TIME TO PAY The road transport industry has never had
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much time for academics. Most of them don't know the difference between a camshaft and mineshaft, and when it comes to commonsense their heads are usually too far up in the clouds the see how the real world works. But every now and then Commercial Motor stumbles across one who clearly knows what he's talking about—and what people get up to in road transport. Ross Anderson of the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory looks like being one of those people. His devastating critique of the 'proposed electronic smart-card tacho leaves you in no doubt as to the folly of moving to the planned blackbox recording system for drivers' hours. "The introduction of the proposed equipment would ensure that much fraud will be almost impossible to detect," he warns, "and the regulations will fall into disrepute." But wasn't the new system meant to do just the opposite? Unfortunately, so-called tamper-proof technology is rarely tamper-proof. According to Anderson, the move from the old, mechanically activated tacho to the modern day electronic equivalent led to a tenfold rise in convictions for tampering with the supply. "The move to electrical impulses was a large setback for enforcers," he says. Anderson's investigation, The Security of Digital Tachographs, foresees a chilling future of smartcard manipulators and techno-pirates, earning a fat living off the backs of unscrupulous operators who are willing to pay for their hi-tech criminal tendencies. And as we count down towards the implementation of a system that's untried, untested and untampered with, what are we doing to stop the tacho fiddles of today? If we can't catch the time bandits 4 now, what hope have we of getting them come 2000? Anderson's report is one document that the DOT daren't lock away in a dusty drawer. It must act on it—now!