UK Police Want An Automotive Tractor Beam

Barryke writes "According to The Observer, England is working on a remote control for cars to be used by the police. England's police force is lobbying to get a remote-control to stop other cars; this could also be used to limit speeds. Since needed technology is already available in modern cars, modification is very easy and cheap. But what if I just escape by hitting the clutch and use my speed to go downhill? Bet I'm in the hospital before they are!" Orwellian, or ... Californian?

Comments

And thus...

[Compact Dick]

we feed the machine that will eventually enslave us.

Forget labelling capitalism, communism or socialism as "evil". It's time for a new eco-political model, one that learns from the mistakes of past systems and is designed to prevent this sort of tipping of the power scales.

Re:And thus...

[KamuSan]

Amen.

Problem is that our governments are not democratic anymore: they don't act in the best interest of the population.
OOTH most of the population are sheep that will accept anything as long as they're fed and entertained.

So, the solution is not to install *another* government that thinks it knows best what good is for the people, but to raise the political awareness of the general population.
And I think that the EU, with it's byzantine rules and centralized and ideological rule-making is not going to help. It get's even worse when countries like Germany and France can apparently do whatever they want and won't even hold their own promises. This will only lead to more detachment and desinterest.

Note: I'm not from the UK, but from NL.

Re:And thus...

[the_mad_poster]

Last night I had to stomp the accelerator and shoot up from 55 to 70 to avoid an idiot that decided "merging" at a yield sign meant "pulling into uncoming traffic without looking". Slowing down was not an option thanks to the moron tailgaiting me.

A kid came careening down his driveway on a bike a few months back and almost slapped the back of my car while I was doing 45. If I hadn't stomped the gas and shot up to 55 he might be dead now.

I had to drive my girlfriend's father to the hospital after he severly injured himself with a power tool. Ambulances are notoriously slow in the area because of the extremely rural setting. I spent most of the time on open road with a 45 speed limit doing upwards of 80 mph while he gushed blood in the backseat.

I regularly have to speed up to get away from psychopathic tail-gaiting rigs, pickups, and SUVs that don't appreciate you doing the speed limit on the open highway.

In all of these cases, I had to travel well over the speed limit to PREVENT accidents.

In short - when you're a little older, you'll realize that "defensive driving" is a good way to get somebody killed in some fairly common situations. Once you finally have a little bit of experience driving in the real world where everything doesn't always play out like it does in the driving manual, why not come back and share your thoughts with us on the subject?

Re:And thus...

[LPetrazickis]

I regularly have to speed up to get away from psychopathic tail-gaiting rigs, pickups, and SUVs that don't appreciate you doing the speed limit on the open highway.

You make good points, but these psychopaths would be playing by the same rules as you if the speed limits were a physical law.

Re:And thus...

[LPetrazickis]

However, people won't tailgate explicitly for the purpose of getting you to accelerate. I'll be quiet now.:)

Of course this will be secure?

[bunyip]

Am I the only one wondering how long before there's an O'Reilly book on how to hack this? What animal would they put on the cover?

I can think of a couple of hacks to do:
1) Disable it
2) Stop other people's cars

Any other thoughts?

Re:Of course this will be secure?

[sempf]

Phil Agre from UCLA has an article about this at http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/car.html. As he puts it: 'Imagine the consequences as your car goes on the Internet. We're used to viruses in our desktop computers and we've heard about viruses in our palmtops. Next we'll have viruses in our cars, and then we'll have them in our pacemakers. Wireless communications is especially asking for it, and a public-spirited lawyer once mailed me a package of documents from a California Air Resources Board plan to equip all new cars with a device that would upload the car's identification number and emissions equipment status in plaintext whenever it was pinged by a roadside transponder. Wrong!'

Re:Of course this will be secure?

[tommck]

It would be pretty funny... You seem some motorhead football jock pull up in his Mustang GT revving his engine at the stop light... You rev your whiny electric car to egg him on... he laughs... You point your little "zapper" at him and take off... He barely gets up to 20 MPH as you leave him in your non-polluting dust... :-)

"WHO GETS THE CHICKS NOW, BE-OTCH!?"

