Slashdot Mirror
Spies Riding Shotgun
Slashdot has covered before the proliferation of black boxes - event data recorders - in modern automobiles, that automatically record data about what the car has been doing and make it available after the fact to police, insurance companies, and people suing you - just about everyone except you, in fact. We'll add to that with yet another story about the computerized spy riding shotgun in your new car.
And now, i can already see the flamewars erupting all over again. Some people crying out "1984!" and others saying that the first are stupid. It's nothing new. Neither is this story. Was it really necessary to report this? Do we really have to go through these flames all over again, if they will not add anything new to the story anyway?
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
... and the subsequent amendments.
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
..to the day when my every every bowel movement is recorded for the enjoyment of future generations.
"You can't shut it off, and you can't manipulate it," I had that trouble when I had a Ginseng and Viagra chaser.
This is an absolute invasion of privacy! Imagine: recording every questionable driving decision you make. I wonder where I can get one for my daughter's car?
Your castigating him is bordering on the absurd. For your stated reasoning, of being "concerned about a flame war". What in the fuck does that have to do with a REAL NEWS STORY that yes, has been reported here and other places before, have to do with your retort. Simply stated, you don't care about people watching, monitoring, controlling your driving habits etc. People who care are alarmed by this development....as you should too, if your head was a little more concerned about the ISSUE rather than some childish "flamewar". PATHETIC.
I was expecting actual abuses of the system, but half of the article is about the things that can potentially happen? Sure, the Earth can implode tomorrow, but those aren't getting front page stories on Slashdot.
Are there any cases where this has been abused? Why not post those?
I drive a '92 Honda Civic CX (nobody has them, they suck that much). It's a total hunk of junk, but i love it. It does precisely what i tell it to (at speeds of under 60 mph -- it don't accelerate too well), gets 35 mpg, and takes me from point A to point B. Now i have another reason -- because it's not looking at what i'm doing.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
In a fiction series I read recently (Hominids / Humans / Hybreds by Robert J. Sawyer), in the Neanderthal world, everyone had an implanted companiion that recorded everything their host did, and uploaded it to an Alibi Archive. Essentially, everyone had a personal blackbox that they could look through later, or that could be used against them in criminal proceedings.
One of the effects this had was that no one would be able to make false accusations against you, because your alibi archive would vindicate you instantly. It also meant that no one could really get away with crime.
Of course, that view of things was largly utopian. The general arguement against this sort of tech in reality is that humans tend to be corruptible. So I dont think that trying such a concept for every person is ideal.
However, for things like using a car, I dont see it as a problem. As long is the recording media is practically impossible to tamper with, (in so far as any attempt to alter the contents would be detected as an alteration). And also, the laws would need to be written such that they could only demand to see very specific time segments in the recording. Assuming that only yourself and government authorities could access it, it would solve alot of problems.
- No one would drive like an asshat if someone would compell them to prove that they werent.
- You would have ironclad proof against bogus tickets and insurance charges.
- The only thing you really give up for the two previous items is the ability to lie about the above two.
Then again, I dont drive at all, so its all a non issue to me.
END COMMUNICATION
Bearing in mind that I 1) don't drive like a twat 2) hate people who do, I would quite like one.
At the bottom of the
Does anyone know if all existing systems such as On-star can be turned off easily by the driver?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
You knowingly are purchasing the vehicle as-is. If you are unsure of what they are putting in there, then don't buy it. No violation was performed.
If government forces these items on us, then we should fight that monopoly force called government. If a private manufacturer wants to push us on it, we can tell them to shove it and not buy their product.
Sorry to AC, but submitted for your consideration:
/.ers, there's no such thing as an accident. Someone's always going too fast.
1) Who owns the info? You're in a crash*, can you seize the info form the other guy's car to prove your innocence?
1a) How? Go to the junkyard and rip out his computer?
1b) Should we all carry OBD2 down-loading recorders? Scene of the crash, you barge into the other car, plug in and download while the tow-truck is still attaching to drag it away?
2) If you're in a crash*, how do you protect your rights of posession to the data? (You must agree that at the very least, posession of the car implies posession of any/all devices therein, so any data stored within those devices MAY have vague posession-rules, but holding the black box in your hands at least allows you control of that data...)
