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Auto Black-Box Data Being Used In Court
DrEnter writes "Yahoo! is running this USAToday article about automobile electronic data recorder (EDR or "black-box") data being used in civil and criminal court cases. Most owners of cars so equipped don't know they have them, or that they can be used against them. The NHTSA has been investigating EDRs and is collecting public comments to determine if and how these devices should be regulated."
here
I'm not Seth.
I'm sure the privacy advocates will be screaming 'bloody murder' about this one, but with all the idiots out there on the road, if common knowledge of this device can make people think twice about their behaviour on the road, then I'm all for it. My only concern would be as to the accuracy of the data it collects.
Welcome to the Internet, the free-information Utopia imagined by writers such as Jon Katz. There are no boundaries, no walls, no way to contain the flow of information, including anything about your life: purchases, consumer preferences, physical address, etc.
While many thinkers have hearlded the dawning of this new information age as a way of having open access to art, history, science, the media, government, and other sources, they have in general failed to imagine the "negative" aspects of this openness: that wants you get it going, nothing can stop it. Further, you're the next target.
Now, you might be like me, an ordinary guy, just sitting at the computer, eating a Cadbury bar and drinking water, not thinking about your privacy, but at any given moment, you're information is being traded behind your back by any number of coporations, banks, government agencies, and private citizens. But should you be concerned?
Looking out the window, I see no black helicopters flying overhead. No g-men are breaking down my door to arrest me for having bootleg CDs. In fact, my life is no different than before. Sure, I get spam, sometimes, and tagreted banner ads, but spam gets deleted and I can just use IJB anyway. If these are you biggest problems, consider yourself lucky.
Personally, I think the privacy freaks have it all wrong. With the Internet, all digital material, including your personal info, can't be contained. So what if advertisers know that you're a raving Linux zealot? Isn't it their business to know how to offer you consumer goods targeted at tech-savvy buyers? As far as I'm concerned, the Internet and capitalism go hand-in-hand, and this exchange of information will help capitalism, which will in turn help out the Internet far more than government robots like Gore or George "there ought to be limits to freedom" Bush. Your privacy is long gone, but right now we can at least enjoy the benefits that it brings, as long as the U.S. government doesn't screw something up (I'm speaking as and for USians now).
So you have a choice: you can either accept your loss of privacy and get the great economic and technological benefits that it brings, or attempt to cripple the system with laws, which won't bring back your lost privacy anyway. Remember, it was us, the geeks, who wanted free information. This is our reward. Let's use it wisely.
I'm not Seth.
Since insurance money is involved, I wonder how long it will be before someone tries to hack the data. There are already a couple of sites that are at least documenting some things and doing some tricks. Since the owner of the car generally has or can gain posession of it between when the accident happens and the data is subpeonaed (sp?), there is opportunity. It doesn't seem that the data is encrypted or hidden in any way, probably to make it easy on mechanics (simple and portable software).
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
I would suspect that the police would have to go through the normal means of obtaining a warrant before they could grab the data from the GPS system in the car. This would be no different that the police getting a warrant to rifle through a guy's home looking for evidence to convict him. It's just that a GPS system gives much more accurate data than a few hairs or a spot of blood could, in terms of location and time.
If the government is able to have access to this data without a warrant, that would be unconstitutional, and might be a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Even the patriot act doesn't allow that.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
This isn't some nasty privacy thing - cars are dangerous things. If someone is driving like an idiot and causes an accident, they need to be banned from driving, and if these black boxes - which only record the last five seconds of data before the airbag inflates anyway - are the only way to get the evidence to do so, then so be it. Conversely of course, if the other driver claims you were speeding and your black box records that you were doing 30mph in the last five seconds, it'll let you off the hook.
These things aren't recording your speed over large periods of time, they aren't downloading info to any police car that asks for it, they aren't transmitting your position to some control centre. So the engineer can look at it, so what, he/she gets to see how slowly you drove the car across their service station forecourt. So at the moment, I see them as nothing but good.
This is utter bullshit. Dealers should have to inform their customers that the car they're buying has a device that could incriminate them with ease in court. And who's paying for these devices? The consumer? Maybe they should be an optional extra. Yeah right.
Car ECU's do seem to hold a lot more information than perhaps most people think they do... and I personally think its for the better.
I am certain that on a number of higher priced cars (such as Porsches or BMW's) they record lots of little details.. like the number of standing 'sprint' starts you have made as a pose to just regular pulling away from lights etc.
A friend recently had to visit the dealership to have his ECU reprogrammed on his brand new Peugeot 206 - they were able to determine from that what, amongst other things, his top speed had been since owning it.
