Peer to Peer Networking for Road Traffic

alecclews writes "The BBC is reporting on some German research to allow the exchange of information between road vehicles about travel conditions using peer to peer networking (I assume some sort of mesh). Cars or bikes experiencing problems would pass data that would ripple down the chain of vehicles behind them. 'For example, cars could spot oil on the road by combining temperature readings with wheel traction information. A wheel slipping on the road even though the temperature was not low enough for frost or ice would suggest oil or another slippery substance was present. Once a car detected this sort of danger, information about it would be generated and passed down the line of vehicles approaching the patch of oil.'"

Comments

good and bad

[mastershake_phd]

Could prevent pileups at the least. Of course anyone with such a system could potentially be tracked.

Re:IPv6

[JPriest]

In the not-too-distant future, it should be possible to access your car's performance data without buying expensive equipment from the manufacturer.

So you think IPv6 suddenly means auto manufacturers will stop being so proprietary?

Re:Great idea!

[NtroP]

They would ban any such system that let people decide what got sent.

Right, 'cause this system will never be cracked and "banning" something automatically stops people from doing it, right?

A similar objection

[dsanfte]

We once had this idea for a global voice network. Everyone would have a number and accept calls by default, and people could talk to each other. One guy on Slashdot knew better, though. He informed us that people could call businesses with bomb threats, for example, and disrupt the economy. Adults could call children and try to abduct them. Random businesses could harass individuals with marketing calls. Loopholes abounded and there was no way to fix the system without breaking it more.

We would have called this a telephone network, but we had to give up on it since its security was obviously so flawed. Thankfully that guy on Slashdot saved us all that wasted infrastructure money. Nothing good would have come of it anyway.