6 ms·

I dream with the day that humans riding vehicles will be forbidden by law unless the driver would prove the need for human driving. So many deaths would be avoi

by bigato 9y ago

I dream with the day that humans riding vehicles will be forbidden by law unless the driver would prove the need for human driving. So many deaths would be avoided.

ohstopitu 9y ago
have you thought the consequences of that? No I'm very serious: we are unable to protect smart TVs. Networked smart cars (because let's be real - Google and co. would want to monetize this with Uber-like services, Ads in cars etc.) are a magnitude more likely to be hacked by both the state actors and rogue individuals (altho I don't see why we make this distinction...both are criminal acts). The worst that can happen if your smart tv is hacked, is that they can listen and maybe watch you in your living room. If your car is hacked, they can probably kill you and hurt others while they are at it. If this happens on a large scale, it's extremely dangerous. So while I have no problems with self driving in itself (or with Google for that matter of fact), I have a problem with banning human driving cars on the road without a viable (non-intrusive) alternative.
- lodi 9y ago
  We are not "unable" to protect smart TVs. If anyone gave a shit those things would be locked down tighter than a bank vault, but we don't, so they aren't. But, as evidenced by terrorism paranoia, people do care about their personal safety--perhaps excessively and irrationally so. Security in a networked self-driving car won't be treated as an afterthought, if nothing else because of the massive legal liability.
  - pkolaczk 9y ago
    I seriously doubt this. People do care if their car gets stolen. Unfortunately most (if not all) built-in electronic systems for protecting modern cars from being stolen are crap and thieves somehow get around them. Many of these systems (e.g. Keeloq) used "roll your own" insecure cryptography based on security by obscurity, despite availability of much stronger algorithms at that time.
  - eslaught 9y ago
    > We are not "unable" to protect smart TVs. If anyone gave a shit those things would be locked down tighter than a bank vault, but we don't, so they aren't. Every year, every major browser and major OS gets cracked in Pwn2Own. The cost of these zero-days is going up thanks to good security practices like sandboxing in Chrome et al., but they still happen. Every. Single. Year. Think about that for a second. The fact is, we can't write secure software, especially secure networked software. I can't imagine writing secure software for cars using current best practices---let alone imagine car manufacturers doing that. To solve this, we'll need (in addition to everything we're doing now) something along the lines of Rust to prevent these sorts of bugs. And even then, it's likely that the net effect will be similar to sandboxing: the cost of an attack will go up, but not enough to prevent random individuals (let alone larger organizations) from finding zero-day security vulnerabilities on a regular basis. It's extremely important not to be cavalier about this security risk. The combination of zero-days and self-driving cars is a scary one.
- bigato 9y ago
  Well, nowadays someone can easily hijack a truck and drive it in a crowd of people. And maybe self-driving cars don't need to be connected to the internet?
- Pigo 9y ago
  It sounds like a nightmare to me. God forbid I live in a state that won't allow me the enjoyment of safely operating a vehicle. Maybe they can choose what I'm allowed to eat as well. Please relieve me of all this self-reliance big brother...
  - danans 9y ago
    Nobody will prevent you from the enjoyment of driving, but just as it is now, you will probably be required to insure yourself against the externalized risk associated with operating your vehicle, and that risk will be measured relative to your other transportation options. It's the same reason that you pay relatively high car insurance premiums when you are in your teens and twenties.
- maverick_iceman 9y ago
  We'll manage. Already a lot of critical technology (electric grids, military weapons) is connected to the internet. Civilization hasn't collapsed in spite of that.
monkmartinez 9y ago
Yeah, because computers never crash right? <pun intended> I think way too many people are viewing self driving vehicles with rose colored glasses. They underestimate the cost and overestimate the utility to the public.
- lukas099 9y ago
  I think his point is that they crash less than human drivers, especially when only a very small percentage of drivers on the road are human. Other computers are more predictable to computers than humans are, especially with automatic communication of acceleration, lane changes, etc.
- bigato 9y ago
  So far the statistics are overwhelmingly in favour of computers doing less mistakes in traffic than humans. Furthermore, if we had mostly self-driving cars, bugs found could be easily deployed to all of the cars, fixing the problems once and for all. While human drivers require cultural changes to drive more safely, and that's way harder to deploy.
  - monkmartinez 9y ago
    Yeah, no heartbleed for cars will ever exist! We can just push an update... like mid-trip... I am dumbfounded by the rose colored glasses on this HN regarding self driving.
- fdej 9y ago
  If a computer crashes, you can identify the software or hardware flaw that caused the crash and fix it once and for all. Improving human driving skills collectively is much more difficult. Even if one driver learns from their own mistake, other drivers and the next generation of drivers will still be just as prone as before to make that mistake. Better education can only do so much anyway, since people often don't think rationally and don't necessarily make safety the number one priority (e.g. drunk driving, trying to get to the destination as quickly as possible, or reckless driving for entertainment purposes).
maverick_iceman 9y ago
It's wrong for the state to declare human driving illegal. I will prefer if we voluntarily adopt self-driving cars because of its huge benefits. I think that's the likely scenario, consider that horse buggies are currently only used as tourist attractions or by isolated communities like the Amish.
pkolaczk 9y ago
Let's ban knives. So many deaths would be avoided.
- bigato 9y ago
  If there were so many deaths of innocent people with knives involved as there are deaths with cars involved, and if there were a safer alternative to knives, sure.

