This is going to slowly evolve into "law enforcement needs a killswitch" which is a scary thought
Hacks of cars were demonstrated in 2015 and documents from the CIA released by Wikileaks showed they have explored the idea as early as 2014[1], but at the time it was still presumed that killing someone by hacking their vehicle would be quite resource-extensive.
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[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/03/0...
e.g.: https://www.onstar.com/public-safety/emergency-situations
Right now law enforcement already has a "killswitch": a traffic stop. If you don't stop at the traffic stop, the "killswitch" is a chase & spikes on the road.
A "killswitch" in which someone can just have the car pull-over seems like objectively safer.
What’s the goal? You want to steel a car? Rob the passengers? Kidnap the passengers? Kill the passengers?
So what are your options in this world where there is the equivalent of a firefighters key in elevator, but probably using PKE and periodic private key cycling?
Steal a key? From where? Buy one? From who and for how much? Ok, so now you’re needing to commit some rather risky crimes before you even move onto the next step.
And then let’s say you get the key. So you disable a taxi. And then what? I assume the passengers can lock the doors. So you smash the window open and, well, maybe it’s best to have a gun…
But why not just get a gun and approach someone stuck at a red light?
Why kind of risk/reward calculus is going on inside the mind of the criminal deciding to forcibly stop a moving vehicle and rob or murder the passengers?
So yes, what you said is true, but the likelihood is very low and the benefit to emergency responders is high.
I guess it makes for a good plot device for a spy movie.
So yes, a pissed off (and stupid) cop could do this, but then you can turn around and go to the press with the information, call up a lawyer, and proceed in any other manner where you're being harassed by a police officer.
Cue some unrelated critique on policing in general that has nothing to do with what we're talking about...
I don't think you just contact a journalist and a lawyer, and things usually work out for the best.
The problem with your line of reasoning is that you really have a problem with government abuse and that you're looking for anything that could possibly add to government abuse even in the smallest of manners. There's no scalar to your concept of abusive systems, just the fact that any system that could be used for government abuse is bad.
It leaves out the intent and capabilities of the government to engage in any kind of abuse.
If the government wanted to silence you then it would silence you like they would in any authoritarian nation: showing up to your front door, putting a bag over your head, and taking you away. They don't need any advanced technology to do so. Technologies are not the main cause authoritarianism. People are the main cause. Technologies can facilitate authoritarianism or they can facilitate liberal democratic republics.
Can a system of warranted entry on private property be abused so that police can enter your house in an unjust manner? Of course! But the presence of a system of warranted entry on private property does not correlate to the authoritarian government.
Such discussions are pointless to me.
The problem with your line of reasoning is that you really have a problem with government abuse and that you're looking for anything that could possibly add to government abuse even in the smallest of manners. There's no scalar to your concept of abusive systems, just the fact that any system that could be used for government abuse is bad.
But I'm not imagining anything because you've made it clear that your problem all along was with government abuse. It's also clear that you're looking for anything that could possibly add to government abuse even in the smallest manners because you don't talk about scale or likelihood, just a simple binary of "could be used for government abuse" or not.
I'm just logically filling in the blanks based on our interaction to come up with how you reasoned your way through all of this.
And I just went back and realized you started talking about personal cars and not taxis... what kind of cop is going to get mad at you and then... wait for you to get a cab, follow you, and then make your car pull over... and then what? Why are they doing this? Why would anyone do this?
I mean, what system is more likely to be abused, one where cops can get a warrant to kick your door down or one where cops can make autonomous taxis pull safely over to the side?
Stop being silly!
https://boingboing.net/2018/04/30/zapguns-r-us.html
On the other hand, I can actually see a lot of merit in autopilot killswitches for anybody, including law enforcement.
Including thieves?
Or us the scary thought that it would be software/hardware and therefore insecure?
Without a current license you should not be driving.