NaviGadget

traffic message channel hacked

Apr 23, 2007 gps navigation, hacks, software

Two Italian hackers have found a way to hack the traffic message channel (TMC) and are able to broadcast fake ‘events’ to cars within a mile radius.

That roadblock alert on your navigation system may not be real. Neither may that warning for a “terrorist incident,” an “air raid” or a “bullfight.”

Two Italian hackers have figured out how to send fake traffic information to navigation systems that use a data feature of FM radio for real-time traffic information. Using cheap, off-the-shelf hardware, they can broadcast traffic data that will be picked up by cars in about a one-mile radius.

Hackers discovered that the system used by many navigation systems to get traffic data is not secured. The data is sent using the Traffic Message Channel (TMC) of the Radio Data System (RDS), a standard way of transmitting data over FM radio also used to display station names and program titles. TMC is used throughout Western Europe, the U.S. and Australia.

Hackers were able to write a program that decodes RDS data. Then they figured out how to create their own TMC messages and broadcast those using an RDS encoder, an FM transmitter, an antenna and some other tools… via