and move about, that is inherently military and defense oriented, else perhaps indicates parallel or unknown systems that have priority and are related hierarchically with existing systems (spectrum allocations, for instance). so whether or not observable, ordinary spacetime & place already exist in this military context because it is managing the civilian area that has developed inside its parameters. as if nested set. or so it is assumed, based on 'security requirements' that there is another communications system, another GPS than only the consumer version, likely quantum computers existing beyond consumer technology for massive data processing, and various other hidden parameters that could suddenly begin to 'manage the chaotic situation' of the state in a defensive or war context - which is actually the legal situation that exists and has been signed off on by representatives of the state the aspect here is that it may not all be visible or need to be spoken about to exist as 'legal' in terms of defense or in a military context, especially say if the context involves that of insurgency and running counterinsurgency operations on home soil, where such dynamics cannot be acknowledged for security reasons - and yet if there was some aspect or weakness in the system as designed, that could actually in some fundamental way knowingly threaten the state in the way it exists -- it is probable some action would be required and would be taken to ensure it is dealt with, not ignored due to conventional rules, laws, consensus the military view in terms of defense and security is its own consensus, in a way that precedes voting of citizens. people and institutions who fight and die and defend are operating in different parameters than those who seek their own enjoyment or wealth firstly, as a state of mind and so, people may be obvious to this as a context, that they could be walking around in a war-zone that is passive or occurring within bureaucracy, because the situation has not been defined externally yet, the trigger has not occurred to divide the masses and so everything appears unified at the same time a real threat of terrorism exists in ambiguity my point was that, in this scenario, when there is a need to identify a given vehicle in a context of satellites and of antennas (50 yrs now), that it is probable that vehicle ID exists in some way that is a hidden parameter within the vehicle platform, some antenna or some burst transmitter that sends back a qr-code like signature if pinged, such that if need be, data could be gathered beyond having an active device requiring a battery to handshake signals if - that is, it is an actual threat to the state. having the ability to drive a car around without anyone being able to track it because a person avoids leaving a known trail, say by no use of cellphone, no gps. now this may be totally wrong. and maybe it requires a mechanic connected with special police operations to plant a bug or tracker on a targets car, yet in a context of mass surveillance and invisible antennas, given such priority to identification of items, down to paper and scans, how likely is it that a car is autonomous & not trackable? not in the context of rule of law of police. in the context of, there are no rules, a nuclear bomb is going off, the military is involved - what are the options... "you cannot find the car? WTF do you mean you cannot find the car?!" i do not believe that is going to be unthought about by the manufacturers who may have a military dimension or review of the security or defense issues involved if it were necessary or could be implemented without any legal or other issues, of use only in a layered threat model where it is legal yet hidden, for such tracking if it does not exist, it probably should exist and would be frightening if it did not, in the nuclear suitcase scenario "we could not track the car, we lost a major metropolitan city" given the QR-code signature parallel, a ping of a very large geography by satellite network could find a needle in haystack if a moving vehicle or not, potentially, as with millions of stars, say via gathering the energy and sending it backwards again as an encoded relay. if you can get the signal from Voyager out of the solar system on a fraction of a billionth of a watt, it is likely a car could reflect data though perhaps the issue of parsing or gathering it is not realistic. which is why there may be more use to cellular towers, who knows. there is artificial radiation everywhere that could be used for this type of monitoring and tracking while remaining hidden, undocumented, beyond the threshold of observation so if a photocopier has tracking of both scans & printouts, and a computer printer likewise, watermarking the paper, just to track it if need be- why would vehicle be immune from this, especially given their importance to tracking. it seems completely unlikely it is not built into vehicles as part of this total process, including a security/defense military aspect within a society of mass surveillance as the terms of relation, where friend and foe are citizens in the larger sense of ecosystem then, cars implicitly belong inside this military framework, their connection with resources, manufacturing, and tracking of people of interest or threats to the state is probably part of the military dimension that likely exists unaccounted for there would be no public legislation about such things. they would just exist, signed off in some secret committee and used only within certain parameters and not others the tell would be if such systems existed and begin to be employed or deployed in police state tactics, and this is where the NSA surveillance seems to tread such that this security and defense infrastructure is being used for political advantage, exploited, abused to consolidate power beyond the law, as if the head of the state itself in a hegemonic or dictatorial mode the military exists to crush these kinds of situations (yet it may not be the military visible on the television)