I feel its a good idea for car manufacturers to do it though.. it helps them when it comes down to court cases and complaints about the 'quality' of their car, if they can see how their cars are been driven. They can then gauge if the wear on parts relates to the style of driving and can absolve themselves from any responsibility.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Save yourselves! Rip these things out right now! Write your senator! E-Mail your representative! Hack the thing so it continueously records you going 25mph with your seatbelt on! Just don't sit there and let anything your car says be used against you in court.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
From the ref. article:
"the data from black boxes, which are on about 40 million cars in the USA"
6 of the 8 posts so far show that they aren't even awware that such a thing exists on cars. Is this an informed society? Or a purposely misinformed, under-informed or engineered society?
Maybe 10 billion of our clothes already contain RFID tags? A few billion of our wrist watches already contain bugs? Seems like paranoia is the only sensible option to remain sane.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
My '97 Starun SC2 had an electrical problem a little while ago, something called the RKE module fried. OK not a big deal I thought to myself, it's a machine and things fail. What caught my attention was the fact that I always ask for the old parts back. I think there is a california state law about it or something, and just to make sure I am not getting ripped off. The funny thing is the dealership refused to let me have it. Some BS about security and the car alarm ( At the time I thought the mechanic I was talking to just made this up for whatever reason) so I didn't argue as the car worked.
But now I read this and am wondering... is the standard GM "black box" contained in the RKE module? Does anyone know what exactly goes on in the RKE besides car alarm functions. Seems like a rather big box for just an alarm, even factoring in GM's bloated-lo-tech way of doing things.
Or am I just paranoid?
Of course it'd be only fair if your bike had one as well.
>Why on earth haven't they told people about these devices?
:-) "I couldn't have possibly caused that accident, sir, I was in reverse the entire time!"
Simple. Because now my next hack plans are to see what I can do to either disable that box, or to fix the data going to it. I expect I'm just one in a soon to be large pool of people hacking their cars.
Wouldn't it be neat to go -20 km/h all the time!
>So at the moment, I see them as nothing but good.
And they sure are. But that doesn't mean I won't do what it takes to avoid getting in trouble. It's human nature.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
For crying out loud, if someone is speeding and causes an accident, they deserve to get stiffed by the law because they are a dangerous, arrogant, son-of-a-bitch. These people kill. Having a box that records five seconds worth of data is not a problem. You think you should have a right to endanger other people's lives and break the law? If you think the law on speeding is wrong, campaign against the law. If you think the speed limit is too low, campaign to raise the speed limit. But if you think it's right, then why on earth should you have the right to break it and not get caught?
Not all your points are garbage - the police should not be capable of recording onto such devices, and Insurance companies shouldn't have access to the things, but people who drive well already tend to get lower premiums than people who drive badly - don't you have 'no claims bonuses' in your part of the world? Age-related insurance levels?
In the airplane industry, the hundreds of little black boxes that belong to a typical jetliner can only be read and interpreted by the specific airplane manufacturer that made them. The resulting simulation may appear to be an unbiased account of what truly happened, but we really don't know that -- the system used to decode them is a closely guarded trade secret.
In the automobile industry, those same black boxes will serve the interest of whoever develops them and puts them in your car. If your car manufacturer puts them in, they will be biased in favor of your car manufacturer. If your rental company puts them in, they will be biased in favor of your rental company. And if your car insurance company makes you put them in, they will biased in favor of your insurance company.
May be I'm just paranoid, but I would really like to see somekind of black box kit we could develop ourselves and install ourselves.
Who determines how much data is too much? You're taking stand on this. You say it's ok because only some small amount of data is collected. But here's the rub: It's not up to you if any data is collected, or how much. This thing has been crammed down your throat without your permission. And if the technology is to be expanded past your personal comfort threshold, fully expect it to come in the same manner as the last.
Here's a response to a lot of questions people will have:
Which cars have it?
How long have cars had it?
Here's a lengthy explanation:
All cars released in the United States are OBDII compatible. This has been a federal mandate since 1998, although some carmakers decided to support OBDII in 1997 and some(including Toyota) had limited compliance in 1996. OBDII is an extension of OBDI, an earlier version of the standard. Carmakers were well aware that this law was coming, many thought ahead.
What is OBDII
It stands for Onboard Diagnostics, version two. It is a requirement for all cars mass produced(exemptions are issued, but it is for specialty manufacturers). It is a standard describing the diagnostics, logging, and interface to the Engine and Powertrain Controller Unit present in all fuel injected cars. Some of the parameters are always monitored, such as vehicle speed, air/fuel ratio, injector pulse lengths, rpm, gear(for automatics mostly), air flow meter/absolute manifold pressure meter, throttle/accelerator pedal position, and measured oxygen sensor output. There were minimums set for what a car had to monitor, but it is an extensible protocol and carmakers were free to extend it as much as they liked. Once the framework was there, extending it to include things like steering wheel position and brake pedal position/brake system pressure were easy. One of the minimums though, was that all cars had to maintain a 30 second rolling-log of all sensors and that as a minimum, the required sensor inputs had to be saved at the moment a sensor fault is detected. Hell, with the price of Flash memory these days, 30 minutes of logging was feasible. Many cars maintain a very detailed log of your driving activity.