Oh yeah... uh, he does...

Sweet!

[iLL_L0gic]

Something else to add to my ebay shopping list! Along with my Traffic Light Changer, I'm gonna be all set.

Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, ignoring all of the privacy issues that I know other people are going to address... It seems to me like giving any more control other than allowing the police to severely limit the speed of the target vehicle is just asking for all kinds of accidents from another person suddenly taking over control of the car. I think it would also possibly open the police up to civil suits were they to accidentally crash the car or harm any other people or property.

Ahhh... the opportunities!

[Dr. GeneMachine]

Harden your car against that system... and if the police are on your tail - hack some of the civilian cars behind you to cause a mass carambolage - instant getaway. Hackers heaven! I for one welcome our new remote controlling overlords!

Re:Ahhh... the opportunities!

[TygerFish]

Harden your car against the system...

Essentially, this is one of those things that recapitulates the (old and creaky) truism by the NRA:'...if guns are outlawed,' etc.

If the authorities set up an intrusive technology which gives them the ability to control an ordinary law-abiding citizen's property without any legal process, chances are it will only effect ordinary, law-abiding citizens.

Barring a technology so intimately interwoven into your cars ignition system that your car actually comes apart if you try to remove it, criminals and pranksters will hack the system making the authorities look a lot like keystone cops in situations where it really counts.

You've got to wonder about the people who come up with stuff like this: you imagine guys with sunken cheeks mumbling about power. All of them suffer from a dangerous cramp in their right hands...

Yeah right

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

England's police force is lobbying to get a remote-control to stop other cars; this could also be used to limit speeds

Yes, everybody knows UK thieves have enough morals to play nice with the cops and leave the speed limiter/engine killer module in their getaway cars. I mean, it's only fair that the police have a fighting chance ...

Yawn!

[pxpt]

Don't they realise that this is THE THING to hack if you were a car-jacker! Anything that is supposed to be secure and in the public domain WILL be hacked. It will be the innocent public that have to suffer the newer types of criminality that will undoubtably occur with the introduction of this new technology.

Re:Yawn!

[velo_mike]

Don't they realise that this is THE THING to hack if you were a car-jacker! Anything that is supposed to be secure and in the public domain WILL be hacked. It will be the innocent public that have to suffer the newer types of criminality that will undoubtably occur with the introduction of this new technology.

Exactly. George Carlin pointed out years ago that car jackings came about due to car alarms, something like "F***ing yuppies couldn't bear to be without their precious bmw so they stuck an alarm on it, now the crooks just take them at gunpoint." How long til the crooks stop leaving the passengers behind (they could phone the cops and get the car shutdown) and just bring them along for the ride, maybe kill or maim them to keep them quiet.

what, me worry?

[tuxette]

Is it me or do the police tend to have far less hindsight than everyone else? I mean, call me paranoidette or whatever, but I can already see the following problems:

- If these devices get put in use, sooner or later "everyone" will have one. Or at least relatively easy access to one. Just like police radios. Just like those dingies to control traffic lights. Let the fun begin!

- When "everyone" has this device, thieves could easily use them to stop a cool car and take it.

- The potential for abuse by police officers is high. It's already bad enough that some police officers go around hassling and abusing people just because they don't like their face. Bad cops can stop cars/drivers they suddenly, arbitrarily decided to hate. Another real but underreported problem is police officers stopping women just to rape them; this device would make it a lot easier for them to do it. At the same time, anyone else (people who buy these devices on eBay) could do the same thing.

- Because of the potential for abuse, car owners will carry weapons (guns, pepperspray, whatever) "just in case." You can never be too careful or trusting. Take the rape example above. Before, it would be enough to kick the bastard in the nuts and drive away. Now you have to do him some more serious damage. Things could get messy.

- And just how will police officers avoid ever stopping the wrong car? And will citizens have the right to take action if they are wrongfully stopped?

Re:what, me worry?

[Jerf]

But it seems that every time a story like this comes up, someone gets modded +5 insightful for pointing out problems that were probably discussed in the first meeting held by whoever is or might be working on this system. It is truly ridiculous to imagine that they'd get this thing all worked up, pass a law to require it in every car, and only then consider that a system with the power to stop people's cars may potentially be abused.