3) How do I safely rig something to destroy or scramble my car's computer? As a last-ditch effort to protect my privacy, shouldn't I have a "Destroy" button somewhere? I'm thinking thermite, but maybe a strong capacitor might be better, both carry risks, but not as much as the data falling in the wrong hands BEFORE my lawyers have a chance to see it...) No news is better than bad news?
*They're all "crashes"
This article quotes Erick Skrum of the National Motorists Association. It's a great political organization that fights multiple battles of interest to motorists, including black boxes.
Consider joining the NMA: http://www.motorists.org/
I NEED the ability to lie about the above two. Why? Because I live in New York City, where speed limits are set arbitrarily low in really stupid places for the express purpose of allowing cops to pick up people for speeding and feed the city coffers.
If anything, this technology SHOULD allow one to completely eliminate speed limits from the books. Exceeding the speed limit DANGEROUSLY can be called "reckless driving," so why do we have have to have extra laws for it in addition to reckless driving violations? For one reason only: those who make the laws realize that one can drive fast without driving dangerously, but if they let us do that they'd never make any money.
Driving at 85 mph in the rain on a twisty road in the middle of the night with cars on it? Yes. Your ass should be prosecuted.
Driving at 80 mph "in a 50" in the middle of the night, with not a cloud in the sky, on a completely empty, straight road? No.
+++ATH0
Needs refactoring: amendments XXVI and XXXXIV are the same.
What worries me the most is the small savings you get on your insurance for installing a tracker unit that gives the insurance company the right to track you (your speed, time of day, location, etc.). At first it'll be a small savings, then, most people won't care, and everyone will have one, and then it'll basically be a large fine if you don't have one. I guess I'd better continue with my plan of biking everywhere; it's better for me anyway :)
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
All they need to do is add a speech synthesizer and a place to deposit 1/2 your income, and its like marriage in a box (and yes, I do realise this box has nothing to do with sex, which makes the simulation even more accurate).
I don't have to worry about Orwell's "1984" because I drive a car from 1984!
Oh, well, I suppose anything is better than what happened to this guy.
It's a Drivecam video - it records the last 30 seconds or so of driver video and only saves it if an accident occurs. The guy was probably kicking himself for installing it. It probably killed whatever insurance claim he had.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I hope you don't drive the way you spell.
So, he knowingly voided his warranty by racing his Miata. He then tries to defraud the manufacturer by filing a false warranty claim (he no longer has a warranty) and HE is the victim? Give me a fucking break.
For those of use who do not intentionally void our warranty, "black box" recording devices should be seen as a positive: overall, the manufacturer will save on fraudulent warrantee repairs, and warrantee coverage can improve.
The Ezine Directory
How can I hack it? I would love to be able to see what type of data is available in that box.
Amendment V:
[...] nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself [...]
But we're already compelled to give DNA, urine and tissue sample evidence, so paying for, maintaining and powering devices we own just to spy on us seems inevitable. That crazy old Constitution, with its quaint notions of human rights.
--
make install -not war
Ehi, wait, that's just like in Robocop!
Zzzzaaap!
42.
Now that someone may be able to verify if we were all obeying the rules we were supposed to while driving. How come no one complained when the speed limits were put in place? How come no one rejects car rental policies when they read them, opting for the bus instead of their draconian conditions?
How dare they monitor the speeds we drive, or where we go, in fact how dare they do it now with police and speed cams. This is a total outrage. I am so outraged I cant even be arsed to write the rest of this post because I must devote all my brain power to the massive invasion of my privacy thats happening at every level in Slashworld.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Just erase it. Take that ol Porsche, and put it up on blocks in the garage. Run it backwards. This will not only move the odometer backwards, it should erase the events on the black box recorder that happened during these miles. Sounds like an original idea, right?
Karma burn in 5..4..3..2..1...BOOM!
I know its been suggested before, but would it be so difficult to change the title of this section?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
"You can't shut it off, and you can't manipulate it," says General Motors safety engineering spokesman Jim Schell.
What would happen if I took a nice, powerful magnet and stuck it to the side of their box?
Why the big fuss about privacy issues with this? It's not as if IM is a secure medium to start with. So what if someone reads the conversation I had with my buddy about how drunk I was last night. It's not like they setup a proxy between my web browser and my online bank page. I just don't get it.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm trolling but I just don't get why people make a fuss about privacy issues on something that really wasn't private to begin with.
