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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

I think at a minimum all the cars need to be taking to each other over a protocol.

I don't disagree (and nor am I certain you are right), but if that is so, then there are some follow-on issues:

1) The system still has to react safely to pedestrians, cyclists and other entities outside of the network.

1.1) During the transition period, that is going to include vehicles driven by people (I do not think it will be feasible to ban the latter before self-driving vehicles are commonplace, except possibly in city centers and on some major highways.)

2) We do not want systems to learn how to take advantage of the protocol to drive aggressively and antisocially.

I wonder if the software industry has it in itself to produce a safe intra-vehicle network that wouldn't be taken advantage of, either by malicious actors or the manufacturers.

I am sure there is a technically sound protocol someone can come up with, but it would have to survive the corporate food chain, proprietary advances, and the three letter agencies.

Would we see the same dynamic we are seeing now with "net neutrality" and fast lanes for certain endpoints? Like if you pay for a premium service included in the BMW package, you get to travel at full speed, while the test of the vehicles are artificially slowed down. Or if you are on your way to Disney land with a paid ticket, all the stop lights will change in your favor.

Thankfully BMW doesn't own the roads.

They do this in LA already, you can choose to be toll'd more (wireless tolls) or you can stay in the normal lanes. I'm much more ok with the regional infrastructure charging it because you have at least a chance at knowing where the money goes.

The car manufacturers would love to have some sort of residual billing for crap like that I'm sure tho.

Plenty of places have privatized toll roads, in which case a private company owns the toll road and there's nothing (currently) stopping the owner from giving a special pass to particular car owners. BMW could partner with the toll road company to give free passage to BMW owners as an example.

The fact that it doesn't currently happen is a good sign, but as corporations grab hold of society in more ways I don't see why a premium car company wouldn't try to differentiate with those kinds of benefits. As cars become more like a service provided than an object you own, it makes sense that those kinds of things would spice up a particular "package deal" for your car service.

However that has to be secure that a hacker can't simply stop all traffic or cause speeding

Which is pretty much impossible if you let people have the physical cars. They will report their speed to other cars, they will measure their speed from pulses generated by something rotating on the vehicle, replace rotating thing with your function generator and then you can tell other cars you are going any speed you want. Turn up your reported speed and watch all the other cars get out of your way!

Well, you can take the input as a data point, but make the final decision based on sensor data. Thus the shared data can make the flow smoother.

But I'm also waiting for fake street signs to troll/manipulate self driving vehicles :)

It's easy to put up fake street signs to troll/manipulate human drivers, yet that hardly ever happens. I have read stories of people putting up fake speed cameras in their front yard to slow down traffic, but no one dares to fake speed limit signs.

Except Finland during elections. Where advertisement with nice white round circles with numbers inside are a standard. Single vote for candidate system where number of candidates can run to over hundred.

No human would think that number next to person is speed limit, but machines aren't trained for that...

Here in Gemrany I there are signs with "voluntarily 30" or similar combined with some surrounding images etc. and yes one can fake it, but most fakes can be identified realtively easily by humans (positioning, color, material (non-reflecting cardboard), ...) some high quality fake sign might however exist for a while.

Also there is the reverse: people stealing signs (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25223633) or putting stickers on them (or snow, mud, ...) where most humans know what to expect (stop sign, yield, ... have specific shape for a purpose; empty frame where city starts; ...)

Going out of a somewhat controlled small area in SV/SFO or AZ is a huge task. Going to a different country requires complete re-learning of the models ... and then there are humans ...

I tried “tesla swatting” with a fake speed sign a couple of years ago. It worked then (autopilot went from 45 to 15 MPH) and I assume it still does.

Can I copyright the phrase “Tesla swatting”? :)

Sensor data is the input and can be faked!

I've always thought we should just start with a dedicated lane on the highway for self driving vehicles, raise the speed limit on it, and let the vehicles communicate with each other.

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