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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
Awesome, now terrorists won't need to hijack airplanes. All they have to do is hijack the means of controlling the killswitches.
Responsible? Giving the Authorities control of any kind over my vehicle is not responsible. Allowing the feds to watch where I go is not being responsible. If Onstar were taking responsibility, they would tell the feds where to put their court orders or better yet never have installed that capability in the first place.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
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?
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.