I posted that under the wrong article. Sorry about that.
So, what is the problem here?
The only thing I can see is that if you are responsible for an accident, this will prove it.
Big Brother can't go seeing where you've been to..
Some car-rental companies sneak riders into their contracts saying that you have to pay extra $$$ every time you excede the speed limit.
So they charge you more when you signed the contract agreeing to the conditions. Always read everything before you sign. If you do not agree with the conditions don't sign it. Take your business somewhere else. They are not violating your rights in any way, shape, or form.
For one, how do they know if you're using your seat belt or not? Or maybe they were joking.
Second, in some state(s) it's illegal not to wear your seat belt, and they can pull you over for that without any other reason. Extreme: Annual checks of black box device to ensure you are wearing your seat belt.
*If* you crash, this thing will tell the insurance company, police, etc how fast you were going and give them a profile of your driving (hard acceleration/braking, sharp manoeuvres, etc), right?
So, don't speed, drave safely, and you have nothing to worry about then, right? It *can't* track you and report on where you are/where you're going, it can only record how you've been driving. If that really is a problem, then you shouldn't be driving like that anyway.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
When it turns to dust, perhaps your next ride will be on mass transit or perhaps the personal transporters.
Finally something good enough to get America over its love affair with the car.
As long as you never ever do anything wrong, and never make a mistake, you'll be fine. If you're not guilty why do you care if everyone is watching you?
Vote Quimby!
Why not just rip the black boxes out? has anyone ever tried this, I would go out in my garage right now and rip the damn thing out but I only have old cars that almost certianly don't have boxes.
Would removing the black box cause the car to stop functioning? I mean, we could just replace the box moments before returning it to the service facility. In fact, don't even remove the box, just pull the cables assuming they are not hard-wired. if they are snip a wire or two and make it look like it was damaged.
I have a 2003 Volkswagen Golf, and have read that the data recording box in it records the number of time the ABS is engaged, fuel emisions, average speed and trip distance, number of times the seat belt isn't worn by the driver - pretty much everything.
What I hate about it is that the car demands it's service with a flashing light and tone, only a Volkswagen mechanic can turn the alert off. The dataport is hidden behind a removal panel below the radio, and there's no way in hell that my independant mechanic can get the thing to stop beeping at me because I didn't volunteer to be overcharged by a VW mechanic.
Personally, I think that all the information on black boxes should be accessible to the driver, and additionally, that there should be a standard interface port and protocol so that all mechanics can access the black box. I also think that the exact information being collated should be revealed before you purchase the car.
I'm happy if police can access the information in the case of a serious crash, but I don't want the information being provided to manufacturers without knowing exactly what my car is telling them. I don't have anything to hide about my driving habits etc and I am a safe driver and don't speed, but I resent not being able to choose my own independant mechanic without a great deal of inconvinience, and I don't like not knowing exactly what my car is recording.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
If you want to know which cars are currently fitted with "black boxes" there's a reasonably comprehensive looking list on the Harris Technical Services website: http://www.harristechnical.com/cdr.htm. Of course the real question is who is working on a hack to enable us to turn these babies off?
While they are all crashes, they are not all caused by someone going to fast. (Your two statements, considered seperately, are both true - but not connected.) Occasionally, the crashes are caused by some asshat deciding to turn left in front of someone doing the speed limit (or less!) without enough time or space to brake to avoid the crash. (And don't even try "if you see someone looking to make a left turn, you should slow down" - what, I should stop and let them in on a two-lane, 50 MPH road? Bah!) There are also crashes caused by equipment failure - again, no one going to fast, but the person who should have been maintaining the vehicle and did not is responsible for the crash. I could sit here and come up with counterexamples to "Someone's always going too fast" all night - but I won't, because I've got better things to do.
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
This same article originally appeared in Autoweek as: "Under the Hood, with Big Brother" Just sayin.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
The fact of the matter is that these are only good for people attacking you. If they added a camera that looked out the front window of the vehicle, and recorded the last 30 seconds of data from that as well, it would be good. Then, not only could the know what was done, but might have some clue as to why it was done. Knowing what happened without knowing why it happened...it's pretty much useless for things like this.
