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A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

wired.com

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Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#61

Post by jlgaddis »

ehnto wrote: post #47
skywhopper wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. A 10% false positive rate is huge. Expand the dataset to millions and I doubt you can identify individuals quite so certainly.

I don't believe the application is in surveillance or tracking. It's just useful to know who is driving out of say a few people so you can adjust vehicle parameters to them. Modern cars will already learn about driving characteristics so they can better manage the car to match, but I don't know if they try to match individuals.

I think you're correct, re: adjusting parameters based upon the driver.

My truck has three "memory settings". I can adjust everything the way I want it -- different seat positions, mirrors, etc. -- and save those in "A". My girlfriend can then get everything the way she wants it (she's much shorter and smaller than me) and save her settings in "B". When I get in to drive after she has been driving, I just hit the "A" button to have everything adjusted back to exactly how I want it.

It's very handy when you have multiple people who drive a single vehicle.

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#63

Post by evanwolf »

JimLaheyMD wrote: post #2

"In a study they plan to present at the Privacy Enhancing Technology Symposium in Germany this July" How would this enhance privacy? It seems like it would do the opposite?

It's just another biometric matching system. So it might be used as a form of sign-in to your car's network or data, better than taking your hands off the wheel to key a password. Or a LoJack complement that identifies your car's thief.

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#64

Post by coroutines »

So... I'm expecting surveillance like driver fingerprinting + that shit Progressive is doing with "Snapshot" to be used to really penalize drivers in the future for the slightest mishap.

I hate driving - especially in California. Automate all the things.

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#65

Post by galdosdi »

ehnto wrote: post #47
skywhopper wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. A 10% false positive rate is huge. Expand the dataset to millions and I doubt you can identify individuals quite so certainly.

I don't believe the application is in surveillance or tracking. It's just useful to know who is driving out of say a few people so you can adjust vehicle parameters to them. Modern cars will already learn about driving characteristics so they can better manage the car to match, but I don't know if they try to match individuals.

Speaking of which, it's really maddening how the latest automatic transmissions try to learn about you, because, guess what -- that impedes ME learning about IT!

I rented a new Chrysler 200 a few months ago and just when I thought I had the throttle figured out to where I could trick the transmission into not upshifting when I wanted it not to, upshifting when I did want it to, etc... it stopped working. It was a bizarre experience, like some sort of arms race or adaptive-difficulty video game between it and me, with my goal to actually control the RPM and its goal being to prevent RPM from getting out of its preferred small range no matter how increasingly erratic-seeming my throttle foot behavior became.

As a result, I am unable to develop any intuition about how the engine will actually behave in response to my inputs, and in a split-second dangerous situation will be unable to do anything useful.

It's advertised as "helping fuel economy" but all it really is is "adaptively learning to ignore the operator's inputs" which might be nice for the first few thousand miles a brand new driver drives, but seems outright dangerous afterwards.

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#66

Post by superuser2 »

DrScump wrote: post #8

With 90 minutes of data, they could pick out one driver out of a sample size of 15 . How meaningful is that, really?

How often are you going to want to identify who's driving a car with no clue who it is?

This has implications for "which family member is it?" or "you claimed you lent it to your friend, is that really true?" etc.

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#67

Post by superuser2 »

Andys wrote: post #35
sverige wrote: post #27

The privacy concern is valid. It won't be long before all new cars are sending data from the sensors to third parties, and it would be unthinkable for the manufacturers to ask for your consent before collecting that data since they'll make money off of it. The article mentions concerns with insurance companies. One I worked for tried to get customers to agree to having their rates adjusted based on data from their ca…

What if it turns out that people who take corners faster make fewer claims?

I strongly suspect that most fast acceleration, fast cruising, fast cornering, etc. is undertaken 1) in cars that are designed to handle it, 2) by drivers who are 100% in the moment focused on enjoying the act of driving.

I expect these behaviors to be at least an order of magnitude less dangerous than

- having slept less than 8 hours

- texting

- eating fast food

- having a conversation with passengers or on the phone

- interacting with small children in any way

- driving a car which is not up to the fun you're trying to have with it

- driving a car with serious damage

And yet of these, only texting is frowned upon.

