FBI: Google's driverless cars could be lethal weapons
bbc.com
bbc.com
This article is mainly focused on the situation where the criminals will have both hands free. It ignores the fact that the vehicles would just stop if anything was blocking the path. Plus, the vehicles could certainly be turned off remotely during an emergency. And nothing stops law-enforcement from having autonomous vehicles that could be set to follow another vehicle with near perfect accuracy.
This is similar to the Tesla stolen vehicle. WHY would the police engage in a high-speed pursuit, risking the lives of numerous people, to catch a vehicle that has GPS in the car and can probably be shut down remotely. Law-enforcement should be partially responsible for the people injured in that situation, in my opinion.
As others have commented, you really do have to take into account the worst-case scenarios. Even if automated cars are a win in 99.9% of the cases, the 0.1% of failures (intentional or not) may be devastating.
Also, what's to stop it from happening now?
Remember the guy that stole the tank? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AcVSEY2DP0
Remember the guy that built an armored vehicle out of a bulldozer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4nlcmmt8X0
Semi-trucks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3NKlzZmgl0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loUWmQdj70w
You'd have to equip it with run-flat tires to stand a chance.
Even an armed drone or helicopter would probably be publicly acceptable to stop it.
The main difference is (and/or will be) that with better automation, an intelligent hacker can execute such an attack remotely, with minimal risk to their person. Just as is the situation today with malware on the internet, we'll be enabling an entirely new class of remote attacks which have the potential to affect many people. We've learned enough from malware to know that this turns into a cat and mouse game with arbitrary depth. The issue is not whether this situation will get away from us, but when and how.
It is good to think about these situations to enable safeguards to be preemptively put in place.
Autonomous vehicles aren't necessarily able to be remotely controlled, the computers and guidance systems are built into the vehicle, waypoints that would be located on roads would be used, which would be unable to cause damage other than the goods not being delivered and the truck being in the wrong place.
Even after 9/11 planes are still somewhat of a threat if the attacker is determined enough. Spend years becoming a pilot or flight crew and you'd have access to the cockpit, after that there's not much limit to how much damage you could cause. There is some protection at certain spots though, the White House is fairly safe: http://cryptome.org/eyeball/wh-missile/pict0.jpg
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/24/hackers...
This is about bluetooth and CD sound hacks, hopefully those have been locked down on future models since it's been known a while. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/business/10hack.html
The article I linked to links to the article you linked to about halfway down.
9/11 proves that we are incapable of handling the 0.01% failure case without going to extremes. Very disheartening.
It's not very far fetched to do the same for other nefarious reasons.
Having your car automatically and uncontrollably pull over every time red & blue lights are observed could lead to traps being set up on any backwoods road.
Edit: I really wish the news article would link to the actual source report so I could confirm it, but I bet that the above scenario is included in the FBI's hypotheticals.
The vehicles could limit themselves to only drive X miles on a public highway after the registration expires before it alerts the DMV and you receive a ticket.
I just realized something, when the majority of vehicles become autonomous, we will need less police patrolling the streets. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
The BBC article fails to link to the report. The few details in the BBC report make me want to say "so much derp", because it really does sound dumb. But then maybe the full report is a lot better?
The point is, when the first mobster/hacker manages to turn a driverless car into an autonomous hit-and-run machine, or the first terrorist uses one to deliver a car bomb, the responsible agencies will be able to react quickly because they've already made plans for that scenario.
Not decide what cars can and cannot do because of their speculative thinking...
When someone manages to figure out how to send a driverless car through a crowd of people in a mall somewhere, do you want the lead investigator to show up and say "What do you mean there was no driver?!"
Some of investigatory science comes from analyzing crimes that have taken place, and some of it comes from imagining potential new crimes. By having imagined the above scenario and being familiar with the type of car in question, they might know to look for computer logs on the car that could lead them to the perpetrator, or that autonomous vehicles rely on GPS which might have left a trail.