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
is going to monitor my driving, let's complete the process. maybe it should do the driving itself. And it better be able to parallel park on the first try. For the women, it should apply their make-up. For the men it should shave them and read the paper and, what the hell, it should make a nice expresso,and maybe a cream cheese bagel. An automated gun turrent might be good if you live in LA.(to deal with those that drive too close to your front bumper) But when I start the thing up, I DON'T want to hear "Where do you want to go today?"
What?
2. You can avoid emissions and horsepower limitations (these are imposed at the federal level on manufacturers - build for yourself and you're not regulatable.)
Right. Have fun (if you live in a state that requires them by law) not passing your yearly inspection and getting a fine the next time you get stopped.
3. You can be selective about the equipment. Not a fan of seatbelts? Don't install them. Don't like the idea of an airbag in the face making you loose control of your car after the first bump in a possible 10 car pile-up? Don't install it. (Drive at your own risk.)
Okay, now you're just getting silly. Unless you live in New Hampshire, this isn't a "drive at your own risk" thing, this is a "not wearing a seatbelt is illegal" thing. Not to mention the fact that if you get into any sort of non-trivial accident, you have a fairly good chance of sustaining serious injury.
Sorry, but the open source build-your-own, include the safety equipment if you feel like it mentality you seem to be describing just doesn't fit with constructing a modern automobile in today's society.
I'm not saying there's no way anyone could build their own car, but there are some things you just can't leave out.
Except that most people barely have time to build a spice rack, thats why we have people that sell us things ready made. These people have to answer to us (the customers) in the end though, so if you get all the customers to band together and damand certain things from manufacturers and the government you'll get them...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Honestly, I don't mind the fact that they exist... As long as they are only used in the event of a crash and only at your option. I say that above all else because that box is your property, crash or no crash. The information therein is yours to release or not to release and should be covered as the 5th amendment would be used to protect your innocence. This device cannot run a-ground on the same DRM issues that affect consoles, software and music-- You know, the products you bought but don't actually own? That information is yours, recorded on a device you bought inside the car you own.
Now granted, it may very well be the only thing that proves your innocence. That said, story does have the right idea, however. These things are way too prone to abuse to be used without the proper safeguards in place.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Someone's always going too fast.
I think it's more simple than that. The two cars were just trying to occupy the same space at the same time.. It doesn't matter how fast. The attempt will always result in a collision.
What?
I like me some flaming :l
Should be easy enough to wire up a nice chunky capacitor to discharge through the input wire if there's something better forgotten.
"You can't shut it off, and you can't manipulate it,"
Sounds like a challange to me!
"...the driver who races his Miata one weekend and files a warranty claim the next. What are the chances that his data recorder will rat him out"
The automakers will have to drastically change their advertising. You can't sell a 'aports car' based on performance driving and later argue that using the vehicle as advertised violates it's warranty! Hell, Chrysler is HAPPY if you race their Neon! They will even sell you parts to hot-rod it that don't void the warranty and with others it's the old wink wink nudge nudge, take this out before you bring it in for warranty work. No, car dealers will NOT use performance driving to void your warranty. The manufacturers won't let them. THEY WANT TO SELL THE CARS!. Feedback to manufacturers from performance cars might even give us better cars! I still don't like it happening without my permission though.
One would think that, 'you own the car, you own the data' would apply. You certainly own the recorder and hacking it could be a lot of fun.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
As for the seatbelt thing, most state laws require you to use one if your car was manufactured with one pursuant to the federal regulations. In many states, the seatbelt laws are such that not wearing one in and of itself is not a crime, but it increases the fine if you're cited for some other infraction. The regulations mentioned are promulgated under the commerce power and reach manufaturers selling in interstate commercee. The federal regulations do not reach the individual building for himself, therefore the car can in fact be manufactured without seatbelts, or a gas guage, or a speedometer, or even seats that are attached.
"Today's society" is probably a misnomer, since at least where I live nobody has ever heard of yearly inspections, and seatbelts are something you wear on certain trips (like those where you'll actually SEE another car.) But the bit about New Hampshire is very astute - the Kit Car lets you build to suit your needs and the society where you live. So this is a second benefit.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Event Data Recorders have been in vehicles for a number of years and have even been reported on in the mainstream news & popular press. OnStar was/is only a recent manifestation of this technology.
