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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?"
"At what point does centralizing and/or delegating operational authority over so much of our lives become a dangerous practice of its own?" ... From that point onwards, the battle between the controllers of the kill switches, and everybody who wants to gain control of them starts. Of course the normal user is left back in the middle.
Already at day 1, as soon as the slippery slope is hit
As was discussed in the airplane kill switch thread, this gives new difficulties. A terrorist now just has to threaten to block communication from the plane and make it fly in a weird pattern, and then the pentagon will kill the 200+ passengers on board with an F-16 rather than the terrorists.
Regarding the Onstar system, this is known about by their company, and they are being quite responsible IMHO -- the switch has many, many security levels to be activated, and gradually starves the engine of fuel so that one would coast to a stop rather than suddenly switching off. Of course, this is a bigger problem for an airplane.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Awesome, now terrorists won't need to hijack airplanes. All they have to do is hijack the means of controlling the killswitches.
I think the lesson of the privacy of phone conversations is an example of what will happen. They will use the information first secretly and later pass a law to hold themselves harmless for doing so. It is strictly an issue of who controls life, me or someone I don't know. I trust my own motives. I would rather not spend 2 years in court trying to explain how someone stole my identity.
This has the effect of turning us all into renters. Which is fine, I don't want the title, I don't want to carry insurance, I don't want to maintain the vehicle and so on. As long as I don't have the rights of ownership, I don't want to pay for ownership. And when it's time to get rid of said asset just bring it back to the dealer and let them deal with it. I am fine with being treated like a criminal under those conditions.
How about a kill switch to prevent a First Post? Of course, the problem is how to get posts starting from second if there's no first. Always unanticipated problems when one tries to implement those security measures some politicians seem to want so much.
I'd love to see "digital manners" enforcement in theaters, restaurants, buses, etc. If mobile phones are so important that people cannot turn them off, then how did people live thirty years ago? Haven't you seen those old movies, where the detective had to stop at a public phone to send instructions to his associates? Yes, I'd love to see a way to enforce manners in public places.
However, a kill switch is no answer. If people abuse cell phones by using them in obnoxious ways, how long would it take them to abuse the kill switch? History has shown us, and it should be clear by now, that any sort of digital key is subjected to abuse.
Even assuming a perfect implementation, that mythical unbreakable code, there's still social engineering. A criminal could buy an old theatre just to get the phone kill switch installed there, if it were necessary for him to silence a phone. And there's always the risk that terrorists could find ways to crack a plane's kill switch in mid-air. When the plane is approaching JFK, wait until it is headed towards Manhattan and then immobilize the pilot's controls.
Like many medicines of old that have been abandoned because of their side-effects, kill switches are a solution that's much worse than the problem they are trying to solve.
The same sentiment can be applied to new technologies.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
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".
Off course that's the reason. Why else would people give up their hard earned freedom ?
Slipping shoelaces ?
In any case without legislation making this mandatory the solution is very simple: Use only stuff that is built on open architectures, using only open source SW. Mod anything that limits your freedom.
I like how this article bring out all the negatives, but never the positives.
You have an excellent point here, and I'd like to start listing positives first, and then negatives from now on. Sometimes it's not very clear to me how great things are if looked at in this fairer light.
Positives:
1. You lose a little bit of weight.
2. The voices stop.
3. You don't have to worry about paying off those credit cards anymore.
4. It will definitely "show her"
Negatives:
1. You're dead.
Act in question:
Blowing the back of your head out with a shotgun. ...
The only negative that needs to be pointed out is that we will completely lose our freedom. But see, people are too dumb to figure out how that happens and give responses like "oh you're overreacting, it'll never come to that!" Then people with a little more foresight start to panic, since they realize that these morons who think the world will be so great with the new kill switches are the majority and will vote this sort of thing in.
That's when we start with the examples, and when it all falls apart. Giving examples is the worst thing you can ever do when the target is too stupid to understand a concept, since then they forget that they're failing to comprehend a concept, and they instead think that you're trying to barrage them with bullshit. That's when you lose time and again, and in enough time society becomes completely unbearable.
Then again, there really are people out there that like the TSA because they feel safer with minimum wage employees bossing them around, confiscating their water, and smugly apprehending their deodorant.
The moral of the story - my argument sucks because it's just a bunch of examples. Feel free to disregard it.
There's one "kill switch" they'll have to pry from my cold, dead hands.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
If I own it, I'm allowed to modify it.
Not anymore, especially if the code/design of the "kill switch" is protected under copyright law. DMCA makes you a criminal if you tamper with it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
> At what point does centralizing and/or delegating operational authority over so much of
> our lives become a dangerous practice of its own?
At the very beginning.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Except by that time, the infrastructure will be in place, and it will be too late.
The kill switch devices will have remotely reprogrammable logic, and once in place, they will not merely throw up their hands and give up the first time the system is defeated...they will just harden it until it is very difficult to subvert.
And subverting it will become a felony, as will disabling the device on your own car, or cell phone, or your camera (so it can't take pictures in "locker rooms and museums"... wtf?).
This is more than a slippery slope...this is teetering on the abyss of Orwell's wildest nightmare.
Sounds like maybe Socialism is indistinguishable from Capitalism for an sufficiently non-capitalized individual.
When you have an unaccountable central government with nearly omnipotent control over those under their authority, what you have can't be described with only the words 'socialism' or 'capitalism'. What you have in such a case is authoritarianism. It's authoritarian governments that we need to worry about - not necessarily socialist or capitalist ones. Authoritarian socialism (communism) has proven to be every bit as dangerous to its citizens as authoritarian capitalism (fascism). People need to be less concerned with the socialism/capitalism axis and more concerned with the libertarian/authoritarian axis because that's the one that really counts if you're worried about monster police states.
Look, even if you live in Israel, you're still 10X more likely to die in a car accident than as a result of an act of terrorism. So I'm not sure 'fear of terrorism' is a valid reason for doing, um, anything different.
Let's keep risks in perspective, ok?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
You can bet your bottom dollar that as the kill switch idea penetrates further and further into society, bean-counters will ensure that a lot of people who decide when to use one will be about the same pay grade as airport screeners. That is, minimum wage drones who are bored beyond endurance by their job. So we'll all have to put up with being late for appointments and getting cop-shop phone calls from teenage kids who found some stupid but harmless way to get a bunch of cars stopped in the middle of a major intersection, while genuine security threats skate around the system with impunity.
So once again, our quality of life will be compromised, our freedom will be diminished and the net effect on security will be, at best, zero.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
It's called a pair of pliers, which I will use to rip out any of that crap out of any vehicle I own, and hope everyone else will eventually evolve enough to have the balls to do the same thing. I've hated OnStar from the start, could see the implications immediately, and have NOT been quiet about it, telling whoever may have the ears to hear. If anyone is insane enough to be buying a car in this particular time in history, they should be explicit in that NO ONSTAR or any such technology be included, and that the buyer not be made responsible for the cost of that in any way. Revolution, people. It's what is needed now, and has been for quite some time. Lock and load, and LET'S GO!