The purpose of the research and report is not to determine whether or not driverless cars should be legal, rather to determine what the potential risks are and how they might be mitigated with regulations and/or cooperation with the manufacturers.
Pre-crime isn't a thing except in a P. K. Dick novel or a Ghost In the Shell OVA. I expect private vehicle ownership to become mostly a thing of the past once autonomous vehicles are available, and I also expect there to be a phase-change analog where one day most cars are driven by humans and then none are. I can't wait for that day observing the jackasses around me in their cars driving while they: eat, drink, apply make-up, text, talk on the phone, eat, read (!) or watch video on their in-car displays. I lost my brother to a distracted driver and I can't wait until the option to drive becomes obsolete.
And I love driving.
1. How would you go about stopping an autonomous semi truck that was programmed to drive through crowds?
2. Will terrorists use autonomous cars as delivery mechanisms for what were formerly suicide bombs?
3. If locations with pedestrians are sandboxed in some way, could a sufficiently skilled 'hacker' intentionally break that sandbox without a trace only to blame it on bad technology?
4. How much privacy / 'liberty' would we be willing to give up to enable such a society?
Someone should be considering the worst-case scenarios..
In my opinion that question is no longer important. Back in the 80s and 90s the prevalent thinking was that "bad guys" won't die for their cause. This mandated things like removing the baggage of passengers who aren't flying (which wasn't the case before).
I think we learned quite starkly in the 2000s that suicide attackers are a legitimate threat and therefore we cannot take for granted any longer than a "bad guy" won't put themselves in harms way in order to hurt others.
So if we apply that to your autonomous semi-truck example, how do you stop that NOW? Since presumably someone who wanted to accomplish that could go out right now, get in a truck and then do it. Automation doesn't really change too much.
As far as an answer: Concrete bollards supported by steel mesh (both internally and in the foundation) in pedestrian areas.
Discussing this keeps reminding me of Suarez's Daemon novels. Swarming changes many, many things.
That said, if someone is skillful enough to program an autonomous vehicle, they'll probably figure out a way to get around a kill switch as well - like any technology, it can be used for both good and bad. Risk can't be completely removed, but can be sufficiently mitigated. I'm glad the report addressed both sides of the argument, and I'm a bit disappointed that the BBC chose to sensationalize one small conclusion to such an extent.
I understand that there are maniacs out there, but the technical skill required to do this combined with the cost and the level of insanity would make this scenario pretty unreasonable to consider a valid threat. Not saying it couldn't happen, but there are easier ways to cause a similar amount of damage.
How would I stop it?
- Box it in with dump-trucks, other semis, or armored vehicles.
- Use a tank or other armored vehicle from one of the many armories located everywhere.
- Use one of those MRAPs that the military has been giving law-enforcement recently.
- Shoot out tires.
- Armor piercing or 50 caliber rounds to the engine.
- Remote shutoff that is impossible to disengage without also disabling the GPS.
- I'm very close to a major air-force base, they have plenty of ways to stop a civilian semi-truck.
- Use one of the many armed drones, a military helicopter, or even an armed aircraft. I'd have no problem with the US military using an air-to-ground missile to take out a autonomous vehicle that was programmed to do harm, as long as they were sure that there would be zero civilian casualties.
Same way you stop an non-autonomous one
>Will terrorists use autonomous cars as delivery mechanisms for what were formerly suicide bombs?
No. If they wanted to the could use a $200 remote control car to get a good sized bomb into a crowd from a distance.
For those people, suicide is part of the point.
>could a sufficiently skilled 'hacker' intentionally break that sandbox without a trace only to blame it on bad technology?
It doesn't take a genius to cut a few brake lines of your target, but we don't see that happening.
As for suicide bombers, a lot of them appear to have other options for achieving the same goal, yet they choose the method that takes their life. They can buy a grenade for $10, and toss it into a crowd, yet they choose to strap a bomb to their chest. I don't think they're doing so because it's the only option, and because autonomous vehicles are not available, I think they're doing it because they want to give their life to their cause.
