Experts Have No Confidence That We Can Protect Cars and Streets From Hackers (dailydot.com)

Patrick O'Neill writes: Cars and streets are now connecting to the Internet for a long list of transportation and safety benefits but the new tech has drawbacks. Experts from government, industry, and academia say they have no confidence they'll develop a secure system that can protect users from tracking and privacy breaches. Their opinions were captured in a recent survey (PDF) from the Government Accountability Office. "The government is coordinating with the transportation industry on the Security Credential Management System (SCMS), a project to verify that basic road-safety messages come from authorized devices. ... At this point, it’s not clear who would even run such a system. Previous plans pointed toward car industry control, but the Transportation Department is now looking into playing 'a more active leadership role' for V2I as well as V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) networks. That role would include setting security and privacy standards when V2I and V2V networks become operational."

Comments

RESTORE CONFIDENCE!

[TheRealHocusLocus]

Buy some new experts.

Really?

[koan]

So no matter what we are going to attach cars and the "street" to the Internet? That's a good idea?
And there is a serious question as to whether that control should be privatized?

Let me convey my feelings about that as one concerned citizen.

Never has it been more insulting, and dangerous, than to consider privatizing public utilities and assests, and thereby making people dependent on corporations to manage something we all use and need.
Privatization never turns out well for the end user, and no matter what you say about the government running things, it's a damn sight better than some corporation.

Re: Really?

[hackwrench]

Neither all privatized, nor all public is really the best option for society. Consumer co-ops like credit unions have had pretty good records where they've been tried, but I doubt they're always the solution, either.

Re:Really?

[Penguinisto]

So no matter what we are going to attach cars and the "street" to the Internet? That's a good idea?

This is the crux of what I'm thinking. Then again, why is it such a good idea to hard-wire a car with network connectivity in the first place?

What I mean is, why not build something that you can plug a phone into and use the phone's connection (assuming you need 4G that damned badly in your car)? Rig the bluetooth in said car so that you have to specifically authorize a given phone, and you're done... Hell, my wife's 3-year-old Kia Soul does this.

This way you don't have the stupid planned obsolescence... in a friggin' *car*.

Re:Really?

[jellomizer]

Also if you are going to have internet access in your car, have it on a separate computer then what you are using for the core services, with the entertainment system.
You engine, steering, breaking, and lights should be on a separate computer without any form of wide area network. Just a plug for manual software updates.

Your other systems, that are not directly affecting your driving can be hooked up to the internet. Where hackers cannot harm the person.

Not everything needs to be hooked up to the internet.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everything needs to be hooked up to the internet.

HERESY!

I don't want to imagine the dismal world you propose where my toaster doesn't send me a text message to indicate that the toast is ready while it autoposting to my "Perfect Toast" Pinterest.
You're probably the kind of luddite who is also opposed to me software-linking my toilet to Twitter with timestamped mass, volume, and coloration data before each flush!

And nothing is more important than being able to sync my engine speed to my music playlist so that it amplifies the bass instead of adding disruptive interference.

Re:Really?

[Lord Bitman]

> why is it such a good idea to hard-wire a car with network connectivity in the first place?

Because once you make a feature completely ubiquitous, to the point that "this feature not being present is not only an edge-case, but a definite failure", then possibilities multiply exponentially.

> This way you don't have the stupid planned obsolescence... in a friggin' *car*.

So.. are we just talking about a data connection anymore? Do you want your car's steering control to compete for CPU power with notifications that your farm is ready to be harvested? If we're talking about "just the data", then there's no reason to think that Bluetooth will outlast [the *multiple* protocols available to a phone for longer-range connections].

Your post also seems reliant on the notion that phone batteries are longer-lasting than car batteries, or that they will charge while in a car with a range comparable to the effective range of bluetooth, or that people will tether/dock their phones whenever they enter their cars, negating the mention of bluetooth

Re:Really?

[Grishnakh]

We already do this: modern cars have Bluetooth, and connect to your phone (and with the way the Bluetooth protocol works, you have to explicitly "pair" two devices, in effect authorizing your phone to work with your car).

4G is needed in your car mainly for navigation, communications, and music. Maybe "need" isn't the right word here, but it can be convenient; a lot of people like to listen to streaming music, so being able to play Pandora on your car stereo is nice. Being able to place and receive calls from your car is both nice and much safer than using the phone (since the car can do it hands-free with a microphone and the built-in speakers). And being able to get traffic updates while driving and have your nav system reroute you is a huge time-saver.

Why this is a concern is because these "infotainment" systems are frequently tied into other parts of the car. How much and in what way depends on the particular system.

IMO, all these systems should be completely open-source so that interested people can look for security problems, and so updates can be made. Manufacturers (I don't mean automakers here, I mean small electronic device makers, esp. such as router makers and phone makers, but there's little reason to believe automakers will do much better) have a terrible track record of abandoning products after a short time and not providing software or security updates, leaving users open to hack attacks. Disgustingly, the manufacturers' advice for these problems is to simply "buy a new device from us!". Forcing all such software to be open-source, and also requiring the technique (and any encryption keys needed) for performing updates to be open, would mostly solve this problem. Just look at the open-source firmwares for routers, and for phones. And unlike phones and routers where there's countless versions of the hardware out there and it changes every 3 months, from what I can tell, cars aren't like this: they come up with an infotainment system and use it in all the automakers' products for years at a time. My Mazda's system is made by JCI/Visteon and is used in almost all Mazdas, for instance, same firmware and all. I imagine other automakers are the same. So if someone came up with an alternative firmware for my car, the same build would work for probably a dozen cars across a 4-8 year range.

