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?"

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Re:In Flight

[BarefootClown]

I don't know that much about aerodynamics, but I suspect at 30,000FT that might result in an uncontrolled decent.

Clearly, you don't. An airplane will glide just fine, thank you. Here's an example of an A330 losing all power and covering 100 km in 19 minutes, to a successful dead-stick landing: http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/others/azoresdeadstick.html

This sort of training is among the most basic of fundamentals, and taught to every pilot before he first solos.

Re:In Flight

[icebrain]

I don't know that much about aerodynamics, but I suspect at 30,000FT that might result in an uncontrolled decent.

That happens every day, but there's nothing "uncontrolled" about it. A standard descent from cruise in an airliner involves pulling the throttles to idle and letting the aircraft come down. Ideally (for greatest efficiency), the engines would stay at idle until you're lining up on final and the gear/flaps come out. Then you have to spool them back up to hold the proper airspeed and glidepath. Up till recently, however, the ATC system and the limitations of aircraft autopilots couldn't handle this, and there would be periods where you level off for a bit, then "step" down again, and so on. But FedEx, UPS, and others are now working on implementing this in the real world. Look up Continuous Descent Arrival.

As a pilot, I do not trust automated systems as far as I can throw them. Granted, I only fly small airplanes that don't have fancy autopilots and flight management systems... but I've also worked avionics development and test for airplanes that do (my day job is engineering). Autopilots do not replace thinking. They take some of the load off the pilots' hands so they can concentrate on other, more complicated things, such as planning a new course around thunderstorms or handling ATC and other traffic. There is no AI component to autopilots, they simply follow a programmed course.