You sound like you're still in school; if you aren't then you really ought to know better. This is a political discussion, not a technological discussion. Frequently, the engineers will put together a disaster scenario, or something complicated like "It will work as long as we...", and the other political side will hire engineers with just as many credentials to say that "Live would be bliss if only we had this system!" Those engineers are generally wrong or even lying, but through the wonders of cognitive dissonance and human psychology will eventually convince themselves that their rosy view is correct.

Generally, both reports are then tossed out, the politicians do whatever the hell they feel like it, and, best of all, even after the system fails catestrophically, the either

1. Hire the engineers who said it would be great to "fix" it
2. Try to sue the negative engineers for some reason ("you should have stopped us"), and whatever else happens,...
3. actively resist learning from the experience about which engineers should be trusted in the future

Or some combination thereof. I'm not intrinsically as cynical as this is making me sound, but you have way too much faith in politicians. They don't understand second-order arguments, they tend to have an incredibly naive view of the world ("All policemen good", etc.), and in general it is difficult or impossible to reason with them because they generally believe in their very hearts that technology can be legislated, and second-order effects aren't "real" and can also be legislated away... despite abundent evidence to the contrary available to anybody willing to just open their eyes and really look around them. "Observation" is not a politician's strong suit.

Oh, and ...

A lot of people have keyless entry remotes for their car, and I've never heard of one of those being "hacked" to unlock someone's door. It wouldn't be tough to make cars only respond to commands sent along with the proper key.

That's because the remotes were created by private companies who would subsequently be sued if the cars were stolen via that route. Companies with a long, rich engineering tradition, so when somebody told them the right way how to do those keyless entries, they actually listened to the engineers, because they were used to it.

Guess which part doesn't apply to the government? Hint: All of it.

For evidence, look at DeCSS, WEP, and any number of other standards. Strong things like the remote keyless entry are by far the exception, and they only arise when there is both the motivation and the necessary expertise to do it. (WEP probably had the expertise but not the motivation (network companies obviously wanted a bullet point, not a real feature, they didn't realize how important this was to us, now we're going to get "second generation" security that should have been here since day one). DeCSS has the motivation but not the expertise.)

If, and this is a big if, they hand the design of this system over to one of those car companies (with some level of experience in these things), it might be secure. If, as history shows is much more likely, the law hands over a design specification of what everything is supposed to do, it's going to be flawed.

And even if it's done competently, the keyless entry has some advantages that make it cryptographically feasible, like the ability to change the key on every entry. This sytem will probably have some small handful of "master keys", and no feasibl

Re:what, me worry?

[arivanov]

I think you are flaimbaiting, but I will still answer.

A lot of people have keyless entry remotes for their car, and I've never heard of one of those being "hacked" to unlock someone's door

Bollocks: Almost all alarms (even the most advertised ones) have been hacked. You simply leave in the wrong country. Just go somewhere east of the ex-iron curtain. When I lived there the neigbours in the same office block used to make a living off it as well as hackig ECUs, trip computers and other similar annoyances that show that the car has been driven for 300000 miles, not 30000 as is written on the fake documents.

Actually, hacking almost all of them is very simple because very few have a real challenge/responce and almost all are transmit only which forces them to have backdoors in the rolling code which allow resetting code sequence. If they did not, you would not have been able to use the spare keys because they are never at the same sequence number as the ones you normally use. Actually do the experiment for yourself. Use only one set of keys for a week and try the other one. You will notice a considerable delay before the alarm turns off. It is due to the keyfob going into reset-sequence mode. The sequence transmitted in the reset sequence mode on all but the most expensive "double rolling code" alarms is almost always the same. All you need is to jam the keyfob while doing normal transmission and record the reset sequence. Bingo. You are in.