Finally, I have to point out (I've already mentioned it above), but for your bit about "rigging the Bluetooth" to specifically authorize a given phone, **Bluetooth already works that way**. It's part of the protocol. Some random person can't just drive by with a Bluetooth phone and hack into your car; you have to pair them.

Re:Really?

[TWX]

Also if you are going to have internet access in your car, have it on a separate computer then what you are using for the core services, with the entertainment system. You engine, steering, breaking, and lights should be on a separate computer without any form of wide area network. Just a plug for manual software updates.

Your other systems, that are not directly affecting your driving can be hooked up to the internet. Where hackers cannot harm the person.

Not everything needs to be hooked up to the internet.

Even more importantly, if there is some kind of need for powertrain or other control modules to connect to other devices, like to other cars, there needs to be mechanisms in place to ensure the integrity of the car as an uncompromised node, and for the car to verify that the information it's receiving from other sources over radio also comes from other uncompromised nodes.

I fully expect autonomous vehicles to have to have some means of receiving instructions from emergency responders and possibly even in such mundane situations as construction zones. It might also be handy for vehicles to broadcast when they're in an error-state and the nature of that error-state, so that the other vehicles can account for it and avoid it or make it safer for the occupants of that disabled vehicle. For all of this to work right though, there has to be a way to confirm the identities of the vehicles or services.

I don't think that it should run TCP/IP. I don't think that it should run on existing Wireless Ethernet. I think it should have new wireless protocols with new communications protocols that are limited to use on vehicles themselves (ie, no commodity hardware) and that identity and checksumming is thoroughly tested before it's widely deployed to make sure that it's good.

If those kinds of standards can't be met then the technology should be implemented.

Re:Really?

[grep -v '.*' *]

Also if you are going to have internet access in your car, have it on a separate computer

A separate computer? Hell, I've already GOT a second computer: my phone. Maybe I'll hook it up this time as i drive, maybe I won't. But I sure won't be paying for ANOTHER device on another data plan.

But really? I use my phone and internet as a radio, and BT the stream to the receiving stereo. Or Google Nav with connected audio. I'm sure it's still breakable, but that's a lot of different hoops to go thru. And you can't control it if I don't connect it to the car.

Yeeeeeah, time bombs, I know. But still I'll risk it to play my anime OSTs!

Then again, the absolute worst thing you could do to me is to play Rap with the volume maxed out and frozen.

Re:Really?

[bjwest]

So no matter what we are going to attach cars and the "street" to the Internet? That's a good idea?

This is the crux of what I'm thinking. Then again, why is it such a good idea to hard-wire a car with network connectivity in the first place?

What I mean is, why not build something that you can plug a phone into and use the phone's connection (assuming you need 4G that damned badly in your car)? Rig the bluetooth in said car so that you have to specifically authorize a given phone, and you're done... Hell, my wife's 3-year-old Kia Soul does this.

This way you don't have the stupid planned obsolescence... in a friggin' *car*.

But...but...but.. You mean I have to DO SOMETHING before it will work?!?

You forget that people are so entitled these days they think they have to do nothing at all and the world will hand them whatever they want.

I can't get a $200K job with my basket weaving degree?!? But...but...but.. I HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE! You need to pay off my student loans AND guarantee me that job.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a problem with the modern human. Man can't handle freedom. Living without the local social pressure from the tribe is a problem for many. Living without all seeing eyes of the gods of your city state is a problem for many. Living without the all seeing eyes of the one god, the creator, is a problem for many.

Many people are lost in this free society where you do not really belong to any group. Where you are alone as an individual with a live without meaning. You have to have a job, but you don't do anything exiting, productive or useful at your job. Your a nobody without a job, but your job makes you a nobody.
 
The corner stone of society that is family does no longer exist. Too many families stop existing because the man cannot be a man anymore and the woman has to be a man now. Both man and woman have to play different roles than in the past, they have to be gender neutral. Many humans have problems with this new reality.

How are you going to steer the people that the society has lost its grip on? Television, movies, music, written media, religion, ... nothing works anymore. Many humans don't like pop culture. Many people do not believe the news sources are neutral and independent. Many people have lost believe is something that cannot exist. Society needs a way to control these people. What better way to control them than to hook them all up to the Network? Camera's controlled by the Network watch their steps. Devices in their pockets, in their cars, in their shoes, ... plot breadcrumbs on a virtual map on the Network. With a message here and there the unconsciousness is influenced and the humans on the Network are gently guided in the right direction.

The Network, the Internet, it is all around us. It is everywhere. It hears all, it sees all, it knows all, it is timeless, ... It knows your future, but it still gives you your own choice. At least, it tries to let you feel as if you have a choice. The Internet, the Network is the replacement of the tribal social structure, of the gods of your city state, of the one and only god of your empire, the leader of your tribe, the leader of your cult, of the nationalistic identity of you country, of the safety of your family. You still have a choice. You don't have to hook yourself up to the Internet. But whatever you will do, it will require the use of 'things that are hooked on the Internet'. There is no escape...

The experts do not think that things on the Internet can be protected from hackers. That things on the Internet might become mindless bots controlled by the hackers. But the Internet is a network that turns its connected clients into mindless bots. That is what the Internet has become. It is human nature.

