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Absolutely it could be considered reckless. You think some guy messing with his car's firmware understands it well enough to be as safe as the manufacturer? If

Absolutely it could be considered reckless. You think some guy messing with his car's firmware understands it well enough to be as safe as the manufacturer? If an accident caused by manufacturer firmware can make the manufacturer liable for an accident, then someone tampering with it obviously can make them liable. It has never happened? Who cares, what does that matter?

maratd 11y ago
I never said the hacker shouldn't be liable. I said he shouldn't be criminally liable. By your logic, if the manufacturer puts out software that is responsible for a death, would you throw the software developer who wrote in jail? That's silly. All this stuff is limited to civil liability.
- vectorjohn 11y ago
  Hmm, I see your point. But I don't know how you can draw a distinction between this and other forms of reckless endangerment. A manufacturer at least in principle isn't being reckless. But some random person that fancies themselves an elite hacker messing with things they definitely do not understand seems definitely reckless. And therefore criminal.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  It really depends on what the developer did. If the developer knowingly removed all tests that weren't passing because the car, sometimes, did not recognize old ladies crossing the street, then this person should go to jail. This is evidently negligence.
wpietri 11y ago
I agree entirely. If I root my phone and accidentally brick it, nobody here would say, "Gosh, that's terrible, it's all Motorola's fault!" They would say, correctly, that if blame is to be assigned, it'd all be mine. I think it's even clearer with something where even small errors could be fatal. Anybody rooting a car is betting both their life and those of the people they encounter on their technical skill. It might be an excellent bet, but they should be entirely aware that they're betting.
- maratd 11y ago
  > Anybody rooting a car is betting both their life and those of the people they encounter on their technical skill. Yes? So is every guy who pops his trunk and starts working on the car? And people have been doing that since the very beginning. This isn't anything new.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    Since upvotes aren't visible, I'll note that I was going to post the same thing. Person puts new brake pads on his/her car, brakes fail (or don't fail), same thing.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Sure, and if you are negligent in making modifications to your car, you will be liable. Mechanics regularly receive criminal charges when their actions cause deaths. There are three new things here. One is that automotive mechanical systems are relatively well understood. If you are a mechanic working on a car, it was literally designed for that. The manufacturer makes manuals explaining how to do it well, and they sell extra parts that are meant to be swapped in. There is a century or so of evolved practice an understanding here. This is not true with drive-by-wire software, which is certainly novel, and is frequently terrible. The second is that mechanical stuff is generally linear and easy to understand. If I change a lightbulb, I have a pretty good understanding of what that will affect and what it won't. Software is highly non-linear. A novice working on, e.g., a device driver, can have effects they will find extremely surprising. The third is that in software we have a long culture of consequence-free tinkering. We're used to being able to power-cycle something, to restore from backup, to just re-install the OS. Any software person is going to have a lot of habits and biases that become extremely dangerous when working with life-critical systems.

maratd 11y ago

I never said the hacker shouldn't be liable. I said he shouldn't be criminally liable. By your logic, if the manufacturer puts out software that is responsible for a death, would you throw the software developer who wrote in jail? That's silly. All this stuff is limited to civil liability.

vectorjohn 11y ago
Hmm, I see your point. But I don't know how you can draw a distinction between this and other forms of reckless endangerment. A manufacturer at least in principle isn't being reckless. But some random person that fancies themselves an elite hacker messing with things they definitely do not understand seems definitely reckless. And therefore criminal.
rbanffy 11y ago
It really depends on what the developer did. If the developer knowingly removed all tests that weren't passing because the car, sometimes, did not recognize old ladies crossing the street, then this person should go to jail. This is evidently negligence.

wpietri 11y ago

I agree entirely. If I root my phone and accidentally brick it, nobody here would say, "Gosh, that's terrible, it's all Motorola's fault!" They would say, correctly, that if blame is to be assigned, it'd all be mine. I think it's even clearer with something where even small errors could be fatal. Anybody rooting a car is betting both their life and those of the people they encounter on their technical skill. It might be an excellent bet, but they should be entirely aware that they're betting.

maratd 11y ago
> Anybody rooting a car is betting both their life and those of the people they encounter on their technical skill. Yes? So is every guy who pops his trunk and starts working on the car? And people have been doing that since the very beginning. This isn't anything new.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Since upvotes aren't visible, I'll note that I was going to post the same thing. Person puts new brake pads on his/her car, brakes fail (or don't fail), same thing.
- wpietri 11y ago
  Sure, and if you are negligent in making modifications to your car, you will be liable. Mechanics regularly receive criminal charges when their actions cause deaths. There are three new things here. One is that automotive mechanical systems are relatively well understood. If you are a mechanic working on a car, it was literally designed for that. The manufacturer makes manuals explaining how to do it well, and they sell extra parts that are meant to be swapped in. There is a century or so of evolved practice an understanding here. This is not true with drive-by-wire software, which is certainly novel, and is frequently terrible. The second is that mechanical stuff is generally linear and easy to understand. If I change a lightbulb, I have a pretty good understanding of what that will affect and what it won't. Software is highly non-linear. A novice working on, e.g., a device driver, can have effects they will find extremely surprising. The third is that in software we have a long culture of consequence-free tinkering. We're used to being able to power-cycle something, to restore from backup, to just re-install the OS. Any software person is going to have a lot of habits and biases that become extremely dangerous when working with life-critical systems.