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This is problematic for a number of reasons. The most important in my mind is that the risk of the vehicle being hacked and carjacked remotely is always present

This is problematic for a number of reasons. The most important in my mind is that the risk of the vehicle being hacked and carjacked remotely is always present. With the presence of an automation kill-switch and manual human controls the driver can always take back control. Without those, the driver is at the mercy of the hacker. Vehicle automation falls under the SCADA sub-domain of cyber-security. SCADA stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, and the cyber-security in SCADA systems is light-years behind. Pro-tip: going into cyber and want a good certification (if such a thing exists)..then get CISSP-SCADA. Some relevant articles: [1] https://physicsworld.com/a/how-to-hack-a-self-driving-car/ https://physicsworld.com/a/how-to-hack-a-self-driving-car/ [2] https://hackernoon.com/how-to-hack-self-driving-cars-vulnerabilities-in-autonomous-vehicles-jh3r37cz https://hackernoon.com/how-to-hack-self-driving-cars-vulnera... [3] https://blog.tesu.edu/should-we-be-worried-about-the-hacking-of-autonomous-vehicles https://blog.tesu.edu/should-we-be-worried-about-the-hacking...

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> With the presence of an automation kill-switch and manual human controls the driver can always take back control Isn’t this envisioning a car with no passengers who can drive? Agree there needs to be a physical fallback. But fallback to a parallel system running on ROM might be the safer option.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  The vehicle this article is talking about is already designed this way. Most systems operate entirely read-only after boot and there are independent fallback systems for critical components.
balabaster 5y ago
Having spent half a decade working in Oil & Gas flow control systems directly, I can confirm that 10 years ago when I left that industry, cyber security was still not even a consideration. Light years behind wasn't an accurate statement - non-existent was more accurate. Admittedly computer systems have come a long way in ten years, but given the attitudes and technical expertise of a lot of the people I worked alongside, I would say there's a reasonable chance the needle hasn't moved very far. They're excruciatingly good at getting oil out of the ground and getting it to market, but they're not going to be winning capture the flag at Defcon or Blackhat any time soon...
reedjosh 5y ago
Not to mention the use of a hacked autonomous vehicle as a weapon.
nobody9999 5y ago
>This is problematic for a number of reasons. The most important in my mind is that the risk of the vehicle being hacked and carjacked remotely is always present. Which raises the question: "Why would we engineer vehicles to accept external network connections?" Any communication to/from a vehicle should only be initiated by the vehicle itself. There's no reasonable criteria under which a vehicle should have its systems available to external sources. Or am I missing something important?
- belval 5y ago
  > 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?
  - danuker 5y ago
    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.
    - nobody9999 5y ago
      >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.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    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.
aiisjustanif 5y ago
Not a counterpoint but supplemental. Waymo and Cruise have been pouring a lot more initial effort into cybersecurity and they are just barely in production.
TrapLord_Rhodo 5y ago
well kind of. Since elons been toying around with the Yoke, Tesla's been working with a steering wheel that has no real relation to a physical mechanism and will be software based. This would still allow for haptic feedback and will make the e'Yoke' usable, but you never having to turn your wheel past 45* for full turn radius. You could theoritically still hack that.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> With the presence of an automation kill-switch and manual human controls the driver can always take back control Isn’t this envisioning a car with no passengers who can drive? Agree there needs to be a physical fallback. But fallback to a parallel system running on ROM might be the safer option.

AlotOfReading 5y ago
The vehicle this article is talking about is already designed this way. Most systems operate entirely read-only after boot and there are independent fallback systems for critical components.

balabaster 5y ago

Having spent half a decade working in Oil & Gas flow control systems directly, I can confirm that 10 years ago when I left that industry, cyber security was still not even a consideration. Light years behind wasn't an accurate statement - non-existent was more accurate. Admittedly computer systems have come a long way in ten years, but given the attitudes and technical expertise of a lot of the people I worked alongside, I would say there's a reasonable chance the needle hasn't moved very far. They're excruciatingly good at getting oil out of the ground and getting it to market, but they're not going to be winning capture the flag at Defcon or Blackhat any time soon...

reedjosh 5y ago

Not to mention the use of a hacked autonomous vehicle as a weapon.

nobody9999 5y ago

>This is problematic for a number of reasons. The most important in my mind is that the risk of the vehicle being hacked and carjacked remotely is always present. Which raises the question: "Why would we engineer vehicles to accept external network connections?" Any communication to/from a vehicle should only be initiated by the vehicle itself. There's no reasonable criteria under which a vehicle should have its systems available to external sources. Or am I missing something important?

belval 5y ago
> 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?
- danuker 5y ago
  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.
  - nobody9999 5y ago
    >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.
- jedberg 5y ago
  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.

aiisjustanif 5y ago

Not a counterpoint but supplemental. Waymo and Cruise have been pouring a lot more initial effort into cybersecurity and they are just barely in production.

TrapLord_Rhodo 5y ago

well kind of. Since elons been toying around with the Yoke, Tesla's been working with a steering wheel that has no real relation to a physical mechanism and will be software based. This would still allow for haptic feedback and will make the e'Yoke' usable, but you never having to turn your wheel past 45* for full turn radius. You could theoritically still hack that.