When human started to form tribes, they appointed a leader. When groups of humans started to form cities they appointed a King. When cities were united, they appointed an Emperor. Every phase needed other tools to control the humans. In tribes it was enough to use speech. In city states speech had to be accompanied with art. In empires the static art was inadequate and control was spread by written text.
 
I sometimes wonder what was first. The preacher or the tribe? The collection of religious buildings and statues or the city state? The written book or the empire? The nation or the national identity trigger by art and literature? The enlightened government with freedom of speech and religion or the scientific method? The world as one village or the Internet?

Re:Really?

[RingDev]

This isn't about internet access.

Disclaimer: I work for a state DOT as a software development manager and I consult on systems that are impacted by these systems.

This is about V2V and V2I communications platforms. In the 2017 model year, all new vehicles will require V2V communication systems. And another ~5 years after that we'll likely see V2I requirements.

Currently, when you see those signs that say "X minutes to exit Y", they pull that data in one of a few ways:
1) Buy it from Google or other cell phone tracking companies
2) Use radar speed cameras to calculate the average speed and travel time
3) Use roadside Bluetooth detectors to identify specific vehicle travel times between two detectors
4) Magnetic loop vehicle counters and an algorithm to compare rate to volume and travel time.

V2V communication systems don't directly communicate with the infrastructure system. But similar to the Bluetooth detection system, we can identify that a specific car with a V2V system has passed a point, and then measure the travel time for it to reach the next meter point. Currently we capture ~2% of traffic using Bluetooth, with the new V2V system being mandated for 2017 and a ~5% annual fleet replacement rate, by 2018 we should over double our data collection.

There's nothing fancy there though. The detail data is only retained for the segment measurements, and since all we know is effectively a GUID, we can't identify specific people. But if you were to learn of a GUID associated with someone's vehicle or phone's Bluetooth, and you were to capture and store the meter data, you could, in theory, determine their travel habits across the specific place those meters are installed (pro-tip: there aren't many of them)

Where V2I starts getting really cool is when we can actually communicate with vehicles about the environment. For example, If you have a densely populated area with significant street parking (say like pretty much any down town metro in the country) as the street parking fills, you get more surface traffic of people looking for parking. At ~50% parking capacity roughly 80% of the traffic is searching for parking. V2I communication can cut that rate tremendously by informing vehicles of the closest available parking spots.

Another cool use that's already being done in Vegas is that the infrastructure can inform the car as to the optimum speed to travel at to hit all of the green lights.

Then you get into the really cool stuff, next gen and all that. Where a vehicle that has it's route information can report travel times for each road segment, and share this data between V2V and V2I, allowing the other vehicles and infrastructure perform vastly more efficient route planning, alleviating traffic jams, minimizing road surface damage, etc...

That data can also feed our construction plans giving us hard analytical data to determine where construction projects are needed. Where safety needs to be improved, where volume is changing rapidly. It can help plan lane closures and route plans for over sized-over weight vehicles. It can replace a ton of what is currently labor intensive and best-guess analysis with cold hard facts.

But it needs to be shepparded by people who are aware of the security impacts and unwilling to overstep bounds.

At one stakeholder meeting, a senior member of a policing branch of the state government asked if the system could be used to disable the vehicles of people who were driving recklessly. Or if they would be able to query the system to identify suspects in relation to a crime.

Some of the ops folks were really excited about the idea of identifying common traffic routes, to be able to see how individual drivers get from point A to point B.

But there were those of us in the group who were willing to say, no, killing someone's ignition at 90 mph is a bad idea. No, having a searchable database with PII is bad. No, showing full route information is a horrible intrusion in the drivers' privacy.

These are the battles that are being had, across the country, in your own Department of Transportation.

If you are concerned about it, contact your local DOT, that's where the magic is happening right now.

-Rick

Re:Really?

[ITRambo]

"You forget that people are so entitled these days they think they have to do nothing at all and the world will hand them whatever they want" is too exaggerated. Not everyone lives in their parent's basement. People that I know do their best to earn an honest living.

Re:Really?

[TheRaven64]

So no matter what we are going to attach cars and the "street" to the Internet? That's a good idea?

Of course it's a good idea! It will allow more tracking to sell even better-targetted advertising spots. And Google will keep us secure. After all, they've done such a good job with Android...

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right? I mean my toaster has as much right to be a narcissist as I do.

FREE THE TOASTERS!

Re:Really?

[kheldan]

So no matter what we are going to attach cars and the "street" to the Internet? That's a good idea?

Emphatically no, it's not, but that won't stop it from happening, any more than 'wireless charging' being a thing now couldn't be stopped from being marketed, despite the incredible inefficiency of it, or the 'internet of things' becoming a thing (and not being anything like secure, and why the hell, really, do you need your refrigerator connected to the gods-be-damned Internet anyway?), or 'The Cloud' being a thing, despite 'Cloud' providers deciding to go belly-up on you and leaving you high and dry and/or getting hacked for its' contents, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.. people want the Internet in their cars, because cars, like cellphones have become, are now more of a lifestyle choice than they are what they used to be made to be (transportation!), so of course you have to have all the comforts of home in your gods-be-damned car; I'm just waiting for there to be a toilet built into the drivers' seat, and some sort of shower facilities and a way to store and cook food, so you never have to leave the car, ever, for any reason. Anyway, back in Less Sarcasm Land, people want their cars to have all this wireless connectivity, and since they're rushing to market with this stuff, of course it's going to be a major attack vector for the entire vehicle. To be fair though even what we assumed were the most secure systems connected to the Internet have been hacked, which just proves the obvious: Anything can be hacked into. It's just a matter of time. You want unimpeachable security? Don't connect it to the Internet, or have any sort of wireless connectivity in the first place. I drive a 2008 Toyota Tacoma pickup with a 5-speed stick shift, it doesn't have wireless anything, and so far as I know, short of someone having physical access to the CANBUS, it's not hackable, and I like it that way.

