Changing: if (brakeDepressed()){ engageBrake(); } To: if (brakeDepressed() && currentTime < '5/6/26 4pm EST'){ engageBrake(); } Can be deployed to thousands of vehicles, and would stop brakes from working during peak commute time on the East Coast.
>the only real fear here is a state-level attack
Why isn't this a valid concern? We should just be fine with russia or china having the ability to remotely hack all of our cars and kill/spy on individuals, even critical members of our leadership? What about our own government? What about some terrorist launching formerly state-level malware from his basement with the help of AI?
This is blatantly false. In the real world there was a major recall after security researchers (not state actors) demonstrated that they could remotely interfere with safety critical systems. OTA updates without user involvement are a massive security vulnerability. So are internet connected safety critical systems. Neither should be legally permissible IMO.
> I just don't think getting every Honda to crash at 4pm is a vulnerable enough attack vector to make this hypothetical worthy of much thought.
Setting aside assassinations do you just have no imagination? There have been all sorts of crazy disgruntled worker sabotage stories over the years. Mass shooters exist. Political and religious terrorists exist.
For a specific mass scale state level hypothetical imagine that the US enters a hot war with a peer adversary for whatever reason. The next day during the morning commute the entire interstate system grids to a halt, the hospitals are completely overwhelmed, and the entire supply chain collapses for a week or so while we pick up the pieces. With a bit of (un)luck it might happen to catch an oil tanker in the crossfire while it was in a tunnel thereby scoring infrastructure damage that would take years to fix.
Sometimes when I look at code it feels like I was led into a weird surprise party celebrating structure and correctness, only for everyone to jump out as soon as I get past the door to shout, “Just kidding - it’s the same old bullshit!” All that to say, we’re about as good or worse as anyone else, at our respective jobs.
No, I actually also have to wonder if manufacturer OTA update won't brick my car on their whim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OB2NqcSDXQ
Conversely, a lot of times people don't fear real dangers of reality until it bites them. "Hackers wouldn't care about me, and the single password I use on every website is super good and complicated."
> but people generally don't engage in destruction for destruction's sake
Generally true, but they do engage in destruction when there's profit to be made or when it becomes in their geopolitical interests, and sometimes that destruction is quite notable: Remember when it was safe to assume that passengers could passively wait out airplane hijackings?
Your average script-kiddie might not seriously consider cutting everyone's brakes simultaneously, Al Queda would have been giddy.
I yearn for the days of wrapped software where developers had to make a gold pressed release. Not, “we can patch it later”.
In fact, with all this data they are collecting, you wouldn't even need to be the next edward snowden to get this treatment. You could set the firmware to target, say, every left-wing voter in america.
You don't even need the own the car with such behavior. Everyone becomes a pedestrian eventually.