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Self-driving cars are surveillance cameras on wheels
- mikece 3y ago"Surveillance capitalism" companies should be charged with stalking: their goal is to collect all info on all people, placed, and things. And they ought to be charged as accomplices to anyone using their datasets to facilitate criminal activity. I know... it's an unpopular and unrealistic opinion.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago> Surveillance capitalism" companies should be charged... (replying to what you didn't say) Extend the existing dumb automatic copyright to our personal data so that buyers/sellers have to pay royalties.
- tremon 3y agoRoyalties for transfer of personal data sounds like a great idea, actually. But how can it be enforced/monitored?
- mnky9800n 3y agoEFF led class action lawsuits.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoOh it's a totally unrealistic fantasy. I just like to dream.
- gruez 3y ago>Extend the existing dumb automatic copyright to our personal data so that buyers/sellers have to pay royalties. Have you seen the terms of service for social media sites? There's a clause in there that grants them a non-exclusive transferable irrecoverable royalty-free license to whatever you post on the site. What makes you think that companies won't add the same clause for your personal data?
- adrianN 3y agoAt least that would it harder to sell whatever cars record without consent.
- DeathArrow 3y ago>"Surveillance capitalism" companies should be charged with stalking: What if government agencies and oligarchies benefit form that stalking, too?
- shadowgovt 3y agoWhen the newspaper runs an obituary and the next day that person's home is robbed because criminals saw the obit, used publicly accessible records to figure out the address of their home, and made an educated guess that nobody would be there because the previous owner was dead--- Is the newspaper an accomplice?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bcardarella 3y agoTechnically, we are surveillance cameras on feet.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoWe're prohibitively expensive to poll though, so we're not a walking panopticon risk.
- refulgentis 3y ago? not quite, we're much more optimal: here they have to get a warrant and then review tons of video, for us, they just gotta ask.
- ethanbond 3y agoThey likely don’t need to get a warrant. They can just ask your next door neighbor and your neighbor is free to hand over their records that show you leaving/entering your house. Sounds a bit improper but this is also how when a person robs someone they’re able to put out security footage pretty quickly: “helpful neighbors” actually being legitimately helpful neighbors.
- refulgentis 3y agoThis is a dumb article and dumb thread but as long as we're along a chain of absurdity: To be clear, the surveillance cameras on legs are cheaper to query than the surveillance cameras on wheels
- pessimizer 3y agoNot a chance. The surveillance cameras on wheels are so cheap to query that you might as well be analyzing the streams constantly, and have them tell you when something interesting is happening.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
- xslvrxslwt 3y ago[flagged]
- blibble 3y agoI need to start a business selling t-shirts with "no entry" signs on them
- xslvrxslwt 3y ago[flagged]
- ethanbond 3y ago[flagged]
- DeathArrow 3y agoThose civil liberties in America still matter in practice?
- ethanbond 3y agoUhhhh yup? For example, it’s extremely hard to get arrested and pretty much impossible to get convicted for saying words in America (despite all the hysteria + legitimate complaints about cancel culture). Not the case in France. That single distinction makes a huge, huge difference in practice. It’ll make an even bigger difference if Europe finally teeters over into full far-right populism, as it’s liable to do every few years lately.
- DeathArrow 3y ago>For example, it’s extremely hard to get arrested and pretty much impossible to get convicted for saying words in America (despite all the hysteria + legitimate complaints about cancel culture). You can't get arrested but you can be socially lynched. You will be fired and unable to find new employment.
- jacknews 3y agoYes, I predict when transport becomes completely automated, bicycles will be the most free way to travel (even more than walking).
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoOr you can just remove datalink from your car. Job done.
- echelon 3y agoEvery other car is a surveillance node. Smartphones and digital payments, too. It won't matter if you participate or not - the sensors are a miasma that surround you, and your behavior will be captured and inferred anyway. The world of Enemy of the State (prescient film) is real [1]. Just wait until we get DNA sensors that capture the air and endothelial cells you exhale [2]. Those are coming too. Perhaps a lot like the ones in GATTACA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_(film) [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/05/airborne-dna-accidentally-collected-by-air-quality-filters-reveals-state-of-species https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/05/airborne...
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoSo you are saying that feeding fake data into cameras and poisoning the well would be more effective?
- soligern 3y agoNo, your poison is ineffective in a very large well.
- DeathArrow 3y agoDoes anyone know a cozy place in Amazonian jungle where's no phone signal?