You want your vehicle to be unhackable? Then it needs a physical switch you can flip that kills power to any and all radio transceivers in the vehicle, and I don't mean a 'soft' switch that has to be acted upon by software, either. Short of that being available, find the antenna(s) for any radio transceivers, disconnect them, and connect the transceiver to a dummy load. That won't completely stop them, but at worst it'll reduce the range by which it can be accessed to a few feet.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, that is exactly how it is implemented now right?

Re:Really?

[The-Ixian]

This brings up a good point.

How about a standard interface for a car where you plug in the smart phone you already have? That is now the brains of your car. As technology advances, so does your smart phone. Your car can forever stay "dumb".

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to place and receive calls from your car is both nice and much safer than using the phone (since the car can do it hands-free with a microphone and the built-in speakers).

That turns out to be false. What makes it dangerous to talk on your cell phone is the distraction of holding the conversation, not simply holding the phone.

See e.g. http://www.nsc.org/learn/NSC-Initiatives/Pages/distracted-driving-hands-free-is-not-risk-free-infographic.aspx

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of RV parks. A few started offering Wi-Fi, and it got to the point where if a park didn't have Wi-Fi, they would score extremely low on reviews, even though the park could be located in Shangri-La. Now, a lot of RV park rates have gone up significantly because to put in a decent Wi-Fi system to service all the parked faraday cages, it takes a lot of work.

For example, for one loop of 10-20 vehicles, it takes a high gain antenna, a switch, router, firewall, and a high capacity backhaul to handle people all wanting to watch YouTube at the same time, even with QoS prioritization (because of one throttles traffic, the smarter people will fire up VPNs, others will demand their money back and ravage the place on every review site there is.) Add multiple loops (which need to be on multiple segments), and you are looking at configuration issues which require a clued network admin to set it up, and some type of IT speciality in-house to fix stuff.

Oh, don't say, "just hand it off to a wireless ISP who will do everything for 'free'".

tl;dr, we don't want this crap happening to vehicles where people demand Wi-Fi access from their Kia or else they go buy a Hyundai. We already have this happening with CarPlay where if a car maker doesn't have Apple's software present, they are likely to go out of business, superseded by car makers which do.

Re:Really?

[edcheevy]

Thanks for the background info! I'm curious, do state DOTs do their own thing or are they like other agencies where the large states tend to force the standard? In other words, if we pressure California DOT to build these platforms responsibly, would that be felt elsewhere in the country as well?

Re:Really?

[Grishnakh]

Maybe, but in many states, holding a phone to your ear and driving is flatly illegal and will get you pulled over and a distracted driving ticket. Driving with the car's built-in handsfree phone system will not, and is usually completely legal. If nothing else, having two hands on the wheel is a big plus (as well as being able to talk to the car and tell it "call my wife" or whatever instead of messing with a dialer; on my car I can make calls without even looking away from the road).

Finally, danger is relative. If you're driving on a rural interstate highway and the nearest town is 2 hours away, it's probably more dangerous NOT to talk on the phone; at least it'll keep you awake. If you're in heavy rush-hour traffic, then get off the phone.

Re:Really?

[RingDev]

To some extent. I'd have to dig through my notes to see who is further along than others. I know Vegas has some cool stuff in Nevada, Cali comes up in conversation thanks to silicon valley. So does Minnesota though, so it's not like it's locked up by the typical coastal players.

My state isn't on the cutting edge, but we are replacing some of our asset management software, which ties into traffic ops, so keeping an eye on which vendors are going to be able to leverage V2V and V2I communications is critical for us. Thanks to budget cuts from the Governor though, we don't have money to play around with future state stuff :(

-Rick

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it is cheaper to combine safety related systems and the entertainment system, so unless regulation stops them, I cant see it happening.

Privacy my eye

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA :
"Privacy will be a key component of the new road networks. Data generated by V2I networks may be given to academics, government agencies, and private companies for research purposes."

I guess privacy does not mean what I think it means

Re:Privacy my eye

[__aaclcg7560]

What makes you think you have any privacy on the roads today? Your cellphone broadcasts a signal, video cameras monitors the roadways and some police departments use license plate scanners.

Re:Privacy my eye

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think you have any privacy on the roads today? Your cellphone broadcasts a signal, video cameras monitors the roadways and some police departments use license plate scanners.

private != privatization.

koan makes valid points about attaching 2 ton vehicles to the internet and then not being able to ensure they cannot be used as weapons.

As far as privacy on the road, I don't care anymore. I found out that the way they determine average speed on traffic reports is to monitor cellphone position. So much for privacy.

Re:Privacy my eye

[Penguinisto]

All true. However, all but one condition is rather limited in scope and depth, with most of it installed in limited metropolitan areas (cities like London excepted).

The cell signal is about the only thing that can be truly, well, sorta tracked... depending on how locked-down your phone is and what you have turned on. If you have GPS running and the world's loosest permissions, yeah you can be tracked to the square meter. If you have reasonable privacy controls turned on and GPS off unless absolutely needed, the most they can get at any one time is triangulated from the towers - after a subpoena is granted to get that info. Note that even this triangulation doesn't work so hot once you get out past the suburbs and into the sticks...