But I'm told that if you lose the remotes for your car, the dealer can replace them

Bollocks again. Since 1995-1997 in order to replace keys on almost all cars I can think of, you need to bring both your car and your keys to the dealer. You cannot just ask for new keys if they have a built in key in chip immobilizer. Basically the dealer has to put the ECU into a special learning mode and it has to remember the codes for the keys. It is not secure, but in order to do it you have to have:

1. Same key (mechanically)

2. Tools to switch the ECU into learning mode. For anything besides Daihatsu this requires hooking it up the external diagnostic module that costs a little fortune and is issued only to authorized dealership (Daihatsu sells you a special key with the car that does that).

3. The keys available for programming while the ECU is in learning mode.

I can continue throuh the bollocks you have written, but dude. You seriously need a clue.

Terrible Idea

[evilviper]

Why is it that people always cling on to the worst ideas? First remote controls to change signal-lights, now this.

$50 of electronics and everyone going down that 5 mile stretch of freeway will be going 2MPH for no apparent reason.

I'm sure people like the idea for resolving car chases, but better solutions have been around forever. Hooks on the front bumber of a cop-car could easily grip-on and stop a car. Maybe a decent-sized spear on a cable could be shot into the back of a car. Better yet, rig a medium-calibur gun onto police helicopters and watch a chase quickly end as your engine block turns to swiss cheese in seconds.

Portable barricades (fences) could be in all cop cars, and put just ahead of the chase, where it can't be avoided. Spike strips would be nearly as good, but it seems terribly few cops are actually carrying them.

Re:Terrible Idea

[Politburo]

Portable barricades (fences) could be in all cop cars, and put just ahead of the chase, where it can't be avoided.

Let's see.. a portable barricade that will stop a 2 ton vehicle travelling at 60 mi/h? Right. Portable if you happen to have a crane on-site. Actually, they already do this. They park the car across the road. Naturally this can cause great damage to the vehicle and is not the preferred solution (although obviously more desired than a loss of life).

Everyone else has already debunked your other great ideas, so clearly the solution isn't as simple as you make it out to be. Why there is this assumption that all criminals will magically be able to get these devices is beyond me. Scanners have been available forever and only a small percentage of criminals actually use them, and an even smaller percentage successfully use them (ever see an episode of COPS where they just keep using the radio because the guy was too dumb to turn the scanner down?). Scanners are readily made available, as well. Any device that we're talking about in this case would have to be a hack, which would reduce the availability even more. Also, as people mentioned above: who wants a device that can disable a car? Then all you have is a 2 ton brick, and no way to leave. I'm not saying there's no reason to be against this, but so far most of the reasons given to be against it don't cut it.

They are way behind....

[sopuli]

...the Finnish police has had this for ages.

This absurd

[Fizzl]

This is absurd on so many levels.

I don't drive. Infact, I don't even have a drivers license.

Still I find this very disturbing. They don't even give examples where this would be usefull.
They simply want control.

There is no way in hell they could implement it so that it wouldn't be by-passable. How long it takes for someone to hack the fuel injection system of a new controller chip?
Then, the more dangerous area. How long does it takes someone to hack the signal to stop anyone they like?
Govermental (not saying which goverment mind you) projects are notoriously craptaliciously implemented at best. They take the cheapest bidder to desing the system.
Whee. Look ma, no hands.
*presses the button to transmit the cloned signal captured from a cop stopping a car*

They just want to herd the cattle, as they see people. Why not simply regulate driving alltogether and improve on public transportation instead?
Yes, Yes, I know public transportation isn't feasible everywhere. I live in Finland. We absolutely need cars to get around outside of the few cities.

Then the annoying stupid joke someone has already probably made: In Russia, Car drives YOU
HAAA-FUCKING-HAA... Very funny.

And now that I got all worked up, I'll conclude with: No, it ain't gonna fly. There ought to be some smart people who will point out flaws in whatever desing they come up and send it back to board untill time stops. It's just too dangerous.

Re:This absurd

[h4rm0ny]

There ought to be some smart people who will point out flaws in whatever desing they come up and send it back to board untill time stops. It's just too dangerous.

I'm feeling cynical today, but consider this... There is no money to be made from not doing something. There is no status for the project managers, there is no incentive for budget-hungry beauracrats to say at the start "this is a bad idea - lets just put the money back into paying police officers."

