Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
I am certain that on a number of higher priced cars (such as Porsches or BMW's) they record lots of little details
Unfortunately we will be able to verify this. All the geek owned flash motors have been repo'ed since the dotcom bust.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
>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
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.
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.