The ideal? Given that parts of my own commute has zero bars on any phone and runs through mountainous terrain, well, good luck with that.

Experts

[Kohath]

If they say there is no problem then experts are no longer valuable.

Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[sinij]

Car infotainment systems are a Trojan horse by the car manufacturers in search of forced obsolescence.

Modern cars normally last 12-15 years, no connected IT system would survive this long without constant maintenance. Thing is, it is all but certain that there won't be security patches developed for that long.

With this in mind, buying a connected car is insane.

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its more along the lines of recurring revenue. Why buy a car that will be a security nightmare and obsolete before you finish paying it off when you can lease a new car every two years!

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[sinij]

Lease payments will go up if resale value tanks due to obsolete security. For example, $30000 new car would cost $8000 as a 8 year old car. If it will only sell for scrap because of a remote steering and brakes hijack that 8 year old value is effectively $0. This will increase cost of ownership by average of $83/mo over these 8 years. This means that normal least payment of about $350/mo on a $30000 car is now almost $450/mo

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[Dr_Barnowl]

The big stupid for me was the hack that disabled the brakes by hacking the radio.

Why, why, why is the entertainment system on the same WRITABLE hardware bus as the brakes? I can see why you might want to talk to the engine management (to enable "sport mode" and such), but not directly, that would be stupid.

We know why : because they're cheap bastards.

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[Anonymous Coward]

Car infotainment systems are a Trojan horse by the car manufacturers in search of forced obsolescence.

They're required by federal law to implement a backup camera. So one way or another there has to be a big ass LCD in the dashboard. Might as well make that the radio, too.

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[The-Ixian]

I have seen IT systems in use for a lot longer than that.

Amazingly enough, some software continues to work as long as the hardware it is running on continues to function.

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[Anonymous Coward]

Your assumption requires management having a clue and then refusing security measures. I have first hand experience with the lackadaisical attitude towards security, and that was from lead developers for a major software firm. I found a vulnerability in our software that would let any user on the system insert, delete, or overwrite arbitrary data in the database with no audit trail whatsoever. Management's response to my report? "Nobody's going to go through the trouble to find that." What was the vulnerability, that a config file in the client software stored the username:password to the SQL server in plaintext.

So, in the end, people just don't believe it will happen to them until it does.

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[sinij]

Sure, but what you fail to notice is that infrastructure protecting such system gets updated. Things like firewalls, IPS, VPN that secure such IT system are much newer and maintained.

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[The-Ixian]

Well... or air gap... that technology hasn't changed.

But I see your point.

Re:Car infotaiment systems are a trojan horse

[Anonymous Coward]

Car infotainment systems are a Trojan horse by the car manufacturers in search of forced obsolescence.

Yes, because as soon as their in-car radio dies, people stop driving their cars. </sarcasm>

The Experts suck.

[Lumpy]

It' seems these "experts" have zero clue at all on how to build cars or how to secure a local network that is isolated from the internet.

Re:The Experts suck.

[gstoddart]

And they know it.

Which means you have to ask the question: why the hell should we accept they are "experts"?

This screams of an industry saying "we have no idea how to do this properly, but we're going to do it anyway".

Re:The Experts suck.

[sinij]

What you are missing is "at this cost with this feature set". You want a secure IoT thermostat for $50? Not possible. The best that could be done is secure connected at $250 or 'please hack me' connected for $50 or not connected and secure for $50.

Re:The Experts suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

They obviously need to run MyCleanCar and update their HOSTS file. Solves all problems.

In all seriousness, these systems would be used for .... what exactly? Navigation? Not saying GPS is perfect, but that only needs 1-way communication. I can think of many uses for a VANET, but in most cases they don't need to send out information. I mean, you could want to be able to send somewhat anonymous messages to the cute girl or guy in the car two lanes over, or at best cars could use the network to safely position themselves around each other to prevent road incidents, which would be the single best use. That single best use would only require a jammer and it all goes to hell if the cars don't have their own systems backing it up, which makes the entire point of that type of system nearly moot, when it can just rely on its own systems (no reason to trust other systems).

Honestly, the best uses I can think of for a network system in a car is a simple repeater for some wifi signal it picked up, and posting traffic / road condition information (maybe capping speed limits - which I would hate). Internet for the masses and all that with a structure like a cell service. Those are two different systems, and the later is strictly 1-way again, and would be easy to implement safely

The issue seems to be that they can't figure out a way to datamine drivers and cars and do it safely. They want too much, and everyone should just tell dealers to fuck off if they try to sell such a car.

Re:The Experts suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

As tech savvy as I am, going into a car dealership for a vehicle, I don't make enough money for privacy or network security to ever be my top concern and it won't be for most of the general population. You aren't going to fix this with free market pressure.

Re:The Experts suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the systems implemented in a car knowingly, end up causing an incident, then the manufacturer will be held liable and the PR will get out to "not buy X model of Y year," or they will end up having to pay a lot (hopefully) from a class-action as many cars across their whole line will be affected. I don't think that any information they could datamine would be enough to subsidize their potential liability, unless it is all just a scheme to make a quick golden parachute.

Stolen credit card information goes for what, $20-100 each? The information they get out of driving habits and such wouldn't cover the $1+k per vehicle cost they'd get down the road.

Something like OnStar is the best they will be able to get. If I ever owned a car with it installed, I'd do my damnedest to disable it. Why haven't I heard of stories of people hacking OnStar systems (aside from cops backdooring it to listen in)?

Re:The Experts suck.