And most especially, politicians must be seen to be doing something. A gadget like this will look good on them and if it's crap, then it can quietly be forgotten.

As I say though, I'm cynical today. I'm sure that you're right.

WTF?!

[oPless]

What a dangerous idea.
Any loss of (driver controlled) power is just as dangerous as, say, shooting out tires or using those tire bursting devices.

The questions that should be asked are WHY do the police think they need this control over other peoples cars? Instead of going after motorists, maybe the Sussex Police should be concentrating on Robbery (up by a third)

What gives for these non-elected morons think they are trying to limit the liberties of normal citizens?

This country is going mad. Not quite so mad as the USA, but does anyone know of a non-idiotic state that we all could goto ?

Re:WTF?!

[mormop]

What a dangerous idea

Couldn't agree more. Several incidents make me feel very reluctant to offer anything other than total condemnation for this one.

1) Driving along the outside lane of the M25 a somewhere around 70 when an electrical fault in the ignition switch killed all the electrics including the indicators, ignition, etc. As the car slowed I hit the hazard lights and, not wanting to stop in the outside lane, started to pull over toward the hard shoulder while my wife frantically tried to gesture our intent to the continual stream of vehicles that were illegally passing us in the other two lanes. OK so it doesn't sound too bad on paper but it was bloody hair raising at the time and if people hadn't been paying attention it could easily have turned into a pile up.

2) Friend of mine cornering on his motorbike when an alarm immobiliser fault killed the ignition. Sudden loss of power while leant over on a bike? Broken ribs and trashed Suzuki.

3) Me and wife on RD350LC circling the roundabout at the M25/A2 junction. As we're crossing the lights an articulated lorry jumps the red light and pulls across our path. No way to stop, only way out was to dump it into second, whack the throttle open and cut across the cars in the two lanes to our right that were (luckily) driven by people who reacted fast enough when they noticed what was going on.

Anyway, the point is that sudden losses of power or unexpected changes in vehicle behaviour are, in certain circumstances, potential death not only for the driver but those around him/her who may not be expecting the vehicle in front to stop for no apparent reason. If I'd had a speed limiter acting on 3 above and hadn't been able to accelerate out of the way, the artic would have killed both of us.

For that other old favourite the speed camera, check out this article Safespeed.org and head for the bit marked "One third of roads fatalities are now caused by speed cameras".

STOP-ping Every Car Carrying an Almanac..

[leoaugust]

I thought about it this morning when I came across an article which described Almanac's as terrorist paraphernalia. And it got me wondering ...

Could the National Security need some day be so great (threat is at Red ! for example) that it might be necessary to peep into millions of cars to identify the thousands of them carrying Almanacs, being stopped by tens of thousands of cops trying to figure out which one is "inappropriately" marked and highlighted.

Just a crazy parting thought for a very crazy year ... Happy New Year everyone ....

Here is the article paraphrased from Yahoo ...

FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers
By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer
December 29, 2003

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning. It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways. The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, "the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities." But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior -- such as apparent surveillance -- a person with an almanac "may point to possible terrorist planning." "The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning," the FBI wrote.

The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps. "For local law enforcement, it's just to help give them one more piece of information to raise their suspicions," said David Heyman, a terrorism expert for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It helps make sure one more bad guy doesn't get away from a traffic stop, maybe gives police a little bit more reason to follow up on this."

Is this a joke.

The FBI urged police to report such discoveries to the local U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the bulletin this week and verified its authenticity.

Guess it's not a Joke.

2003 is making 1984 look like 1968

[h4rm0ny]

This pales in comparison to the less visible controls that have been introduced recently (e-mail snooping, database consolidation, increasing investigative powers) but it's still not nice.

I'd be surprised if the government monolith is quick enough to keep ahead of the hackers and criminals on this one. Result - false expectations of safety and only the innocent being subject to this. Though less common, I expect non-police officers will get access and be able to use this system on people from time to time. Nice.

DIY Fuel Injection

[femto]

By putting forward such a suggestion, police and politicians are only demonstrating an ignorance of technology.

