5 ms·

Does anyone know how this works in practice? Are any measures taken to prevent someone from spray-painting a rogue QR code on the ground to reroute traffic?

Vivtek 15y ago
You'll need a license to purchase spray paint, of course - what are you, some kind of anarchist?
cjfont 15y ago
Are there any measures in place today preventing someone from throwing road spikes on a busy interstate?
- stbullard 15y ago
  There are laws, and social mores - but those certainly don't stop people from hacking road signs or removing traffic signals.(1,2) Moreover, unlike spikes on the road, a tampered-with indicator might not be immediately obvious, even in its effects. Anyway, I finally had a chance to read through the patent; it's enough of a concern that they specifically address it: "In some embodiments, the data provided by the reference indicator 250 may be encoded or cryptographically signed for security purposes. By providing encoded or cryptographically signed data, the ability for a third party to disrupt the autonomous vehicles may be mitigated." (1) http://www.google.com/search?q=sign+hacking http://www.google.com/search?q=sign+hacking (2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_sign_theft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_sign_theft
mbell 15y ago
Presumably based on the wording of the patent, the QR code just contains a URL from which to fetch the actually instructions for the car. Thus I would assume there are security measures built into the instruction retrieval, SSL or some other authentication/encryption scheme. Thus simply changing the QR code wouldn't allow forged instructions to be sent to the car, you'd have to break the security on the data link.
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  Could be an interesting MITM attack.
vaksel 15y ago
or how about winter, when there is snow on the ground
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  Very true, but that still leaves plenty of road.
BoppreH 15y ago
The data in the QR code could be encrypted and include geographical position that can be checked by the car. This way you can't make your own and copied QR codes won't work.

Vivtek 15y ago

You'll need a license to purchase spray paint, of course - what are you, some kind of anarchist?

cjfont 15y ago

Are there any measures in place today preventing someone from throwing road spikes on a busy interstate?

stbullard 15y ago
There are laws, and social mores - but those certainly don't stop people from hacking road signs or removing traffic signals.(1,2) Moreover, unlike spikes on the road, a tampered-with indicator might not be immediately obvious, even in its effects. Anyway, I finally had a chance to read through the patent; it's enough of a concern that they specifically address it: "In some embodiments, the data provided by the reference indicator 250 may be encoded or cryptographically signed for security purposes. By providing encoded or cryptographically signed data, the ability for a third party to disrupt the autonomous vehicles may be mitigated." (1) http://www.google.com/search?q=sign+hacking http://www.google.com/search?q=sign+hacking (2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_sign_theft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_sign_theft

mbell 15y ago

Presumably based on the wording of the patent, the QR code just contains a URL from which to fetch the actually instructions for the car. Thus I would assume there are security measures built into the instruction retrieval, SSL or some other authentication/encryption scheme. Thus simply changing the QR code wouldn't allow forged instructions to be sent to the car, you'd have to break the security on the data link.

mjwalshe 15y ago
Could be an interesting MITM attack.

vaksel 15y ago

or how about winter, when there is snow on the ground

anigbrowl 15y ago
Very true, but that still leaves plenty of road.

BoppreH 15y ago

The data in the QR code could be encrypted and include geographical position that can be checked by the car. This way you can't make your own and copied QR codes won't work.