[Archangel Michael]

While I see the draw of an internet connected thermostat, it isn't enough to outweigh the "Please hack me" that is inevitable. It isn't that hard to program a decent thermostat to function within the 90% of normal range, and manually change it for the 10% of the time that isn't normal. So, I get off work a little early and want the house cooled down (summer) or warmed up (winter) when I get home, I'll suffer the 30 minutes it takes.

And why hasn't anyone of these people watched BattleStar Galactica, you don't network critical systems that are capable of being hacked.

Re:The Experts suck.

[Lumpy]

Yet my $19.00 programmable thermostat outdoes all the internet ones instantly. it just takes 10 minutes of effort to program it to never need to touch it again.
In fact I haven't touched my thermostat in 3 years.

That's OK ...

[gstoddart]

We don't have any confidence they can either. And if they're not confident they can secure it, and we're not confident they can secure it .. how about we simply don't deploy the damned thing?

If everybody is rushing to roll out the awesome new digital infrastructure, and nobody believes it will be secure .. maybe it's not so fucking awesome?

We don't want a system which doesn't protect us from privacy and security breaches. So don't make one. Why is everybody in such a rush to deploy shitty technology all the time?

Sorry, but I don't want a car or anything else with a badly designed level of security which everybody knows is a badly designed layer of security. At that point it's more about marketing than it is technology.

Just say no. The world will survive without one more incompetently implemented piece of digital integration nobody really cares about.

Now get off my damned lawn.

Re:That's OK ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you confident in the security of your home network? How about the Internet at large? Would it be better if simply never deployed computer networks or the Internet just because there's no such thing as true security on the Internet?

Everyone keeps rushing out new websites based on old products that we already know are insecure, but maybe YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and Netflix and Tor and Bitcoin and Apple and Android and Windows and even Linux and anything else you can think of on the Internet aren't so awesome? Sorry, but everything you do on the Internet has "bad" security that hackers can easily exploit. The best security you can get is still Security Through Obscurity and that goes away the more you interact with others, download files, and make more money.

All we really have right now are systems that give people the illusion of being protected without really being completely secure. So without the ability to truly protect your privacy and prevent security breaches I guess they really shouldn't have bothered making the Internet? Compared to now, the early Internet was surely a shitty technology even if it may have seemed really awesome back in the day, but we just suffered through it and now we've got something that is entirely better and entirely worse at the same time.

Just say yes. Hackers just won't be able to compete with what we've currently got, which is a whole lot of idiots roaming around inside metal coffins. The more control taken away from those idiots the better.

Now back to watching paint dry.

Re:That's OK ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference being, you don't die when your browser crashes.

Re:That's OK ...

[phantomfive]

Are you confident in the security of.... the Internet at large?

Ha, what?
The internet is insecure by design. If you want your code to be secure, you must consider it a threat at all times, and not trust anything that comes from it.

there should be many easy fail safes

[circletimessquare]

input or output from any part of the system should conform to narrow parameters, or the entire communication is disregarded, and the fail safe implemented. so falling back to the fail safe should be frequent, not rare and alarming. it could be a hack, it could also just be network or equipment issues, either way

for example, the data: distance to car in front of you

the data should be of rigorously correct format, received in the correct and expected small time frame, and the source must be locked to certain trust indicators (which would be another entire laundry list of overlapping qualifications)

if there is any failure, no matter how slight, the data should be considered tainted and incorrect, and back up redundant systems (lidar, whatever) or even fail over to manual control should be implemented

Re:there should be many easy fail safes

[fustakrakich]

trust indicators

Um, no, you've already failed

Re:there should be many easy fail safes

[Mr.CRC]

Or they could just make a car be a fucking car, and use something called wires to connect shit together! There is no need for "infotainment" integrated into a car. Passengers can use portable devices. I won't buy a car with a built-in TV, internet connected or not. And it's looking like I will never buy a new car again for the rest of my stay on this planet. I'll be seeking out used vehicles only with wires only inside.

Simple solution for cars

[elvesrus]

Buy used, or build your own, without any computer controlled systems. For the less paranoid closed systems with no way to upgrade the software can be used.

For hackers, read Government

[Anonymous Coward]

They have to leave back doors in, else how will the police track and potentially automatically stop your car?

Re: For hackers, read Government

[Anonymous Coward]

BINGO! We have a winner,

Privacy is a secondary issue

[nine-times]

Protecting cars from privacy breaches is, frankly, a secondary issue. There have been hacks demonstrating that an attacker can wirelessly take control of the car and interrupt the driver's control. This sort of hack certainly can be prevented-- by yanking any wireless connectivity, if nothing else.

If a car maker has cars that are not fully protected against that kind of attack, it should be illegal to drive those cars on public roads.

Don't worry

[0123456]

Slashdot experts are confident that driverless cars will never have crash. So it's all good.

Re:Don't worry

[Mr D from 63]

The safest cars will be both driverless and riderless.

Re:Don't worry

[TechHSV]

And parked in a garage.

Follow the money

[grimmjeeper]

The reason automakers can't build a secure system is that it costs money. And putting an expensive secure system on cars will raise prices. Of course, raising prices in a commodity market means you lose sales.

But here's the thing. If they keep making their systems hackable where people can get in from the internet to the car and actually take over control (instead of isolating the infotainment network from the critical command/control network, you're going to get into a situation where one or more cars are hacked and one or more passenger is injured or killed. That's when the lawsuits hit and that's when car companies will start addressing security. When it hits them in the profit margins.

Go on...