The computer which controls the engine of a car is not rocket science. There a projects in existence to build Do-It-Yourself Electronic Fuel Injection computers. In addition, a standard piece of auto electrician kit is a small box which provides a set of fixed strobes to drive the fuel injectors, allowing a car with broken (or disabled) EFI to drive away (with potentially reduced performance). The circuit is not much more than a 555 timer driving a few flip-flops. Ultimately, any criminal can easily find a substitute for the 'standard' EFI controller in a car, thus bypassing any disabling features.

This leaves honest people as the only ones susceptible to a 'remote control for cars'. Consequently the only real use for such a feature would be to simplify life for car-jackers.

Too many problems.

[Qubed]

Besides all the aforementioned problems (most notably hacking), people dislike having their control and sovreignity taken away from them. It doesn't sit well with most to know that any second they could no longer be in control of something that is theirs. In addition to this, imagine a system like this malfunctioning for some reason. No good can come of that. Then there's also the problem of corruption, and economics and business politics. Who's going to pay the automakers to install these devices in their vehicles? What do the automakers get out of doing this? How do you standardize something like this? Is everyone in the UK going to have their car taken into the shop and have one of these devices installed? What sort of system of regulated checks will exist to oversee the functionality of this tractor beam system? The list goes on. Hold it to a plebiscite, I doubt it will stand.

Re:I vote Orwellian!

[diersing]

Speaking as a former police officer, I'm not sure how many 'deadly force' situations your solving here. As I understand it, this *tractor beam* will cause a moving vehicle to stop, so without it - your talking about police shooting at a moving vehicle? Afraid that is something that happens primarily in Hollywood my friend.

What it will prevent, or at least reduce, are road blocks, spike strips and high speed chases. And yes, high speed pursuit is absolutely important as the any car involved is much more likely to kill participates or bystanders then a car at rest. But I guarantee, it will cause at situation where a desperate person who viewed their only option as evading, who is now sitting in an otherwise dead vehicle, to open fire and cause a deadly force situation from the police.

UK's most frequently stolen vehicle

[scottme]

according to The Guardian is the 1986 Vauxhall Belmont.

I can see the owners of those lining up to get one of these remote controllers fitted (not).

Newer vehicles are much less frequently stolen, presumably because it's getting much harder, what with improved central locking, engine management systems that mean you can't hot-wire the thing, and other anti-theft features. A spokesperson in the linked Guardian article is quoted as saying "it is virtually impossible to steal a new car without access to the correct keys."

I don't buy the argument that this remote control idea has much if anything to do with wanting to make it easier for police to stop joyriders. It won't help for the reasons above - joyriders don't, or simply can't steal the kinds of cars that have this technology on board.

It sounds to me like just another attempt to turn us all into good docile law-abiding consumers.

Car hacking...

[BeerSlurpy]

More mainstream than what? Automotive "hacking" has become so widespread that almost anyone who has a need and a few thousand dollars to spend on parts can "hack" their car's computer in every way imaginable.

I had to get a programmable (vs burning and soldering a new rom each time I changed the fuel or ign maps) ECU back when I added a turbo to my car.

Many of the best oem replacements are formerly what were known as "race computers" but are now often cheaper and much less complex than the stock computers they replace.

The "tractor beam" wont be stopping my car anytime soon, nor will it stop most of the cars out there capable of actually outrunning the police and their radios. And this doesnt even touch on cars that dont have extensive computerization like pre-efi Camaros. Daddy's camaro is probably carbeurated and uses a mechanical system for adjusting ignition timing. The cops would be better off just waiting for it to run out of gas.

It's called the US Constitution

[leereyno]

The founding fathers had it right over 200 years ago. They created a system of government based upon the rule of law where the power of the state was both limited and widely distributed between the local, state, and federal levels. The powers that would arise and attempt to subvert the system and take power for themselves were forced to fight with one another, thereby neutralizing them.

This system depends upon one thing more than any other, and that is an informed citizenry made up of individuals that make the preservation of freedom and individual sovereignty their personal responsibility. If the US were made up of people like this then what a glorious nation we would make.

Lee