What about quadcopters? Couldn't anyone just strap a bomb to a quadcopter, fly it over a stadium, and down into the crowd? I think that's even more scary than autonomous vehicles, because they can fly over barriers.
People have countless ways they can cause damage or mass casualties available to them. However, I can walk around a city surrounded by millions of people, and feel completely safe. Most people are quite nice, they're not sitting at home unable to achieve their terrorist goals because Google autonomous vehicles are not available to them.
Nothing will change. Sure, someone will toss explosives in an autonomous vehicle, instead of putting them in a parked car. It's unfortunate, but not a reason to hold back technology that would positively benefit the other 99.99999% of the population.
They would also be remarkably predictable compared to a human driver.
The first isn't an outlandish question, modifying locked down software isn't exactly a new art. It wouldn't happen for a while likely just due to the small reward to the difficulty of execution.
I've personally been thinking of the negative implications of driverless cars as well. I also thought that a car with a driver could take advantage of a highway full of conservative automated cars by driving like a maniac to get to his or her destination faster while all the autonomous cars moved out of the way.
Of course, I still strongly support moving to driverless cars, but I can acknowledge that there are some unanswered questions.
There is enough open information regarding autonomous vehicles that anyone with disregard for safety could build an autonomous car bomb now. As with other supposed terror threats, the only thing preventing them is that nobody is doing it. But that doesn't sell anti-terrorism brainstorming consulting.
That said the benefits for non-crooks are a lot higher. And while roads in general benefit crooks getting away in cars, most of the people on them are just trying to get somewhere.
That's something we should all be afraid of and why we should stop progress immediately.
Who's talking about "stopping progress immediately?" The FBI doesn't appear to be saying that in this article, rather they seem to be speculating on how driverless cars might tactically change the dynamics of a vehicular pursuit, which is a perfectly valid thing for them to do. Because they're right - you can shoot at the cops a lot better when you don't have to worry about a steering wheel.
>any hint of increased risk in any possible scenario amounts to mindless Luddite paranoia
Not any hint, but this particular one...yes. Dismissed out of hand. A get away driver (an idea that has been around for a very long time) would be far better than a computer that will stop for literally anything in front of it.
The FBI pushing such stupidity is embarrassing to me as an American. Next they'll report that if banks didn't have money they'd never get robbed.
As far as I know, criminals had always a designated driver for exactly those reasons. "bad actors will be able to conduct tasks that require use of both hands or taking one's eyes off the road which would be impossible today"
Looks like the FBI is just pushing to get a real-time interface into the car control. "Algorithms can control the distance that the patrol car is behind the target to avoid detection or intentionally have a patrol car make opposite turns at intersections, yet successfully meet up at later points with the target"
Car: "I know Luke" speeds up to jump it
Passenger: "Who's Luke"?
Car: "YEEHAW!!" hits the rebel horn
But seriously, FBI analysts get paid to imagine all types of future scenarios let's not hold it against them too much. It wouldn't surprise me though to see more anti-electronic gear, such as EMP, in the field as we go forward. They already have devices that can shut down a car, I imagine they'll work on these new ones just as well and the FBI simply wants to prepare for it.
... and guns aren't the problem?
It doesn't negate the potential use of driverless cars nor is it a good argument against continued development....just things that are worth considering...
My guess? Law enforcement will try to get a kill switch they control installed in all driverless vehicles. I don't know that they should have this, but I bet they try.
Maybe even require them to contact the manufacturer to get this done.
OnStar can do it currently can't they?
Someone FOI the FBI's report on hands-free sets and prosthetic limbs please.
Even if we ignore this particular threat scenario, what happens if someone has a heart attack, is passed out in an automatic car (as seen by other cars on the road), the cops/ambulance turn up but are unable to get to the person to give them aid?
Or if an automatic car somehow malfunctions and starts driving the wrong way down the freeway/motorway.