[acoustix]

I don't have confidence in most things anymore: federal government, personal responsibility, etc.

Just add this to the list.

Re:Go on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Personal responsibility is a great thing, if we execute it.
Darwin will take care of the rest.

Re:Go on...

[sociocapitalist]

I don't have confidence in most things anymore: federal government, personal responsibility, etc.

Just add this to the list.

I have confidence in your lack of confidence.

Re:Go on...

[Shadow IT Ninja]

Okay, I'll add to the list - corporate responsibility... from Enron to AIG to Volkswagen.

Obvious solution

[gurps_npc]

Is to treat all radio data as suspect. Assume it is compromised, not valid. Worst case scenario airgap any computer that controls the cars from any computer that can receive outside instructions.

There is NO need whatsoever for anyone to be able to control the brakes, gas, etc. of a car that from outside the car.

The idea that they should is a poorly thought out concept.

Re:Obvious solution

[Martin Blank]

There are plenty of public safety arguments in favor of applying some level of control from outside of the car. Cars in a high-speed chase put anywhere from a handful to hundreds of people in danger. Suspected stolen cars and drunk drivers could be safely pulled to the side of the road. The implementations of these could vary from nearly direct control to a signal that automatically puts the car into a parking mode (external order with details handled by the car itself).

There are various tradeoffs that have to be weighed and maybe ultimately the cons outweigh the pros, but it's incorrect to say that there is no need at all.

Re: Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck You, Sir!

This is about having stupid goals

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong or dangerous about cars and streets being networked.

The wrongness is that somebody wants cars to be doing stupid things in response to things it sees on the network. If "I want to do stupid things," is the whole reason you're considering networking the cars and streets, then of course the outlook is grim!

You can tell that stupid shit at least was (and probably still is) the primary goal, because of this:

Previous plans pointed toward car industry control

That's in spite of the fact that all our experience with car manufacturers (seriously, is there even a singlecounter-example), is that their systems up to now have been made for the purpose of locking people into subscriptions. YOU KNOW that when you buy a new car, its computers are there to try to drain money from you, in exchange for pretty-damn-easy applications that ought to be commoditized-to-the-point-of-gratis by now.

This is garbage industry trying to get worse. It shouldn't be helped, and especially our own fucking government shouldn't be helping them in trying to defeat us.

Exactly. No one wants to think of the negative

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Exactly no one wants to think of the negative use case scenarios and what the scale of those use case scenarios might mean to society.

The whole stampede towards IoT and internet on everything is driven purely by 1) multi-millionaire investors looking to be the next multi-billionaire and 2) people who are high on the curiosity / inventiveness scale but disastrously low on the harder-to-do societal implication / moral reasoning / counterfactual hypothesizing scales.

Q What if people don't use the technology in the way you intended? Answers:

A It's not my fault.

Q What ways might someone deploy this technology which could plausibly lead to a large-scale, high human tragedy disaster?

A. I don't think about that shit man, besides, people kill each other with shovels- do you want to control shovels too?

Q. With this technology, does the level of possible disaster scale linearly with the level of adoption by society ?

A. Fuck you man. If it was left to people like you, we'd still be sitting in the dark. "Oh, electricity, it looks so dangerous, just think what bad people could do with this. Better ban it! Someone get me a candle!

There is no specific gene for forward-thinking, defensive strategizing in the absence of a very well defined and concrete threat to the herd. Basically, it seems like a low-interest, highly speculative, low-value activity.

There IS a gene for taking parts which have different capabilities and creating cool composite new things with them that bring me abilities and extend my power over the world in some way !

There's also a lot of money to be made engaging with the second and, well, you'd have to pay people to engage in the first.

I think we can see where this is going.

but please, let my low score and follow on comments speak for themselves.

Re:Exactly. No one wants to think of the negative

[gtall]

You missed one. Just about every company has been taught over the years to be paranoid of the competition stealing their cookies, and the concept of "you do better by screwing the competition". Even in the absence of the millionaire to billionaire track, there would be an a push for this sort of technology. The cost of production is currently such that it is cheaper to produce a car with a single universal bus rather than two to isolate key engine components.

Normally, we would rely on government to capture these sort of externality costs (e.g., safety, security, etc.). With the current crowd in Washington, we can no longer rely on government. So we must wait until the bodies pile up and the courts grind out enough justice to raise the cost of not doing these systems properly.

Worthless and costly not just costly or worthelss

[Anonymous Coward]

If your website is hacked we lose the website, if your car is hacked we could lose you or an innocent bystander or maybe just the car, It should be obvious which is a bigger cost by many orders of magnitude. If we lose the internet we have to go back to either paper distribution or one way broadcast of, information news and entertainment, and this will slow the whole economy down by a very significant amount break apart families stop high speed distribution of the result of medical diagnostics, again death and poverty. If we lose (or do not create) the networking capacity for cars (not the entertainment systems which are separate under any non stupid set-up) then we lose the ability to update the car software without opening the boot, and a few fractions of a percent more driving efficiency when on autopilot, which itself will get more expensive (or not get cheaper) I would be surprised if even the most ham-fisted ban had any noticable affect assuming there was a transition period.

TLDR: The costs and benefits are so different that even an idiot can see that your analogy fails

Expert

[Anonymous Coward]

Expert: Combination of Ex (a has-been) and spurt (a drip under pressure).

Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be common sense, and I agree 100%. Under no circumstances should the critical systems of a motor vehicle be connected to the internet. Unfortunately, the verdict will be decided by money, not common sense. If there is more money to be made by exposing you to danger (probably by spying on you and selling your tracking history), then they will gladly expose you to danger.