Thus spake the SysGoddess
Yeah, because everyone reads through every paragraph at the airport car rental counter on every business trip. And has an attorney on retainer to just ring up on his cell if there are any questions. Your attitude is precisely why consumer protection laws were enacted, and the problem the OP describes of sneaky contract riders is one that would be most appropriately addressed by one.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
The other problem with this is actual ownership. As a lot of cars are leased or on payments, who actually 'owns' it? The bank (which may be owned by or owner of your insurance company)? And thereby the data on the black box?
In the event the car is totaled, the insurance company often keeps it, and pays you (and the bank). Again, do they then 'own' the data on the black box in the car that they now own?
3) How do I safely rig something to destroy or scramble my car's computer?
Never fear...this act will be made illegal. "Destruction of evidence" or some such.
And an autodestruct/autoerase mechanism would have to be very finely tuned. You don't want it going off randomly, or in the event of a minor fender bender, or if you are in the right. But if you are incapacitated in the crash, you will not have the chance to trigger it.
There aren't any "black boxes" in cars (except those that the rental company or the Feds installed..). There are ECUs (electronic control units) that do the job of making the car work. *Some* of these store interesting information - interesting to the maker of the ECU. The ABS ECU stores a log of the most recent few seconds. Ditto the SRS ECU. The information is mostly there to defend the box maker against lawsuits from Lionel Hutz (with special expert witness Dr. Nick Riviera). This does, of course, mean than in certain cases the information is useful to the police when prosecuting the driver. It can't be used to track or check driving habits. It's mostly data like "was the brake pedal pressed in the few seconds before the airbag deployed?" or "Were the brake lights lit when the car was braking before the impact?" or "Did the ABS kick in or was the car sliding?" or "Which way was the steering wheel turned when the side impact airbags went off?" This information is really not that much more than a good forensic analysis of the scene would tell. Only it's a lot cheaper than getting dozens of guys in white coats out. For example, these forensic guys can (if it's really important enough to make them turn up) tell if your turn lights were going before a crash (they can tell from the way in which the filament breaks whether it was hot or cold). But it's easier to ask the ECUs if the information is available. Saves on white coats. So not to worry about the black helicopters quite yet. Personally, I'd not be worried by the automakers putting this stuff in but by some jerk in Congress legislating to make it mandatory to record all vehicles for a year and to fit GPS tracking, with it being a felony with punishment of a $100,000 fine or ten years in prison for going into an area with GPS coverage. For finding terrorists, of course: all known terrorists have been in a car at some point, don't you know?
It would be trivial to solder a tap to the data leads of the CMOS or across any data recording device/chip. I think a 1 farad filter should do nicely.
a button from radio shack (or thinkgeek even) with the above capactior would prove quite fatal to the data.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Yeah, don't let public concerns stop you from doing whatever the hell you want. It doesn't stop anyone else.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Actually, a lot of these posts raise an interesting question. If technology is going to be able to tell everything about you, for good or ill, what exactly is your right not to testify against yourself worth?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
If an accident happens, one can use the collected data to show that auto manufacturer is at fault, and this can be a powerful support when filing insurance claim. On the other hand, providing this data should be voluntary. The owner should be able to deny any other party's request of such data, if this cannot be used to his/her advantage. I'm not sure if allowing the device to be turned off is a good idea, as the driver may forget to turn it back on again.
I once had a signature.
The National Transportation Safety Board called for requiring standardized recorders in all light-duty vehicles after it was unable to ascertain what happened when an elderly driver plowed through a farmer's market in Santa Monica, Calif., last year, killing and injuring scores of people.
OK, let me be the first to call it since the NTSB is a bunch of politically correct pussies who don't want to piss off the fucking geezers in the AARP. The guy who caused this accident was too fucking old to drive, OK! He was 86 years old, according to this article he had "... a medical condition called a "second-degree heart block" that can cause the heart to stop beating for several seconds.", raising the question of why we are letting someone who has a bad heart that can stop beating during times of stress drive a motor vehicle. This guy's reflexes were gone, he couldn't adequately control the pedals because he had had hip replacement surgeries he might have had cognitive deficits as well as severe visual ones. He was just too fucking old to operate a motor vehicle, and guess what! There's millions more like him out there. Old folks are incredibly dangerous behind the wheel. We don't need black boxes in every car, we need annual vision, reaction and cognition testing for all drivers over 70 years old, and those who don't pass lose their licenses right then and there. While we're at it we can strip the licenses of anyone who has more than one DUI or who causes an accident where someone loses life or limb, this would go a long way towards making our roads a lot safer.
