Slashdot Mirror
Tanker Truck Shut Down Via Satellite
unassimilatible writes "Satellite Security Systems, in cooperation with the California Highway Patrol and InterState Oil Company, demonstrated the first wireless remote shutdown of a fully loaded, moving gas tanker truck. Described as "a viable solution to the challenge of controlling rogue hazardous waste vehicles that could pose a threat to homeland security," satellite communications were used to disable the truck in seconds, 530 miles from the demonstration site. But that's not all. California Assembly Bill (AB) 575 (PDF link) would require truck disabling devices, global positioning or other 'location reporting systems' on all hazardous material haulers. With all of the police pursuits in California, can mandatory GPS and disabling devices in all vehicles be far away?"
Road transport is already highly controlled, specially for hazardous materials. Things as (the terms might be off since I'm a Spaniard and I'm not sure how it is exactly in English) the driver's log book, tachometer register and tracking, and so on. Neither of these have made their way into "normal" vehicles (your car or mine, that is).
---- Take the Space Quiz!
at least we might finally get rid of the idiotic speed limit concept : if it's that important not to drive that fast, then we should have our car slowed down remotely instead of having some policeman whinning avout a "danger".
I once got a fine, by snail mail, one month after driving a 100km/h on an highway because some Belgian cop decided to put a 50km/h speed limit fine 10 meters OVER the lane.
I argued that the traffic was dense, so this only meant everybody was driving that fast but this just didn't help.
Now, once we get some very personal speed limitation, I hope they'll take our car engines into account : some get damaged quicker at 120km/h than at 128km/h... might be a resonance issue but if they waste my engine with an unadapted control device, they'll have to pay.
I however guess that we'll eventually get some custom processing which may allow awaken BMW drivers to speed up at night on straight highways if there's nobody in a 10km radius. If not, then it only means such laws are meant to milk the drivers with idiotic fines...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Obviously there will be many comments along the lines of "bad technology will cause more problems than it solves".
In the case of bulk industrial transport, it's painfully obvious that what's needed is not just more automation, but a shift away from roads and onto rail.
Rail is much safer and better controllable than road traffic. No-one would argue against remote control (at least emergency override) of train traffic, indeed I believe this had been standard operating procedure for some time in many countries.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Your a terrorist. You want to steal a tanker truck full of some toxic chemical and blow it up/release it in a city , whatever. Do you
A) Break into a truck depot at some obvious time (where there just happens to be a truck full of something nasty) and put the pedal to the metal
and hope no one stops you before you reach your target. Or
B) Steal a truck WEEKS in advance , have time to throughly remove any id , electronic shutdown aids, put fake plates on , respray, fill with a chemical
of your choice and drive normally into the city unrecognized?
Terrorists might be evil but generally they're NOT stupid. The is just more balony about "stopping terrorism" that we've had
consistently since 9/11 and I for one am sick of being treated like some wide eyed brainless child who's supposed to accept all these removals of libery
with a thumbs up and a "god sake america!"
As a trucker, I'll weigh in on this. The systems on trucks are generally Qualcomm satellite systems. The problem with that being it relies on a line-of-sight link with the satellite. Going up a mountain, pulling under a fuel island, all sorts of normal operation things cut the signal. Lots of guys put trashcans over their dishes at night so dispatch won't bother them while they're sleeping.
So this fancy-shmancy Homeland Security plan can be defeated with a trashcan. Satellite signal blocked = No shutting the truck down remotely. And I know what you're all thinking, "What a redneck, we could just make it where X minutes of signal blockage shuts down the truck!" Right. And if there's a traffic jam in a tunnel, you'll just exacerbate it by having a dead truck there? This is just another of the gov't's "Big Ideas That Will Not Work."
It's easy to block those satellite signals, and it's not reasonable to put a timer on it so that X minutes of no signal == shut down truck.