- jcynix 3y agoI doubt that real self-driving cars will ever be a thing. OK, assisted driving on prepared streets (e.g. highways today or wie roads with some electronic markers in the future) but as soon as you enter smaller roads which are at most as wide as 1.5 cars the "fun" will begin. I could offer some dashcam videos of many such roads here in Europe. Just imagine people accustomed to highly assisted driving in a metropolitan area suddenly forced to take over when two cars cannot manage to pass each other on such roads. So I liked to watch "There's no such thing as a Self Driving Car - A MOTOMANTV RANT" by a car journalist here: https://youtu.be/8NJQCyv6BSk https://youtu.be/8NJQCyv6BSk
- TulliusCicero 3y agoSelf driving car services already exist in Phoenix and San Francisco. Whether they can feasibly scale out to many other cities in an economic fashion is still unknown, but on a technical level they're definitely possible, because we already have them. And yeah, cities and countries vary in difficulty, though as far as the US goes, SF is quite technically challenging in terms of urban obstacles (though the weather is of course quite mild).
- jcynix 3y agoDepends on one's definition of "self driving" and as a computer scientist with AI training (although that happened during last century ;-) I still see no real self driving cars, just highly assisted driving where a human always has to be prepared to take over in case something severe happens. And when I see how most modern cars handle signs like a speed limit to e.g. 30km/h with both additional texts like "from 9-15” and additionally on "monday-friday" or limited "for 300m" I always shake my head.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago> I still see no real self driving cars, just highly assisted driving where a human always has to be prepared to take over in case something severe happens. There's no human driver in the car. At most, the cars can stop/pull over and ask for remote navigation from humans (but not remote operation).
- jcynix 3y agoAlso interesting to watch: "Why the US mandating all new cars having a remote ‘kill switch’ by 2026 is problematic" https://youtu.be/a50GHA_uchU https://youtu.be/a50GHA_uchU
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoIt is a nice idea on paper, but the moment when it will be abused by criminals to kidnap children of somebody important it will be swiftly cancelled.
- jcynix 3y agoI would not call it "a nice idea on paper" but a wet dream of some control freaks who neither understand tech nor people outside their bubble. And yes, it's prone to all kinds of abuse by all kinds of "interest groups" …
- jojobas 3y agoI bet $5 it will stall a car on a rail crossing even before that.
- falcolas 3y agoDoesn't even have to be on a rail crossing. Stopping a car in the middle of an 80mph freeway (whether it's the legal or practical speed limit) would suffice.
- pierat 3y agoI'd think it would be hilarious if a 10 minute hack was done to politicians on the subcommittee that endorsed and/or legalized this, as a demonstration why this tech is horrific. Bonus points if every politician who voted for this had it happen for 10m. Obviously I want nobody hurt. But the boomer and silent generation house and senate have, lets just say, tech comprehension problems. I think a 10 minute demonstration to this issue is enough to get them to reconsider that their ideas are utter shit. Especially so if something inconveniences or otherwise annoys them :)
- DeathArrow 3y agoIf your social credit score is poor, the self driving car can lock the doors and drive you to jail. Alternatively, a hacker can kidnap you. :D
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago> Alternatively, a hacker can kidnap you. :D Or make your car stop on the freeway [1]. [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...
- preommr 3y agoPeople can walk up to any car and cut the brakes or tamper with it in a way to cause an accident. There's always going to be a way for malicious people to do harm. The tradeoffs from having better technology and sdc far outweigh these extreme hypotheticals.
- pintxo 3y agoI can only tamper so many physical brakes in a given night. But being able to just disable all brakes of a given firmware revision at the push of a button? These are totally different scenarios.
- pixl97 3y agoAlso you have to be there physically which presents a lot of risks. Even if for some reason you had to have close proximity to the car to disable these settings doing at a place that is a disadvantage to the driver helps your position.
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoImagine tapping into a fleet of autonomous electric cars and running them at 120mph towards an important person. Like I get bulletproof cars, but the stopping power of a single electric car at 4000kg accelerating to 120mph in a matter of seconds changes the calculus completely and that’s before accounting for battery explosions or chemical fires. Doing that with a single car today without remote execution is a suicide attack, but an army of hackers? Good lord, this sounds like a doomsday scenario.
- woodruffw 3y agoI think it's unfortunate that this will snarl up pedestrians, cyclists, and other road users. At the same time: the relative lack of surveillance on drivers, especially industrial drivers, has always struck me as strange. There are very few things that are as disproportionately powerful and dangerous as a individual behind the wheel of a car; relative to the destruction that a distracted or impatient driver can cause, there's remarkably little surveillance that can support their victims in court. (This is separate from this footage eventually being used to sell ads, as well as it being used non-consensually to "investigate" other crimes. I think Schneier is right to highlight concerns around the latter.)