Does this suck if you're one of the old people in question? Well yes it does, but I find it interesting that the people who whine about restricting the driving privileges of the elderly have no problem with restricting the driving privileges of teenagers. Admittedly teenagers are bad drivers, but they're going to get better as they age, someone who's 16 years old will probably be a better and safer driver in 10 years when they're 26, the same cannot be said for a 70 year old. And while it might suck for elderly drivers to lose their licenses it kind of sucks for the rest of us when they lose control of a vehicle and kill 10 people and send 63 more to the hospital or in my case fail to yield right of way on a sunny day, plow into my motorcycle and cost me my left leg below the knee.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
When you drive your gas guzzling SUV all by yourself, I assure that you are not alone. Usama bin Laden himself will be sitting in your passenger seat.
[o]_O
Brilliant. Instead of estimating an average car mileage and using that as a gauge of road use per gallon and adding a fixed price to each gallon of gasoline, Oregon is going to show us how smart they can be! They will get to pay for the development, deployment and upkeep of totally unnecessary and invasive computer system. Imagine people's glee at getting to pay more for my gasoline because they buy an economy car that gets more miles to the gallon.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Really. Why don't people want to take responsibility for their own actions? This running trend is getting worse year by year and it sickens me. Yeah, we all do stupid stuff, but come on: own up to it! This sort of technology just helps figure out what did or did not happen after an accident. People lie.
While automatic data recorders would tend to vindicate the innocent, and condemn the guilty, that presumes that the activities ordinary people perceive as lawful will remain legal after the devices are installed. I simply don't trust any government or insurer to use that data recorder in my best interests.
And once I get into a wreck, I may not be able to control access to my data. Furthermore, if I do manage withhold it, that may be used as a pretext to presume guilt instead of innocence.
"This quote is a product of the Frobozz Magic Quote Company."
Airline pilots fly in pairs for long international flights. Then, they have continuous training under an instructor, and are in constant communication with other pilots and air traffic controllers, not forgetting that they also have strict limits on the number of hours they can fly per day. And the vehicles are inspected after every flight.
It's rather hard for an airline pilot to be sozzled as a flambeed vodka prawn and not have anyone notice.
If cars and car drivers were under that level of scrutiny, car accidents rates would probably plummet. Imagine having to check in with the local police station to arrange your route, having a inspection crew check the tyres and engine before leaving, and be in constant radio contact with other car drivers.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
You are operating a whole lot of metal balanced on each end by friction enhanced cylinders with a rotating mass of pressurized air. Your technology to change vectors is based on driving two of the corners from an onboard engine while turning the other two (or the same) corners in relation to the central mass in order to effect velocity, or change direction respectively. You also effect velocity by applying force to the corners to slow their rotation. You do all this while:
1) Approaching closing speeds that require split second reaction times.
2) In an environment where there are constant sources of distraction.
a) cellphone
b) radio
c) kids
d) the sun
e) other drivers
f) weather
g) passengers
h) cops
3) Slightly anticipating the changing effects of wind, road condition, and gravity while making tap adjustments to maintain a certain velocity as dictated by passing signs.
That's why I've never bought into the whole "flying a plane is harder" crap. It isn't any harder. The stakes are much higher, but that isn't the same thing. But the jist of it is, you are going to fuck up once in a while. Compare the dynamics of driving a car to say, tennis.
So yeah, I'm all for this. Go ahead. I mean, as long as the worst that can happen is that the truth always comes out when there are car accidents. Whoopty do. If you mess up, you deserve the consequences. I don't have a problem with that.
The problem I have with this is that I drive really fucking fast. And it's my selfish desire to continue to drive really fucking fast. So as long they don't start using this technology to ticket people for speeding automatically every time they do it, I'm all for it.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Because simply boycotting every single computer manufacturer is an option, when some industry standards group mandates that it be included with each motherboard produced for sale in the US.
Private manufacturers will listen, too, because in the bizarro universe that you inhabit, the buying power of a few concerned citizens like yourself overshadows the gargantuan purchasing clout of Fortune 500 companies that order 10,000 machines at a time.