I'm thinking of all the times my mother turned her head away from the road at 60mph to mediate a fight in the backseat and feeling significantly less bad about my cornering habits.

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#68

Post by seanp2k2 »

galdosdi wrote: post #65
ehnto wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the application is in surveillance or tracking. It's just useful to know who is driving out of say a few people so you can adjust vehicle parameters to them. Modern cars will already learn about driving characteristics so they can better manage the car to match, but I don't know if they try to match individuals.

Speaking of which, it's really maddening how the latest automatic transmissions try to learn about you, because, guess what -- that impedes ME learning about IT! I rented a new Chrysler 200 a few months ago and just when I thought I had the throttle figured out to where I could trick the transmission into not upshifting when I wanted it not to, upshifting when I did want it to, etc... it stopped working. It was a biz…

This is exactly why I only drive manuals when I can (not really ever a choice with rentals in the US) and it's getting worse with more gears in transmissions. With 4 speed torque converters, you'd generally mash in the gas on the freeway and it'd drop to 2nd from 4th w/ torque converter lock-up. With 6spd torque converter automatics, even the nicer faster-shifting ZF stuff, it'll drop to 4th first, then as you continue pushing the throttle in, to 3rd, then immediately try to go back to 5th or 6th as you've now backed off the throttle due to the car trying much harder than you wanted to accelerate.

I really don't know how people drive, let alone enjoy, cars with automatics these days. Paddle shift with dual-clutch autos might be loads better, but they don't generally have those on cheap rentals, so I haven't had much time to play with one.

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#69

Post by seanp2k2 »

Houshalter wrote: post #31
sverige wrote: post #27

The privacy concern is valid. It won't be long before all new cars are sending data from the sensors to third parties, and it would be unthinkable for the manufacturers to ask for your consent before collecting that data since they'll make money off of it. The article mentions concerns with insurance companies. One I worked for tried to get customers to agree to having their rates adjusted based on data from their ca…

I can't see how this is a bad thing at all. Currently rates are set on arbitrary things that merely correlate with driving skill, like past record, age, and gender, etc. I'd love to be rewarded for actually being a good driver. Rather than being lumped in with bad drivers who have a high chance of being in $50k accidents, which everyone has to collectively pay for. Driving is also the leading cause of death of young…

I habitually exceed the speed limit, drive very aggressively, take turns very quickly, regularly drive on canyon roads pushing my vehicle close to the limits, and have never caused an accident. What should my insurance rate be?

It's currently very low as I'm a safe driver according to the records (no accidents, no points, no tickets in the past few years).

If the insurance company tracked my driving, I'd be paying much much more, even though I'm not actually costing them any more, while "safe" drivers (who regularly impede traffic and push others to make more risky maneuvers; consider the Prius in the left lane on 101 going 5 under) would get cheaper rates.

This would also kill the sports car industry. A very small number of sports car buyers ever drive their car on the track. Most have fun away from cops, on the streets. If you knew that you couldn't exceed the speed limit, corner with more than 0.2g of force, etc without getting a ticket in the mail or otherwise penalized, it would surely keep people in compliance for the most part, but utterly destroy any demand for vehicles capable of exceeding those limits.

I don't doubt that these types of changes are coming, which is why I choose to have fun now. Back in my day, they used to let us actually pilot our own vehicles!

Re: A Car’s Computer Can ‘Fingerprint’ You in Minutes Based on How You Drive

#70

Post by AuzzieStig »

88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #62

I wonder if you could defeat this by using your left foot (assuming the fingerprinting was done when you used your right foot).

I scratched my head reading this thinking "Why would using the clutch change things" also made me think of two things, one being that yes i believe that swapping your primary foot your using would most likely cause different driving patters much like swapping where your hands are sitting on the steering wheel would have a similar effect. And two is i wonder if there would be an improvement in recognition time if the car being tested had a manual transmission adding common shift patterns to the equation.
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