So, in response, all new cars sold today have some form of limited logging, and many have very detailed logging. The only differences being what is logged, and for how long.
If you have any questions, just ask. Believe me, I know. It is my job to know.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
PROVE IT to your insurance, employer, and goverment:
bring your car to us and we'll switch your BLACK box
with our WHITE box, always driven under 25 MPH,
always seat-belted, by our team of grandmothers!
Cheers, Joel
I guess I am torn on this issue.
On one hand, if black box data is used against you, you could claim discrimination since not all cars have the boxes and therefore you are being punished to a greater extent as a direct result of the car you chose to purchase.
On the other hand, I think it would be a good idea (Big Brother paranoia aside) for the industry to create a standard for what kind of dasta is collected and mandate the use of these devices on all new cars. Unbiased witnesses in courtrooms is badly needed these days due to blatant disregard for truth and justice.
Now how do you stop Big Brother from tapping this info? You KNOW they're gonna wanna give this thing an IP address that maps to your Social Security Number and is able to broadcast on wireless networks...
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Alright, so let me get this one straight.
The black box is supposed to help the police and prosecuters figure out the speed before an accident, and car companies fix defects in their design?
That, my friend, is what I call a shovel of bullshit.
Firstly, speed can be gandered by a number of methods, mainly by the length of skidmarks.
Secondly, since when did car companies begin caring about their customers getting killed? As soon as the car is sold, they don't give a ratsass about it unless you stop the payments, inwhich case they reposess it and try to sell it for more than it's actually worth.
Blackboxes are on airline jets becuase, well, there's gotta be an excuse besides "we didn't maintain the plane properly" when one goes down, and it's nice to know what happened. Popular ones are: Sheets of ice were on the plane wings hindering movement, wind broke a wing, or my personal favorite, the piolet was drunk(why would a piolet fly if he was drunk? I'd think if they are smart enough to fly, they are smart enough not to drink and fly). Mostly, it makes a certain amount of sense; if boeing makes a few thousand planes with defencts, the industry is going to find a way to fix them becuase if a large percentage of a fleet of 500 planes goes down, they've got a major financial and PR crisis. How are you going to explain 5 or 6 planes crashing in a 2 month period? Blackboxes help to detect defects. On planes, they are justified to an extend, but on cars...it just doesn't add up.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
That depends soley on the manufacturer. If an airbag is deployed, for instance, many ECU's will not overwrite the data logged, but will continue to log OBDII mandated data if the engine continues to run. Some ECU's will, in the event the car is driven, simply overwrite the previously stored data. Did you read the part where 40(or 60%, can't remember now) of datalogging capable ECU's couldn't be retrieved. Part of this is programming, part of this is electrical disruption, and the other part is physical damage to the ECU/datalogger.
Yes, there is a datalog purge function, but you have to have the manufacturers ID key for your car. It is for authentication and is proprietary. With this ID key, they are able to reprogram ECU's, find problems that aren't available to independant repair shops, as well as purge usage/accident data.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
The shame of this is, the black box data isn't even needed. Surely, simple forensics could differentiate between a collisionat or near the speed limit (with or without braking) and one at 103 MPH. There is little reason to introduce controversy into the case. As for the DUI, the blackbox can't help there, it could only show reckless driving (which simple forensics could also prove, driving about 100MPH in a 30MPH zone is definatly reckless).
Some of the posters don't think these black boxes should exist, but there is at least one very legitimate reason for its continued existence. In the 1980's, there were claims that the Audi 5000 sometimes accelerated on its own, with no input to the gas pedal, and despite hard braking. Some injuries were involved. Unfortunately, IIRC, nobody could pinpoint the exact reason for these claims. Some suggested that the real problem was that the design and placement of the gas and brake pedals were causing drivers to erroneously accelerate when they intended to decelerate.
Audi US sales plunged to oblivion. Audi was forced to discontinue the 5000, and it took several years for the public relations nightmare to subside. If the black box were available then, we could easily have determined the true cause of the problem. If it were indeed a legitimate defect in the car, it could have been resolved very quickly, thereby preventing further injuries. If it were driver error, Audi could have been spared the tremendous losses they suffered. Both the manufacturer and the consumer would have benefited from this technology.
