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U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#271
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or am I missing something important? We absolutely want to remotely control cars at some point, how else will you send a self-driving taxi to a customers or "ask" a car to comeback to the garage for a recall on the underlying hardware or for general maintenance?

That can be implemented by the vehicle initiating a connection and asking "where should I go now?". But any connection poses vulnerability - for example, security certificates to be sure you're talking to the right person become obsolete over time as processing power gets cheaper, and an update can fail and brick the car.

>But any connection poses vulnerability - for example, security certificates to be sure you're talking to the right person become obsolete over time as processing power gets cheaper, and an update can fail and brick the car.

Exactly. Which is why vehicles (like most other IOT devices) shouldn't connect to the Internet at all.

Please define a scenario where internet access would be required (i.e., not replaceable with other, less vulnerable communications mechanisms) for a self-driving vehicle.

I can't think of any.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Turns off when I tell it to and does not disobey me" is part of "safe".

I've never seen a machine disobey the long-press, though it's probably happened before to someone. Anyway, I'd rather avoid accidents.

We have some Lenovo ThinkPad X1 laptops that disobey the long-press. They get stuck in a state where they are turned on but appear off and nothing works. The only way to get them out of that state is the reset hole. Supposedly it's a motherboard fault, but they've replaced the motherboards repeatedly and it still happens.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Go and move to West Memphis, TN (or, as I said, with most places in the US) and try to live without a car. Not really a choice. Which is why I live in a place with halfway-decent (well, the best in the US anyway) public transport.

Again, it is a choice, and the fact that you choose the better option doesn't mean it's not a choice.

>Again, it is a choice, and the fact that you choose the better option doesn't mean it's not a choice.

What's the choice? I don't have any idea what you mean

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#274
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or am I missing something important? We absolutely want to remotely control cars at some point, how else will you send a self-driving taxi to a customers or "ask" a car to comeback to the garage for a recall on the underlying hardware or for general maintenance?

Have it poll once a minute and ask for instructions with a display in the car that says "instructed to go to X, accept?" and then have it auto accept after another minute. Sure that means maybe waiting two minutes for the car to move, but that's not a huge deal, especially if you know that happens and request it two minutes in advance, but it gives anyone in the car the chance to cancel the request if it's invalid.

Something controls the software that would ask for instructions, and that could be hacked. I'd also suggest a default of auto-reject after a minute, not auto-accept.

When people think about attack surfaces in devices they often think about the things making repeated connections out. The thing is, every piece of reachable mutable code in the device is an attack surface, not just the software making connections.

You may have heard of ATM car collectors that attach to real ATMs, or people that have hacked an ATM to collect cards. Your smart car connects to a number of systems throughout its life: your dealer's diagnostics, every time you charge, every time you play music through the bluetooth connection on your phone. Each one of these is a potential attack vector.

Let's say one of these things is using JAVA, and somehow does not have an updated log4j [1]. Now that thing can be used to compromise other subsystems of your car. And these attack vectors do not have the antivirus and other protections your desktop computer or laptop do.

As bizarre and backward as it sounds, I think the best bet is burned immutable firmware on a physical module that can be easily swapped out by an authorized dealer (or with a key of some sort to allow people to service their own cars). This would reduce the vulnerability quite a bit, though not eliminate it. It also would eliminate over the air firmware updates, which are insane in my opinion. It's kind of how if you want a more secure computer you burn a live CD with a minimal hardened distro of linux, rip out the hard drive, make sure you have a fast CD, and have the computer boot to CD. This is part of what I used to do for a DMZ PC. There's always a risk your firmware will be hacked, but that is harder, and can be checked on startup depending on what you have on the system [2].

[1] https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/21/l/examining-log...

[2] https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/59965/tpm-and-rem...

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I'm optimistic about autonomous vehicles or just very pessimistic about human drivers. I have no confidence that the next driver making a left turn while I'm crossing the road won't kill me. I'm much more comfortable with a computer that is programmed to avoid killing me, even if the software may have the occasional bug, than with a human who may or may not prioritize my life over whatever else it is…

I'm wondering why pedestrian accident prevention isn't standard equipment already. We have sensors all over, adaptive cruise...everything is in place except the junior-developer grade software routine to stop instead of hitting shit. Shows where the priorities are.

Are you saying that they don't work hard to avoid having their cars hit pedestrians? Really?