The Eaton VORAD anti-collision radar does just that. It tracks up to 20 targets in front of your vehicle. The main purpose is to help prevent accidents; you get a loud alarm, and some versions will start braking on their own. But it also logs information. Range, range rate, and azimuth are captured, along with the vehicle's own data (speed, turning angles braking, etc.) Accidents can be reconstructed from that data. It's especially good for demonstrating that some other vehicle ran a stop sign.
There are about 20,000 of those units on the road, mostly on heavy trucks.
We use VORAD units here at Overbot, For test purposes, This is far more advanced than a speed gun; it's a true phased-array steerable radar. You get tracking data. I've had one pointed out a window overlooking an intersection, and have software that lets me watch the traffic go by. You can reliably see cars and motorcycles; bicycles and strollers are marginal targets.
So if you think it is the other guys fault you want to rip out his recorder so you can use it as evidence. But if it is your fault, you want the right to destroy your own recorder?
Don't you see anything fundamentally wrong with this?
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
$5 to tell me where I saw a Childrens' story where a white object falls from the sky onto a house & everyone dies.
TV?
Not a chance. Older cars will get grandfathered. A car built in 1970 only has to meet emmissions standards for its model year, not 2004. The same with seatbelts, if your car is old enough that it came from the factory without one, it gets grandfathered under the current motor vehicle laws and becomes street legal.
What is a possibility, is that there will be financial incentives from insurance companies to have dataloggers and tracking systems installed in your vehicle.
Besides, if it did became illegal to tamper with onboard tracking systems, it would as unforceable as the current laws that restrict modifications to your vehicle.
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
I imagine the machines would be calibrated to the specific vehicle installed in, to avoid problems like that.
Either that or there would be a reference chart for various vehicle types and driving conditions, and what normal readings would be for those vehicles under those conditions.
Even drug tests, you don't automatically fail for having some of the chemical in your urine- there are minimal levels required to count as positive, to weed out false positives and to account for accidental or secondhand exposure. I'm sure this system would have a similar threshold concept implemented, to weed out false positives and the random bad luck situations where driving techniques, that are normally bad, become the only way to avoid a fiery death.
I'm not saying I'm comfortable with such a system(at least not until I can get a human readable display of the data it records, at the very least), but I don't think the specific concerns you raise are much to worry about.
Any vehicle on the road today can have its ECU replaced by a standalone engine management system. Once it's installed, you can then genuinely hack your car's engine as well. If you don't like expensive propretiary systems, there's even "open source" alternatives like MegaSquirt
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
Want safe driving habits for better insurance rates? No problem.
Need to make the police you are on the other end of town? Child's play.
Plan on taking a long lunch in the company truck on company time? A snap.
Want your wife to think you are bowling with the fellas rather than over at her sister's throwing it in her ass? Consider it done.
Sure they can mandate to the aviation world pilots don't want to loose their expensive certifications and companies without those certifications are out of business, so exactly how are they going to bully the general public into it, and how are they going to check millions of cars cheaply enough to make it worthwhile. The car mod and hacker crowd will have a work around available within a month of this being mandatory that will mislead the authorities. As far as the GPS goes how hard is it going to be to rap the antenna in shielding? Poof no more signal, no more tracking.
Turn them off!
It would be interesting to see if we as consumers could request to turn off these black boxes, or find some way to disable them without interfering with the operations of the cars safety systems. Either that or a large electromagnet placed next to it!
Seriously though, there is an issue of control here. I own the device, and therefor I should have the right to turn it off. After all I just paid for the car, so I should have the right to do with it as I want as long as it meets safety requirements (although I see some states are now mandating them in new cars)
Thoughts?
Or take the driver who races his Miata one weekend and files a warranty claim the next. What are the chances that his data recorder will rat him out to the manufacturer who then voids the warranty?
If you're a car manufacturer, you can do the smart thing and encourage your customers to participate in sanctioned racing events. Subaru gives you a free membership in the SCCA when you buy a WRX.
On the other hand, if you try to champion any races, in an EVO, Mitsubishi will just void your warranty.
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
I'll manipulate it with a hammer, and it will be a manipulation it will long remember.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hey, newsflash folks -- OnStar is not surgically implanted into your fetal skull just prior to birth. It is not tethered to your leg at age five, it is does not follow you home at night when you are sixteen. OnStar is a product that comes as an option on some cars. Does the idea of a car nanny creep you out? Then feel free to buy one of the millions of cars currently for sale that come nanny free.
