The Future Has a Kill Switch

palegray.net writes "Bruce Schneier brings us his perspective on a future filled with kill switches; from OnStar-equipped automobiles and city buses that can be remotely disabled by police to Microsoft's patent-pending ideas regarding so-called Digital Manners Policies. In Schneier's view, these capabilities aren't exactly high points of our potential future. From the article: 'Once we go down this path — giving one device authority over other devices — the security problems start piling up. Who has the authority to limit functionality of my devices, and how do they get that authority? What prevents them from abusing that power? Do I get the ability to override their limitations? In what circumstances, and how? Can they override my override?' We recently discussed the Pentagon's interest in kill switches for airplanes. At what point does centralizing and/or delegating operational authority over so much of our lives become a dangerous practice of its own?"

Comments

Re:What About the Benefits??

[clang_jangle]

So then, your two reasons for thinking this is a good thing pretty much boil down to "fear of terrorism" and "people are stupid and need to be protected from themselves".

Wow. You got me there!

Re:Slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

A well-known security expert (some say it was Bruce Schneier) once gave a public lecture on kill switches.
He described how the kill switch is triggered by the authorities, and how the kill switch, in turn, is a component in a vast collection of kill switches called our formerly free culture.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The kill switch is really a flat-out plate of poo supported on the back of a tortoise-like electorate."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What are the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
She then showed the security expert the kill switch controlling his pacemaker, and he turned a whiter shade of pale.


(a shameless mooching from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down)

You know...

[FlyingSquidStudios]

sometimes, I wish my wife had a kill switch. Nag, nag, nag.