by bigato 9y ago

I dream with the day that humans riding vehicles will be forbidden by law unless the driver would prove the need for human driving. So many deaths would be avoided.

ohstopitu 9y ago

have you thought the consequences of that? No I'm very serious: we are unable to protect smart TVs. Networked smart cars (because let's be real - Google and co. would want to monetize this with Uber-like services, Ads in cars etc.) are a magnitude more likely to be hacked by both the state actors and rogue individuals (altho I don't see why we make this distinction...both are criminal acts). The worst that can happen if your smart tv is hacked, is that they can listen and maybe watch you in your living room. If your car is hacked, they can probably kill you and hurt others while they are at it. If this happens on a large scale, it's extremely dangerous. So while I have no problems with self driving in itself (or with Google for that matter of fact), I have a problem with banning human driving cars on the road without a viable (non-intrusive) alternative.

lodi 9y ago
We are not "unable" to protect smart TVs. If anyone gave a shit those things would be locked down tighter than a bank vault, but we don't, so they aren't. But, as evidenced by terrorism paranoia, people do care about their personal safety--perhaps excessively and irrationally so. Security in a networked self-driving car won't be treated as an afterthought, if nothing else because of the massive legal liability.
- pkolaczk 9y ago
  I seriously doubt this. People do care if their car gets stolen. Unfortunately most (if not all) built-in electronic systems for protecting modern cars from being stolen are crap and thieves somehow get around them. Many of these systems (e.g. Keeloq) used "roll your own" insecure cryptography based on security by obscurity, despite availability of much stronger algorithms at that time.
- eslaught 9y ago
  > We are not "unable" to protect smart TVs. If anyone gave a shit those things would be locked down tighter than a bank vault, but we don't, so they aren't. Every year, every major browser and major OS gets cracked in Pwn2Own. The cost of these zero-days is going up thanks to good security practices like sandboxing in Chrome et al., but they still happen. Every. Single. Year. Think about that for a second. The fact is, we can't write secure software, especially secure networked software. I can't imagine writing secure software for cars using current best practices---let alone imagine car manufacturers doing that. To solve this, we'll need (in addition to everything we're doing now) something along the lines of Rust to prevent these sorts of bugs. And even then, it's likely that the net effect will be similar to sandboxing: the cost of an attack will go up, but not enough to prevent random individuals (let alone larger organizations) from finding zero-day security vulnerabilities on a regular basis. It's extremely important not to be cavalier about this security risk. The combination of zero-days and self-driving cars is a scary one.
bigato 9y ago
Well, nowadays someone can easily hijack a truck and drive it in a crowd of people. And maybe self-driving cars don't need to be connected to the internet?
Pigo 9y ago
It sounds like a nightmare to me. God forbid I live in a state that won't allow me the enjoyment of safely operating a vehicle. Maybe they can choose what I'm allowed to eat as well. Please relieve me of all this self-reliance big brother...
- danans 9y ago
  Nobody will prevent you from the enjoyment of driving, but just as it is now, you will probably be required to insure yourself against the externalized risk associated with operating your vehicle, and that risk will be measured relative to your other transportation options. It's the same reason that you pay relatively high car insurance premiums when you are in your teens and twenties.
maverick_iceman 9y ago
We'll manage. Already a lot of critical technology (electric grids, military weapons) is connected to the internet. Civilization hasn't collapsed in spite of that.

monkmartinez 9y ago

Yeah, because computers never crash right? <pun intended> I think way too many people are viewing self driving vehicles with rose colored glasses. They underestimate the cost and overestimate the utility to the public.

lukas099 9y ago
I think his point is that they crash less than human drivers, especially when only a very small percentage of drivers on the road are human. Other computers are more predictable to computers than humans are, especially with automatic communication of acceleration, lane changes, etc.
bigato 9y ago
So far the statistics are overwhelmingly in favour of computers doing less mistakes in traffic than humans. Furthermore, if we had mostly self-driving cars, bugs found could be easily deployed to all of the cars, fixing the problems once and for all. While human drivers require cultural changes to drive more safely, and that's way harder to deploy.
- monkmartinez 9y ago
  Yeah, no heartbleed for cars will ever exist! We can just push an update... like mid-trip... I am dumbfounded by the rose colored glasses on this HN regarding self driving.
fdej 9y ago
If a computer crashes, you can identify the software or hardware flaw that caused the crash and fix it once and for all. Improving human driving skills collectively is much more difficult. Even if one driver learns from their own mistake, other drivers and the next generation of drivers will still be just as prone as before to make that mistake. Better education can only do so much anyway, since people often don't think rationally and don't necessarily make safety the number one priority (e.g. drunk driving, trying to get to the destination as quickly as possible, or reckless driving for entertainment purposes).

maverick_iceman 9y ago

It's wrong for the state to declare human driving illegal. I will prefer if we voluntarily adopt self-driving cars because of its huge benefits. I think that's the likely scenario, consider that horse buggies are currently only used as tourist attractions or by isolated communities like the Amish.

pkolaczk 9y ago

Let's ban knives. So many deaths would be avoided.

bigato 9y ago
If there were so many deaths of innocent people with knives involved as there are deaths with cars involved, and if there were a safer alternative to knives, sure.