Please Ignore This Post

[Anonymous Coward]

// Hack this.
4e2b 171d 5734 67e3
f2b2 170b 7d26 aa6a
6a4e e665 0b9c ebf1
6953 dede 64e1 d3ee
c88d 59a0 43df 333b
a0cf 43e3 78eb 2658
b66d 5f81 baff 71f3
a3c8 eb9d 669b 52a5

Stop the presses

[Anonymous Coward]

Experts have no confidence that our possessions are accessible to thieves and vandals.

Computers are hard!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's go shopping!

And another thing

[WOOFYGOOFY]

If you think the govt is all up in your shit online because you might download some Disney movie illegally, just wait until you can crash cars via internet access.

Then you'll need a license to even USE the internet. Think that's far fetched? It's not. If we let the internet become a common vector of attack against just everything, then kiss even your pseudo-anonymity goodbye. They will pull your license to surf just like they can pull your driver's license.

We don't NEED IoT so let's not rush and build an insecure one. Security in IoT should be more or less impossible to break or tamper with and if we can't think of a way to achieve that yet, then let's wait until we can.

AMEN

[Anonymous Coward]

"Experts Have No Confidence That We Can Protect Cars and Streets From Hackers"

Neither.....Do....I...

Security standards

[phantomfive]

That role would include setting security and privacy standards when V2I and V2V networks become operational.",

There's only one standard: "No security breaches."
We can follow that up with, "For each security breach, you pay a fine of X dollars, and a bounty to the discoverer."

That won't work perfectly, but it will work much much better than creating a list of coding standards. Create the incentive and people will find better ways to write good code than by following any silly 'standard.'

Sounds like everything connected to a network ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... already has a back door that the government, or crackers, can exploit :-(

Previous plans pointed toward car industry control

[fustakrakich]

Yes,well, let's all hope we understand where that leads us by now.

Re: The "experts" are on crack... it can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

Blu-Ray was hacked years ago. Decrypting them is trivial at best these days. WGA and secure boot can also easily be bypassed, as secure boot can be turned off on most devices. Forcing secure boot would end up a legal nightmare for MS as other OS's would also be excluded. That's why it's up to the manufacturer, and they too don't want the headache. The experts may be on crack, but you have no idea what your talking about. Anything can be hacked, it's just a matter of how long it takes. Sometimes it just isn't worth the hassle, so people don't bother, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

go retro

[swschrad]

you COULD dig some 60s Mopars out of the junkyard, and study them. they have excellent internal data security.

the other option... no wifi, no data connections from the sound system to the rest of the car, no wireless comms. the diagnostic connector must have rolling passwords, just like a garage door opener. no other entry points to the car network. and get rid of commercial OS and software, cars are a killing tool in all but a handful of modes, there should be a custom RTOS running the gizmos.

V2V's purpose is enriching industry/surveillance

[WaffleMonster]

The point of V2V is to force people to pay money to install and maintain useless systems for the purpose of assisting bulk electronic surveillance.

V2V has no compelling safety based use case anyone has ever been able to coherently explain.

Just look at their website they show a vehicle with a display showing the words "COLLISION ALERT".

Then we have classic V2V use case.. the pile up accident caused by an unbroken chain of idiots failing to maintain proper following distance. If the car in front of the car in front of you brakes then V2V will warn you to stop... really? I have a better idea... a sensor on the front of your own damn vehicle that warns YOU when you are being that tailgating idiot who spectacularly fails to maintain proper following distance or warns when you are not paying attention and are therefore about to crash. No V2V or RF transmissions required. Nothing to hack or secure.

In fact the supposed benefits (forward collision/emergency break,lane change/blindspot) don't require any vehicle to vehicle communications protocols of any kind. These features are already in production models currently on the road implemented with a few dollars worth of sensors. Cars will even panic brake for you now.

Re:Can we protect

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget, it's all pink on the inside.

The great philosopher Criswell observed:

[Anonymous Coward]

We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.

NSA should secure public automated transportation

[Bobbox1980]

We know that about 30,000 people are killed each year in the U.S. due to ordinary traffic accidents. Computer controlled vehicles will drastically decrease this in the coming years. We can't not afford to implement computer controlled vehicles. Why not have the NSA secure automated vehicle software. They would likely be ahead of the game on security vulnerabilities and are best positioned out of everyone to secure automated vehicles. Yes there is an issue with having the NSA track everyone's movements all the time. That is unfortunately happening to a lesser extent now with police license plate scanners.

- Jew techno murder weapons -

[Anonymous Coward]

Not enough of the masses have given a shit about the future which is why the JEW owns it now. Unless idiots get off their ass and stop the jew, the jew fraud 'government', their mass of 'tech' weapons, their scum chemtrails they are spraying us with, there will be NO future except for the millions of scum jews in the tribe and their chinese slaves. See 'jew weapon systems' post above, mass fact on jew fraud 'government', weapons systems, their mass murder history, links information -

The Bigger Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the recent car software "algorithm" was not discovered, demonstrates that the auto industry do not thoroughly verify even the function of software via source code review. This indicates that in no way can I have confidence that security aspect is audited competently (if at all).

If the auto industry want to incorporate new technology, then they have to use it competently. I write automation systems in the oil and gas industry and the idea of combining the brake control system with the outside world makes my jaw drop. One day an accident will happen and regulation will catch up. Tis the way of the world...