- spacephysics 3y agoI agree, and if there were a privacy centric system I may be inclined to support it, however I think with cameras and surveillance it’s akin to give and inch, they take a mile. We’re already down a dangerous path that isn’t really slowing down. Privacy in the digital age needs to be akin to no unlawful search and seizure. But instead the ones at the top have us bickering against each other about more mundane issues, in the grand scheme of things
- closeparen 3y agoOne's thoughts, communications, and reading habits are their private business. Behavior towards other users of public roads, not so much.
- TigeriusKirk 3y agoI believe many Amazon delivery vans have always-on 360 cameras, as well as wifi scanners for location. It's interesting they could have the most up to date mapping of anyone, I wonder if they plan to do anything with it.
- hutzlibu 3y ago"It's interesting they could have the most up to date mapping of anyone, I wonder if they plan to do anything with it." No worries, Amazon has an excellent reputation, they would not think of doing shady things for money.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ThrowAway1922A 3y agoSelf driving cars have been only a few years out for how long now? So much money has been dumped into them and it’s not unreasonable to imagine that they may never be “good enough”. Frankly with higher interest rates and reduced investment, it’s easier to imagine research being scaled back than true self driving cars becoming generally available.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoYou can hail a ride in a self-driving vehicle in multiple cities, with any of several companies. Yeah, there's more refinement necessary, but autonomous vehicles are a long way from "perpetually 5 years away" syndrome.
- pipo234 3y agoMultiple promising experiments show that it's technically possible. That's an important step, but still mostly shows this is theoretically working until you can show me a profitable company that replaced human drivers without huge VC subsidies.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoI feel like the term "self driving car" is solely about the technical performance. The financials of whether they make sense as commercial vehicles or if the companies running them are profitable are entirely separate matters. To put it another way, a computer that only the 5 richest kings in Europe can afford is still a computer.
- pipo234 3y agoOkay, that makes sense. Men on moon was 5 years away in 1964. I might argue that today men on the moon are over 50 years away, in the sense that currently there's no-one there. Guess it's a half-full / half-empty, discussion. Technically, humans can walk the moon, but moon walking isn't actually a thing. With self-driving cars, I'd argue mixed bag. Yes, it's already possible (with caveats), but "no" it's also at least five years away. When can I have it? When would it make sense for an existing cab company to jump ship? I mean, fire the drivers and replace old fleet with commodity self driving cars. Personally I'm not so interested in what kings, millionaires, governments can achieve unless it's either a stunning scientific achievement or somehow relevant improvement to society.
- blueflow 3y agoPreviously: smartphones, vacuum robots, smart doorbells. What else needs to be uncloaked as surveillance technology before people stop trusting big tech?
- pmlnr 3y agoWhat freaks me out is the transition to electric handbrake. That thing was meant to be manual, no electricity, nothing, ever.
- FredPret 3y agoElectric can be more reliable than hydraulic
- endocrinecheese 3y agoYeah but this is about emergency brakes which are/were cable driven mechanically.
- kube-system 3y agoCables are probably the least reliable way of actuating brakes. They're very sensitive to corrosion and debris. After 20 years it is not uncommon for them to stretch, bind, or snap.
- endocrinecheese 3y agoMaybe if you live in the rust belt. They are shielded from the weather and are coated in corrosion inhibitors. They should be inspected and adjusted when the brakes are serviced. You’re not wrong in that they can be sensitive to corrosion and dirt, but to say they’re least reliable for an e-brake is not correct. Even the electric e-brakes use cables. Is there another type of e-brake besides line locks and cables on regular cars? I’ve only messed with a few cars with electronic e-brakes and most everything else I’m experienced with is pre 2005. Have they cheaped out on the cables now?
- kube-system 3y agoThe only electronic parking brakes I've had experience with have the motor right on the caliper. e.g. https://data.embeddedcomputing.com/uploads/resize/1256/756/external/data.embeddedcomputing.com/uploads/articles/wp/346231482/586bddf207780-main-qimg-5798e1617e762a971a387a34eb3ae393-c.jpg https://data.embeddedcomputing.com/uploads/resize/1256/756/e... And FWIW, a quick image search for 'electronic parking brake' only shows this style.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoI think it is unlikely from a simple reason: Today when you will buy "connected" car the manufacturer wants YOU to pay the internet bill for your car. But what are your incentives to pay internet for the car, when you likely already have internet in your phone? Nil. It is nice mind experiment that cars could theoretically spy on everyone, but hitting some practical problems, like who is paying for traffic from a car to some datacenter which will be in high megabytes every second? Who pays for petabytes of data to store every hour? Who pays for massive server clusters to search through those data when you need them?
