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Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

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Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They should only detect driveable space. I'm interested to hear how you decide what's drivable without detecting things that decide if roads are undrivable.

Obviously, roads should have minefields and electrified fences to ensure drivability. Potholes will be outlawed. Weather will be punishable by death.

You can detect geometric hazards like potholes with reliable ranging devices.

I'm sure what I said was poorly worded. What I meant was that reliable ranging with dense sampling should be the primary mechanism that self-driving vehicles use to determine what areas of the road are safe to drive on, and probably what is even a road at all. I think efforts to avoid this are based on cost, not safety or functionality.

Other signals are just too transient to be safe. Vision-based classification-first regimes are not guaranteed to detect hazards as reliably as a point ranging device, is that controversial?

Potholes exist, but are geometric negative space. Clues to their existence can be provided by imagery or other sensors (which are subject to all the weather effects also, by the way), but a positive detection of good road or pothole should have priority.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#252
post #156

Cars should not detect "obstacles". They should detect roads. They should not seek _exceptions_ to driveable space through classification- or segmentation-first strategies. They should only detect driveable space. Full stop. You either detect a full-stopping-distance's worth of clear road through reliable (non visual) ranging with dense enough samples to preclude wheel-catching voids ... or you will continue to run i…

This wouldn’t work well with moving obstacles. The road could be clear until a person enters the road within your full-stopping distance.

Ok, I was too strongly worded, and you can read it as a reduction to basic ranging. That's fine.

I can rephrase: Reliable ranging should override other sensor mechanisms for detecting driveable space and presence of hazards.

Tracking with dense ranging (e.g., LIDAR) is not as challenging as the alternative: ensuring that non-ranging system will reliably segment all possible hazards.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone else linked this[0] article that has a video of the attack. I think seeing the video will paint a different picture than what you have in your head. The "billboard" here is in a location that a stop sign would be, not your average highway billboard. One would hope Tesla's system has some depth awareness. Honestly I'd be impressed how they could do so much if it didn't. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-mo…

This is pretty important. The way the guys does this is very close to how you could also fool a human by hanging up real stop signs in the wrong places, and "stupidity" people would start to respect them. The only difference here is that a mere 500 ms flash elicites a response, where a human wouldn't notice. on balance, a 500 ms response time does seem like a feature more than a bug compared to a human.

I suspect flashing a stop sign sized image of a stop sign for 500ms on a tv mounted where the stop sign goes, at an intersection that should probably have a stop sign, would get most people to stop.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#254
post #20

This is clever, and Tesla's software is awful, but anyone doing this for real, with intent to divert cars from the road etc. would be committing a pretty serious crime.

The wonderful thing about IoT is the criminal can be on the other side of the world with no chance of any justice coming to them.

What about the criminal who mounted the screen next to the road and hooked it up to the internet?

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#255

Billboards at night should be forbidden. Period. I almost had an accident when a billboard that was dark suddenly displayed a very bright image on my side. My body reacted moving suddenly the steering wheel as a reflex action. At another one having some big image being moved actually made my eyes follow the movement instead of the road with cars on it. I had to make work in order to focus on the road and not the scre…

The entire concept of roadside advertising should be seriously looked at. The roads are dangerous enough as it is - especially with attention gradually being degraded by cockpit distractions - without superfluous equipment which is specifically designed to attract attention.

As an anti capitalist (who has taken a fair bit of flak on this board for it for obvious reasons), that sounds intriguing. As a road trip enthusiast, that sounds either:

- terrifying: finding services in far flung places could be nearly impossible

- likely to recreate both of the problems I’d want it to address in potentially more harmful ways: for road safety, it means discovering services would depend even more on electronic devices inside the vehicle and further from the safe driving field of vision; for profit opportunism preying on drivers’ eyes, it consolidates the market much further than it already is, and with even greater harmful incentive

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire concept of roadside advertising should be seriously looked at. The roads are dangerous enough as it is - especially with attention gradually being degraded by cockpit distractions - without superfluous equipment which is specifically designed to attract attention.

As an anti capitalist (who has taken a fair bit of flak on this board for it for obvious reasons), that sounds intriguing. As a road trip enthusiast, that sounds either: - terrifying: finding services in far flung places could be nearly impossible - likely to recreate both of the problems I’d want it to address in potentially more harmful ways: for road safety, it means discovering services would depend even more on…

Astute points; however distasteful advertising is to me, contextual and pragmatic advertising slips past that reaction and just seems "useful". But where would the line be drawn?

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#257
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty important. The way the guys does this is very close to how you could also fool a human by hanging up real stop signs in the wrong places, and "stupidity" people would start to respect them. The only difference here is that a mere 500 ms flash elicites a response, where a human wouldn't notice. on balance, a 500 ms response time does seem like a feature more than a bug compared to a human.

I suspect flashing a stop sign sized image of a stop sign for 500ms on a tv mounted where the stop sign goes, at an intersection that should probably have a stop sign, would get most people to stop.

I thought the same thing and most certainly slow way the heck down while trying to figure out what the heck I just saw. I'd probably presume it was some sort of programmable temporary signage on the fritz and treat it like a traffic light with the lights out.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause here is that we have corporations big enough that their censorship matters.

I think keeping it legal that they cannot be sued based on user provided content should be changed to remove such protections if they are using it for political censorship of any kind. This is insane that we even need to consider to have a law for this. Companies come and go, it would equally be nice if we had no more bailouts, let them fail when they have to fail. On the other hand, I can see the value in large comp…

Defining what is and isn't "political" can be very tricky. Is censoring QAnon political? Does it make a difference when it's libel?

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you've basically described the opening to Upload on Amazon.

Huh, gotta check that out then I guess? I was going off "Enemy of the State" :P

I felt more of a smooth Segway from real event to news report to the detective who is about to be assigned to this case vibe.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#260

Anyone else getting strong "I, Robot" (the movie) vibes from this line of research? I can see this happening as an opening shot to an action movie. Some reporter finds out that $government is doing $bad_thing. They pack up the evidence, rush out the door to talk to their editor. A slick, self-driving car pulls up as they exit the building, they enter and pull away. It is a rainy night, and the car zips along the city…

I mean you've basically described the opening to Upload on Amazon.

Upload is pretty much Tesla/Neuralink in 10-20 years, Black Mirror style.
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