And no, this isn't "junior-developer grade software routine." They also don't want the car slamming on its brakes in the middle of traffic because a plastic bag blew by in front of the car.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. A connection is just a special case of an incoming packet, any incoming packet is potentially malicious, even if the source IP:Port are ones you initiated a connection with. For example, most web-based malware is downloaded from connections you initiated.

>Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. Where is the requirement (or even a good reason) that a vehicle be connected to the internet ? Which is the same question to be asked about ovens, toilets and a raft of other stuff too. I'd say "none."

The answer is patches. The more complex and "smart" something gets the more patches you need. And since you dont want to go to the mechanic every time, firmware over the air it is.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. Where is the requirement (or even a good reason) that a vehicle be connected to the internet ? Which is the same question to be asked about ovens, toilets and a raft of other stuff too. I'd say "none."

The answer is patches. The more complex and "smart" something gets the more patches you need. And since you dont want to go to the mechanic every time, firmware over the air it is.

>The answer is patches. The more complex and "smart" something gets the more patches you need. And since you dont want to go to the mechanic every time, firmware over the air it is.

Maybe in your vehicle. But certainly never in mine.

Any vehicle whose software can be remotely modified is one I'll never buy.

As I said, that's a disaster waiting to happen.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. A connection is just a special case of an incoming packet, any incoming packet is potentially malicious, even if the source IP:Port are ones you initiated a connection with. For example, most web-based malware is downloaded from connections you initiated.

>Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. Where is the requirement (or even a good reason) that a vehicle be connected to the internet ? Which is the same question to be asked about ovens, toilets and a raft of other stuff too. I'd say "none."

Clearly there is no requirement because plenty of cars don't connect to the internet.

There are plenty of reasons. Whether or not they are good depends on your opinion, but for me at least good reasons include:

* Triggering my home alarm if someone interferes with the car while it's parked in my driveway.

* Remote tracking/disabling if stolen. Not actually that useful directly but if most cars have this then fewer people will steal them.

* Automatically notifying emergency services in the event of an accident (you could argue this doesn't need internet, but 5G is IP based).

* Being able to get OTA software updates.

* Being able to listen to Spotify and use Google Maps for navigation.

* "Smart insurance". Not everyone's cup of tea, but regular insurance for me is £100+/month, so being able to cut this by 50% by remotely verifying that I drive like an old lady is a pretty good deal to me.

My car is old enough not to have an internet uplink, so instead I have an aftermarket head unit and an OBS-II 4G dongle thing. Obviously it doesn't do all of the above, but it's useful nonetheless.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#279
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eye contact is also a major component of driving a motorcycle safely. When at an intersection, you know another car sees you by looking through their windshield and judging whether the person is distracted or if they're aware of your presence. It would really benefit motorcyclists, pedestrians, and other drivers if there were some mechanism for self-driving cars to visually and outwardly acknowledge your presence. Ho…

But motorcyclists are playing unfairly here, since bicyclists and pedestrians can't see through their visors.

What does unfair even mean here? You can tell where the motorcyclist's helmet is facing, and the wearer of it can still look at the eyes of a driver.

Are sunglasses on a car driver unfair too?

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. Where is the requirement (or even a good reason) that a vehicle be connected to the internet ? Which is the same question to be asked about ovens, toilets and a raft of other stuff too. I'd say "none."

Clearly there is no requirement because plenty of cars don't connect to the internet. There are plenty of reasons. Whether or not they are good depends on your opinion, but for me at least good reasons include: * Triggering my home alarm if someone interferes with the car while it's parked in my driveway. * Remote tracking/disabling if stolen. Not actually that useful directly but if most cars have this then fewer pe…

>* Triggering my home alarm if someone interferes with the car while it's parked in my driveway.

Why should that require the Internet? An analog radio can do exactly that.

>* Remote tracking/disabling if stolen. Not actually that useful directly but if most cars have this then fewer people will steal them.

This is the worst reason. As we've seen, this has led to disabling of cars on the highway by auto finance companies.

What's more, no software that actually controls the operation of a vehicle should be remotely accessible -- to anyone.

>* Automatically notifying emergency services in the event of an accident (you could argue this doesn't need internet, but 5G is IP based).

That's not a bad idea. But why should something like that be linked to the driving/operation software?

>* Being able to get OTA software updates.

That's the worst idea. No software in a vehicle should allow remote updates. That's a disaster waitiing to happen.

>* Being able to listen to Spotify and use Google Maps for navigation.

Why should such functionality even be linked to the operational software of a vehicle (self-driving or otherwise)?

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