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> 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 ht

> 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 ago
People 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    Also 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 ago
    Imagine 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.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  The big difference is whether sabotaging a car can be done over the Internet, or can only be done with physical access.
- kortilla 3y ago
  Comparisons to physical security are always wrong when it comes to hacking. When you’re connected to the internet the number of adversaries willing to try goes up by probably 6 orders of magnitude. Not only that, many of them will be living in a regime where there is no possible way for them to get punished by doing it to you. Ransomware brought significant amounts of income to the North Korean government. These are not extreme hypotheticals. They’ve shut down fucking hospitals to shake down people for money. Once the opportunity is great enough, they’ll have no qualms stopping people’s cars from starting to ask for a little crypto currency.
- 542354234235 3y ago
  > People can walk up to any car and cut the brakes or tamper with it in a way to cause an accident. The lock on my front door only has to be strong enough to stop whoever wants to physically approach my house and attempt to pick it. The lock on my home network needs to be strong enough to stop anyone in the world from attempting to hack it. > There's always going to be a way for malicious people to do harm. This is an example of statement, that while technically true, is so useless it might as well not be. It would be like saying that humans have been killing each other since before nuclear weapons existed, so there is no reason to worry about multi megaton thermonuclear warheads. They are different levels of risk by orders of magnitude.

preommr 3y ago

People 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Also 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 ago
  Imagine 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.
josephcsible 3y ago
The big difference is whether sabotaging a car can be done over the Internet, or can only be done with physical access.
kortilla 3y ago
Comparisons to physical security are always wrong when it comes to hacking. When you’re connected to the internet the number of adversaries willing to try goes up by probably 6 orders of magnitude. Not only that, many of them will be living in a regime where there is no possible way for them to get punished by doing it to you. Ransomware brought significant amounts of income to the North Korean government. These are not extreme hypotheticals. They’ve shut down fucking hospitals to shake down people for money. Once the opportunity is great enough, they’ll have no qualms stopping people’s cars from starting to ask for a little crypto currency.
542354234235 3y ago
> People can walk up to any car and cut the brakes or tamper with it in a way to cause an accident. The lock on my front door only has to be strong enough to stop whoever wants to physically approach my house and attempt to pick it. The lock on my home network needs to be strong enough to stop anyone in the world from attempting to hack it. > There's always going to be a way for malicious people to do harm. This is an example of statement, that while technically true, is so useless it might as well not be. It would be like saying that humans have been killing each other since before nuclear weapons existed, so there is no reason to worry about multi megaton thermonuclear warheads. They are different levels of risk by orders of magnitude.