The nasty McGuffins in movies just aren't. If it's unstable, no-one wants to transport it, and will neutralize on-site. About the worse thing I've seen is used transformer oils (PCBs) and cutting oils.
There _are_ serious road-vector hazards (LPG, halogens), but no one is talking of them.
The "Black box" would be about the size of a deck of cards and would look just like any other control box on the car truck.
But presumably these trucks are mass produced, and so the control box is likely to be in the same place in each one. Find out where it goes (either by industrial espionage, or just stripping one down and looking for it) and that little bit of security through obscurity is useless.
To hack it you would have to be INSIDE the control center as (I hope) they don't allow the systems on the Internet, the beam things up directly from a sat. dish on sire.
That only increases the difficulty of the attack, it doesn't make it impossible. If the control computers are on the company's network, then it may be possible to get in with a laptop and connect to the network that way. Ultimately though, if a group is resourceful and determined enough, they could just turn up with some firepower and take the place by force.
Note that I'm not screaming that the sky is falling - just pointing out that very little is impossible. I actually agree with you that this is probably a pretty good idea, for that class of transport. Making something harder to do than it's worth is what security is all about, after all.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Unlike most North Americans, most Europeans where in the middle of the cold war, most people in Germany had relatives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Most Europeans can drive for a couple of hours and still see how "bad" it was over there, you can still find places where you can see bullet holes in Walls. If you go through some woods you can still see bomb craters, some old, destroyed buildings.
If you go a bit east of Berlin and walk through woods and fields you can still find human remains from the battle of Berlin in '45.
If you have a Metal detector you can still find bullets, Dog Tags and other stuff.
Even though "Western Europe" was pretty much war free for the past 50 years, conflicts where always raging nearby. While the US lived in "harmony" with itself there was terrorism in Europe (think RAF in Germany for example).
Yeah, Europeans have no concept of cultural diversity either, right?
Go, get a passport and travel a bit.
If anything they were afraid of loosing Euros. But in reality the US supplied just as much, if not more, materials to Iraq than the Europeans did.
Furthermore, it is very clear that the US Government knew what Saddam was using it for. While in Germany for example there were public investigations into the involvement of the then German Government in those deals and the companies fined money, the US didn't do anything like it.
Despite that there even is Photograhic evidence that Rumsfeld was shaking hands and telling jokes with Saddam.
Well,
it looks like you still pay the price in Blood these days, but you honestly think the US went in there out of the good of their heart? When was the last time the US did something just out of pure humanism?
The reality is the US is about money (or the illusion of it), humanitarian effort don't quite fit in there.
So tell me, why exactly did the US go into Iraq (and the UK happily followed)? If it wasn't for the oil, then it was for what? WMDs?
Wow, now that was a real good argument.
Actually the Computer was invented in Germany, too bad, so was TV btw, but heck, who really cares right?
You are just jealous because people can actually live a happy life without working 50 weeks out of the year.
Furthermore, you seem to think the more people work the more productive they are, that this might not be the case somehow escapes you.
I worked in both places and I can tell you that the per hour productivity in Europe is a lot higher, when people are at work, they work, don't talk at the water cooler, but hey, it's all about stereotypes here, isn't it? No real arguments, so use stereotypes.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
One can only imagine the gridlock that would happen if the recent solar flares were to play havoc on the satellites that are controlling shutdown of these tankers. And you thought your commute was bad now...
What about that bastard Lincoln who said I couldn't own slaves? There was some massive asset forfeiture going on there. And then there was something in 1776 that said I can't take action against people because of their speech and religion. And what about my self-perceived right to kill whoever I want?
No, I don't agree with those, but my point is that everyone has something they think is being taken away from them. You will only have maximum rights when all laws are gone, but you can bet your ass that the basest human desires will rule the day and things will be far from rosy. The one thing people know how to do best is be cruel to their fellow man. With each step further away from barbarism, the collar around your neck fits tighter and tighter.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."