Come to think of it, based on the timing, I wonder if this isn't what motivated the development of automobile black boxes in the first place?
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It was recently revealed that the NTSB has been working with some automanufacturers to deploy black boxes in passenger vehicles. Of special interest was drivers last words immediately before impact. In 49 of the 50 states, it was typically "Oh, shit", but in here in Montana, most drivers last words were "Hold my beer and watch this!!"
OK, if everyone'e car had one of these devices it would make reconstruction of an accident a bit easier. However what happens if you're in an accident with someone who drives an older car?
Would the other driver be able to introduce your black box into evidence even though he had no such box? So he could say "I swear that I was driving within the speed limits, the black box shows that the other guy was going 5 MPH over the limit, therefore the accident was clearly his fault." You could only prove the speed of the car with the black box, not the other car.
That frightens me because it would only give a biased view of the accident. Maybe I sped up to avoid his speeding car. Maybe I was blindsided so I didn't hit the breaks. But only my black box would be revealed, so I'd be the only one with direct proof against him.
The article posted shows a very clear-cut example of how this technology could be good, and does not give any example of how it could be misused. Heck, by reading the article, you'd agree that a non-consenting blood alcohol test would be a good idea, but that clearly was not permissible in this case. Why would a non-consenting black-box reading be permissible? Why are the two things different?
People living in the United States seem to have come to a very wrong belief about the concepts of "self-incrimination" and privacy -- to the extent that I think many of us do not really understand what these concepts mean anymore.
Take the constitutional amendment against self-incrimination. Do you really think that this protection was put into place to prevent evidence from your car being used "against you"? For godsake, this amendment was created to prevent people from being tortured or coerced into false confessions by the government, a basic human right. It's kind of embarassing to have this human right turned into "my car's data recorder cannot be used to incriminate me", don't you think? Since when did your car become an extension of your body, subject to the protections of the constitutional restriction on self-incrimination??
And then, the issue of privacy. People here have come to the belief that "privacy" means that nothing you do should ever be aired for anyone else to see. Again, a perversion of what was fought long and hard for. Privacy is the right of common citizens to be let alone in their daily affairs, to be secure in their peoples and posessions from unwarranted intrusion by others. It is *not* the right to conceal information in a car crash. Sorry.
This is a problem in a prosperous society, where many people have forgotten the reasons why urgent protections were needed from different kinds of intrusions by government or others. Basic rights have been manipulated to become more and more, rights of luxury and desire -- so that we claim violation of basic rights for the most trivial (or undeserving) things. The "right" to smoke in bars? The "right" to have an unobstructed view of the beach? etc etc. We need to get a grip and not squander the real rights that were wisely given to us.
I have one of these units pointed out my window right now, looking at an intersection. (I'm testing one for a robotics application.) Here's what it reports:
-
[151] # 68: 101.1 ft. -5.3 fps 0.046 radians
(Target #68 is 101.1 feet away, approaching at -5.3fps on a relative bearing of 0.046 radians. Target #70 is 224.6 feet away, etc.) The data is updated every 65 milliseconds.[151] # 70: 224.6 ft. 38.2 fps -0.032 radians
[152] # 68: 100.8 ft. -5.3 fps 0.046 radians
[152] # 70: 226.9 ft. 38.4 fps -0.032 radians
[153] # 68: 100.4 ft. -5.3 fps 0.048 radians
[153] # 70: 229.0 ft. 38.4 fps -0.032 radians
[154] # 68: 100.1 ft. -5.4 fps 0.050 radians
[154] # 70: 232.0 ft. 38.5 fps -0.032 radians
[155] # 68: Dropped.
[155] # 70: 234.5 ft. 38.6 fps -0.032 radians
[156] # 70: Dropped.
This allows detailed accident reconstruction. The data can be viewed graphically, of course, and trajectories and speeds can be plotted right up to the crash. If any vehicle in a collision has this equipment, it's possible to tell what the other vehicles are doing.
There are tens of thousands of big rigs on the road with these units right now. They're starting to appear in RVs. A few more years will see them in cars, as the price comes down.
They do more than log. There are warning alarms. Some versions will slow down the vehicle. These devices are already reducing accident rates for big trucks. Another generation of this technology and radar/computer control will prevent many more collisions.
Dividing the braking task between the driver and the computers is tough. But we already have elaborate ABS systems with computers and gyros, and those are well-accepted. This is the next step. It's reasonably clear that when a collision is inevitable if braking isn't started within a few hundred milliseconds, the anti-collision system should apply the brakes. At that point, it's too late for human intervention. Whether the system should always prevent tailgating is less clear. VORAD units will do that in cruise control mode, but the driver has to turn that on.