More from the article ...

... TPMS sensors -- mandated in the US since 2007 -- transmit tire pressure readings automatically and at regular intervals whenever a vehicle is in motion.

It requires no pairing or authentication and cannot be disabled without compromising the safety function it is designed to provide.

The data is sent wirelessly to a receiver module, which is often integrated with the vehicle's onboard computer or a dedicated TPMS controller. The receiver monitors tire pressure and triggers a dashboard alert if the pressure drops below a predetermined safe threshold.

In the Clear (Text)

The security issue the researchers discovered is that TPMS transmissions are sent over the air in clear text without any authentication.

Thus, anyone with a receiver capable of picking up that frequency -- like the $100 devices the researchers used -- can intercept the transmission from outside the vehicle, just as the vehicle's own internal receiver can. ...

Is ICE given access to this surveillance data?

@#4 ... This is false, the sensors sleep to save battery and are woken up from a diagnostic tool or the vehicle itself emitting a signal. ...

... and what is required to wake up the sensors?

Is that conversation encrypted and limited to the vehicle itself?

From the article ...

... It requires no pairing or authentication and cannot be disabled without compromising the safety function it is designed to provide. ...

"Our results show that TPMS transmissions can be used to systematically infer potentially sensitive information such as the presence, type, weight or driving pattern of the driver," the researchers noted in a research paper. Anyone can misuse a TPMS signal to track vehicles and, by extension, the movements of their owners, the researchers said. ...

@#6 ... You had to know that was coming. ...

Yup.

It is so lame, but, I do have to give it credit for its unabashed persistence.

;)