I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch | Hacker News Reader

I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch

wired.com

42 pointsnreece17 comments

Installing killswitches in our engines is a fucking stupid idea. Isn't the stereotype criminal hell-bent on pimping his automobiles? It will be a cakewalk for a determined criminal to install an older engine. Unless laws are put into place (and likely even then) engines without computers will always be available, and in the end only criminals and enthusiasts will have ungelded engines. Perhaps the effort will affect a few desperate black carjackers, but not a determined criminal.

Only bad can come of this. You can see the real motivation for this push by the fact that terroristm is used as a justification. But although bullshit like this is technologically possible, it's users and politicians (and in the end "the people") who determine whether technological features like these will become a curiosity or a straitjacket. Oppression stems from politics, not technology.

In the worst case we will have the problem of DRM all over again: A lot of average people screwed over, while people like us are able to steer clear.

Agreed. I am sticking to my car forever: just because it never locks my doors when it wants and doesn't bitch when I need to cover a distance of 10 yards without seatbelts.

Amazing, but it's a 2006 model, one of the last non-moronic vehicles.

I know what you mean about the "locking the doors" bit. Our minivan locked our toddler in once (he was in his carseat), and we had to call 911 and get the firemen to break in.

"Buses are getting the same capability [kill switches], in case terrorists want to re-enact the movie Speed."

I may be wrong here put didn't the bus in speed blow up when it stopped?

Yes, that was the entire plot.

I think streety's point is that -- assuming a terrorist tried to faithfully reenact Speed and assuming the authorities wanted to keep people from being blown up -- the bus would need a go-fasterswitch, not a killswitch.

Movie Exec: So, I didn't have time to read the script, what's the plot of this "Speed" movie you're looking to make.

Producer: If the bus stops, it blows up.

Movie Exec: That's it? The "Hey Verne Guy" movies had better plots than that! What the he...

Producer: We've got Keanu all set to star if we get sign off.

Movie Exec: OH! Why didn't you say so. I bet we can get 50mil for production.

Producer: Make it 60 and you're on.

You laugh, but I thought Speed was a pretty good movie for as long as the bus was running. It was oddly compelling. There is something to be said for momentum in storytelling. You can bridge amazingly large gaps of logic if you just keep the plot moving.

Before the bus is running the movie is completely unmemorable, and after the bus stops running the movie falls apart and starts to suck. Which is pretty ironic.

>You can bridge amazingly large gaps of logic if you just keep the plot moving.

I seem to remember the bus leaping an amazingly large gap in a bridge at one point, if that's what you mean. ;)

LOL, the direction in which this conversation turned is funny.

I think Schneier didn't actually see Speed. I haven't either, and from what I hear I'm better off without it.

I'd give it 1 month on the market, max, before someone hacks a way to spoof the signal from a supercontroller device, giving anyone with internet access a way to control all the devices they want, if they so desire.

Cool, imagine this, I type something in my phone, all the phones in school start ringing and vibrating and nobody can turn them off because the keyboards are blocked, everybody panics and takes off his battery. I start laughing and end up in the principals office. This is the most innocent use of this technology that i can think off. Here's another one. Terrorists kill a train in the middle of a tunnel and blow up 2 bombs at the two ends sucking all the air and suffocating all the people to death. Of course if the people survive the extreme change in pressure, if they don't, they won't care that they have no air to breathe. Cool. O, and lets not forget police taking control of your car, making it drive you to a secret location and torture you and make you confess that you are a communist/terrorist/liberal/hippie or something. Some of us learned the lessons of totalitarianism the hard way you know.

I don't think you'd need the kill switch for the train scenario.

Agreed. Communications devices can't be distributed without also sharing their method of communication. This is why we all know the number 0x09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0 as the key to decrypting HD-DVD movies.

Forget about wild terrorist threats.

The important thing is that self updating features are a bad idea for any product, hardware or software, that might someday be the target of litigation.

I met the Slingbox founders at an EFF event once, and one of them told me that they deliberately left a self-updating capability out of the Slingbox, on the advice of an EFF lawyer.

Putting aside the fact that any control mechanism will be broken, I've often thought that this would be handy in weapons.

Imagine the UN providing free quality weapons to poor but legitimate governments, but being able to disable them remotely should the government use them against its own people, or aggressively against a neighbour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com