What gets me is that essentially what annoys people about these car nannies is that it makes it more difficult for them to lie about their bad driving behaviour. What they neglect is that, for the good drivers out there, these devices help you prove that a wreck was not your fault. They also call 911 for you while you're lieing unconcious in a ditch with your legs wrapped several times around your ass. Sounds handy to me but, hey, what do I know, I don't wear a foil hat.
"We don't want to record someone's whole route," Holloway says. "We're focusing on the last few seconds before an accident. Granted, some people could use that information (in criminal prosecutions or lawsuits), but that is not our concern."
Well it sure as hell is my concern, and it should be yours as well.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Invasion of your privacy ? Well perhaps so .... but I read that there are some advantages - such as the possibility of an automated call to 911 after an accident. I have, as yet, no fixed oppinion about these boxes - but I do have a couple of questions for you.
When you are passing an eighteen wheeler as you describe, it seems to me that anybody looking down from the said eithteen wheeler would invade your privacy a bit - do you have a sunroof ?
In the same way, which one of you does the driving ?
We are, after all, discussing road safety here - or so I thought.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
My gut recation has on these kinds of things is "Oh, that sucks! It's an invasion of my privacy!" and people will tell you that your gut reaction is right about eighty percent of the time.
While it is true that these black boxes can tell the manufacurer, the insurance company, and the cops more about you than you want them to know, think about the other side of the coin for a moment.
They can call an emergency service if your airbag deploys. They can provide data to manufacturers to make engineering and safety improvments or even trigger a recall if necessary. They can be used to shore up your version of an insurance claim. In short, they can save lives and money.
I agree that there should probably be some regulations on the data privacy side of the issue, including notifying the owner of any data access or recovery effort where the data may be tied to him/her.
In a broad sense, much of the data recovered from these boxes is already available to the police and insurance companies after a significant crash. Over the years accident scene reconstruction has become amazingly detaied and accurate. From the evidence at a crash scene they can tell how fast you were going, what exact driection you were heading, and if you were wearing your seatbelt. DNA evidence can tell them where you were sitting even.
I say the boxes themselves are good, and the data they collect can be beneficial. I can understand the potential for abusing the data but still think that it can be regulated to the point where these boxes can be a good thing.
I don't think those litle bike computers are big enough to be spies anyway.
which is that laws are not necessarily guided by *logically determinable* ethical reasoning. This isn't about personal moral ideals.
+++ATH0
I'm talking about places like the Korean War Veteran's Parkway in Staten Island, which is a well-maintained straightaway with a 50mph speed limit for *absolutely no reason whatsoever other than to give cops an excuse to write tickets*. I know several officers in the 120th Precinct and they have flat-out told me that that is the reason.
Where else... there's that stretch of the Belt Parkway which has its limit set at *40mph* because of "limited sight distance." There's a fucking hill. That's it. 40mph is a *crawl* compared to the speeds people travel at realistically (Jesus, almost *RELATIVISTICALLY*) on the Belt.
Then you've got the BQE, which has a 45mph speed limit in places and 50 mph elsewhere, again, for no good reason. Huge swaths of it are recently repaved and pose no traction hazard whatsoever. There is a cop who sits with a laser gun about a mile before Exit 32 (Metropolitan Ave.) because the speed limit drops to 45 there (in a three-lane section with wide lanes).
Who the hell is talking about driving at top speed on *5th Ave.*? Buddy, if you can get above 35mph anywhere in Manhattan other than the West Side Highway and the FDR, my hat's off to you, because it's next to impossible even at 3 o'clock at night.
Stop trolling about something which you don't understand.
+++ATH0
If it was my own erratic driving that generated the data, am I not the copyright holder to all that erratic-driving data? Would I have a claim if such a service violated my copyright by selling this data to the highest bidder (e.g. my insurance company)?
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
There's one not too far from my house, sadly enough.
In July O7, I got a mac pro. There's no punchline. Just endless joy and wonder.
Good point, but at least this way the false witnesses hopefully got in trouble too...
Not really. More than anything, it just shows more evidence that eyewitnesses are not reliable witnesses. Seeing is not believing and our minds can trick us into seeing or not seeing things as we believe. It's been seen in actual cases and it's been shown in lab tests. People see what they expect to see or what they want to see. It gets even worse if you give them a chance to discuss their stories with one another.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.