EFF on the Government’s Plan for Vehicle-To-Vehicle Communication | Hacker News Reader

EFF on the Government’s Plan for Vehicle-To-Vehicle Communication

eff.org

6 pointsfinnn5 comments

Why bother to identify individual cars? Wouldn't it be enough for a car to say just "I'm a car and I'm panic braking at X/Y/Z coordinates"? That should be enough for every other car to react. Why does anyone else need to know that a particular car is involved?

If all the car is broadcasting is basic movement information, stuff any observer could gather from sound/visual data already in the open, why even bother with encryption? When the car in front of me brakes, it tells me so via its brake lights. I don't need to know anything else. We don't encrypt brakelights because there is no need. That the car is now also broadcasting that same information on a different wavelength (radio rather than light) shouldn't mean it now must be encrypted.

Well, you'd need more than X/Y/Z coordinates, since GPS is really limited for consumer devices... there needs to be some measure of proximity, and probably a marker system (rfid in the pavement).

But you don't slam your brakes on 100% when you see the lights go on ahead of you, do you?

You are gathering other information to make that decision. Your perceived speed, your actual speed, the rate of closure to the bumper ahead of you, road conditions, etc.

If the safety system is supposed to be gathering that info while you're not paying attention, where is it coming from?

>Wouldn't it be enough for a car to say just "I'm a car and I'm panic braking at X/Y/Z coordinates"?

What happens when someone manages to spoof that signal for malicious purposes?

As far fetched as some of the Fast and the Furious series is... one thing that is very scary, and very close to real is the prospect of taking over mass quantities of cars for nefarious, or even malignant reasons...

Shutting down all the "smart" cars on a highway at rush hour... What would it take to overcome that.. if they were all just brake now mode, and stuck... Not even considering steering, etc. But enacting what is likely a safety protocol in even 5-10% of all cars on the road...

The thought of what it will take for car to car p2p communications seems like a really bad thing waiting to happen.

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