- AlotOfReading 3y agoSelf driving cars already exist and like the article discusses, they do store massive amounts of data about what they saw. AV companies aren't paying to send (most of) that data over cellular though. It'd completely overwhelm the network. Instead, they're storing it locally and offloading when the vehicle returns to the garage. That data currently remains available internally for use in test scenario development, for legal reasons, and to be able to run post-hoc analyses to find old instances of newly discovered misbehavior, among others.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago> they do store massive amounts of data about what they saw. For development prototypes, sure. For real production pieces it is unlikely to store that much data if any, because storage is expense and expense is lower margin and margin is thin.
- cush 3y agoIt depends how long the data is stored for
- AlotOfReading 3y agoYou're missing some key considerations is what I'll say. It's pretty safe to assume that the basic combo of sensor outputs+vehicle logs will be retained (subject to retention period) for the foreseeable future, both of which have potential privacy issues. All the relevant companies have lots of internal discussion about this, but very little makes it into the public sphere.
- russ 3y agoiirc owner access to the cameras on Teslas is pretty limited (and finicky). I thought it would be great if Tesla footage could automatically hook into the AMBER alert database.
- jstarfish 3y agoI have mixed feelings about this. It sounds good in theory (save the children!) but it takes nothing to expand that to turn the entire environment against anybody who finds themselves an enemy of the state. Good luck whistleblowing at that point. Whatever your opinion of him, Snowden never would have made it out of the country. His own car would have detained him.
- russ 3y agoYeah, this is fair. It’s a slippery slope. What are your thoughts on CCTV in London/UK?
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoWhy do self-driving cars store the videos at all (apart from a subset that was notified by the operator for further review)? Given the number of cameras and angles, the storage cost must be far from negligible.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoDevelopment prototypes does that. On production pieces storage will be first thing to be cut to save costs.
- activiation 3y agoThe cost is nothing if the government pays you for that data
- quxbar 3y agoGreat! I just installed a front and rear camera system in my new car since my last one was totaled by a hit and run driver in a busy intersection. The (off duty) police officer who saw the whole thing told me it would be useless to call the authorities without a license plate number. Fool me once.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rdudek 3y agoWhy are self-driving cars singled out in this article? I have a 2015 Subaru Forester that I wired up with front and back cameras. My brother's brand new Silverado has a 360 degree view camera that constantly records stuff too.
- lamontcg 3y agoBecause self-driving cars are owned by a company which provides an easy contact point for law enforcement. > And it’s easier for law enforcement to turn to one company with a large repository of videos and a dedicated response team than to reach out to all the businesses in a neighborhood with security systems. And both of those are much easier than identifying you and reaching out to you in order to pull the recordings off of your Subaru.
- soligern 3y agoBecause those cameras don’t presumable feed back into a mothership
- orthecreedence 3y agoIt records stuff and automatically streams it to NSA-backdoored third-party services?
- standardUser 3y agoIs there any jurisdiction in the world where people are guaranteed a right to privacy in public spaces? And if there were, in what impossible-to-imagine way would that possibly be enforced? I think the fight for an expanded right to privacy should be focused on realistic goals, not this kind of paranoid all-or-nothing nonsense. If you don't want to be recorded in public there is one and only one solution. Stay inside.
- kbos87 3y agoJust waiting for Tesla to offer an API of near real time street view data. They could likely already do it.
- phendrenad2 3y agoLike any technology, like the internet or guns, it can be used for good or ill. The real line of defense to bad tech uses should be at the societal level, with a fallback to the legal level. If people want surveillance tech spying on them (to reduce crime, etc) then no amount of legal prohibition or technological safeguards will stop it.
- renegat0x0 3y agoThere are so many things wrong with the current model of vehicles. It is all made to suite the producer. [1] https://www.reviewgeek.com/111381/you-dont-really-ever-own-an-ev/ https://www.reviewgeek.com/111381/you-dont-really-ever-own-a... [2] The Hated One Your Car Is a Better Spy than Facebook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX2SWUMt_fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX2SWUMt_fk [3] https://hothardware.com/news/bidens-infrastructure-bill-mandatory-backdoor-car-kill-switch https://hothardware.com/news/bidens-infrastructure-bill-mand... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/26/tesla-data-leak-customers-employees-safety-complaints https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/26/tesla-dat... [5] https://doubleagent.net/2023/05/21/a-car-battery-monitor-tracking-your-location https://doubleagent.net/2023/05/21/a-car-battery-monitor-tra... [6] https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/ https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...
- nirav72 3y agoNot sure why this fear is exclusive to self driving vehicles. I have two ICE vehicles that both have multiple cameras on the exterior and 4g connectivity. Lot of mid priced cars now come with these cameras for collision avoidance , lane keep and other uses.