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U.S. Proposes Car-To-Car Data Sharing Standards (networkworld.com)
Calling it "the next revolution in roadway safety," the U.S. Department of Transportation hopes to standardize "vehicle communications" technology. Slashdot reader coondoggie writes:
The idea is to enable a multitude of new crash-avoidance applications that could save lives by preventing "hundreds of thousands of crashes every year by helping vehicles 'talk' to each other," the DOT stated... [D]evices would use the dedicated short range communications to transmit data, such as location, direction and speed, to nearby vehicles. That data would be updated and broadcast up to 10 times per second to nearby vehicles, and using that information, V2V-equipped vehicles can identify risks and provide warnings to drivers to avoid imminent crashes.
Self-driving cars (and human drivers) could be informed when it's safe to enter the passing lane (or when cars move into a vehicle's blind spot), for example, and "often in situations in which the driver and on-board sensors alone cannot detect the threat." Federal agencies estimate it will cost just $350 per vehicle by 2020 (and dropping over the decades to come), and they've also already issued guidelines about securing these systems from unauthorized access.
Self-driving cars (and human drivers) could be informed when it's safe to enter the passing lane (or when cars move into a vehicle's blind spot), for example, and "often in situations in which the driver and on-board sensors alone cannot detect the threat." Federal agencies estimate it will cost just $350 per vehicle by 2020 (and dropping over the decades to come), and they've also already issued guidelines about securing these systems from unauthorized access.
and the end is great!
"I am 6 inches away from you! Swerve hard!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
A) How is it anonymized
B) How is it authenticated.
Let me give you a hint; this will be a proprietary standard that will make the politically appointed rich, absolutely destroy any anonyminity of movement you might have had, and give probably cause to arrest anyone, anytime.
[D]evices would use the dedicated short range communications to transmit data, such as location, direction and speed, to nearby vehicles.
I'm sure nobody will figure out the frequencies and the protocol, and they definitely won't build a device that spews out random figures that cause surrounding cars to immediately accelerate, brake, or swerve.
All good intentions get corrupted. As well as the data could be used, it should not be available to companies or the government. The consequences are too high.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
"Only $350 per vehicle"
So, at least $1000 per vehicle, and probably a lot more?
And then they'll be able to put up a bunch of sensors along the streets to keep track of where anyone goes at any particular time, and do things like monitor adherence to traffic laws.
Of course, they'll say "we would never do that," but we all know how that sort of thing works out in the long run.
Sounds kinky.
While this has clear utility and in the long run it may save lives, it has a large cost in privacy which is obvious to almost everyone reading this.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
it might make rush hour traffic jams less stressful if some music can be shared among drivers in their cars in some sort of mesh network
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Is this the same story as Feds Unveil Rule Requiring Cars To 'Talk' To Each Other, or am I missing something?
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
Why must they automatedly ticket me? And why is the frequency one every five minutes.
Swerve hard!
Your car can do that at speed, it's a great way to destroy your car and snap your spine. My car has safety features that make a head-on impact (at moderate speeds) cause negligible injuries.
This data needs to be processed by a vehicle's own situational awareness algorithm. This helps it reacting to known vehicles before a threat can appear, which shouldn't happen anyway because the algorithm should be driving to its capabilities, not depending on this data to prevent threats. What happens when that algorithm can't 'see' a vehicle at the described position? It needs to decide to whether to react, possibly violently, to the invisible car or declare it a sensor error.
As a motorcyclist, I'm both thrilled and terrified by this tech. On one hand, maybe a sensor-laden car will do a better job of detecting me than the driver alone. On the other hand, if the sensors are only tuned to detect the average Buick, I'm toast. I hope to hell the folks in the testing labs realize that their sensors need to see _all_ road users.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story...
Wasn't the article posted just 4 days ago about this good enough? And as I said there....
I am extremely worried about this.
1) It will be abused. Period. You know it will contain the VIN or other unique ID. So readers on the side of the road will be monitoring everyone everywhere- where you go, how fast you were going, etc. Endless tickets in the mail.
2) It will be hacked. Period. And once it is, it could cause chaos and devastation on the roads- causing other vehicles to panic and brake, others to swerve, etc. It would be one thing if this data were read-only, but we all know it will be linked into active controls. Road rage weapon. Stupid teenager prank. Whatever.
3) It will be hijacked. With active controls tie-ins, police cars could use spoofed info as one way to kinda remotely-control other cars. And, of course, if they can do it, so can criminals. It will give a new meaning to the word "carjacking"....
4) It will often be non-upgradable. Car manufacturers have a proven dismal track record on keeping ANYTHING updated on their cars. Once it is sold, they couldn't care less about the vehicle, unless they can somehow turn it into an endless stream of revenue.
Like any technology, there are good things and bad things with each "improvement". This is no exception. It can advance safety and improve self-driving options. But, ultimately, such outside/transmitted information should always be untrusted AND able to be overridden by the driver (and/or AI) in ALL cases. But will systems be designed that way? And even if so, hacking into them and presenting false information can still be dangerous, distracting, and very annoying.
A) What kind of measures does this system take to mitigate the propagation of false information?
B) What would prevent data collection by third parties?
From everything I've read, there are no intrinsic defenses that ensure accuracy or privacy.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Somebody has a narrative to push and this social media site didn't fall in line last time. Whoever is paying for this will keep pushing stories to support their narrative until enough people accept it or become worn down and accede to its inevitability.
Give them points for trying to make it a more techno-geek angle this time but deduct points because they couldn't resist banging the "this is for your own good!" drum again.
And if the US government holds true to form, it will promulgate a standard that is not compatible with that adopted in Europe.
http://www.safercar.gov/v2v/pd...
The security discussion begins around page 128. The proposed public key rotation would use a bunch of public keys each week, requiring about 1K public keys per year. It also suggests quick expiration of certificates. Although the proposal does not say it, as a practical matter this sounds like it will become a great way for vehicle vendors to charge you a few hundred bucks a year for required certificates and to get you back to the dealer. It also makes it harder for anyone other than the manufacturer or dealer to data mine.
"To help improve the level of confidence in BSM messages the agency’s primary message authentication proposal describes a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) approach to message authentication. ... In addition two alternatives are presented for comment. This first alternative for message authentication set out for comment is less prescriptive and defines a performance-basedbased approach rather than a specific architecture or technical requirement. The second alternative set out for comment stays silent on message authentication and does not specify a message authentication requirement, leaving authentication at the discretion of V2V device implementers"
Real lawyers write in C++
also already issued guidelines about securing these systems from unauthorized access.
Have we learned nothing from the internet and its IoT problem?
At a fundamental level, it's incredibly difficult to prevent unauthorized access to a physical device someone owns, and I deeply dislike relying on a signals from other cars that can be jammed, interfered with, or abused. If the internet has taught us anything, it's that people will figure out how to crack damn near everything, and good things will be abused just because. Someone may try to get cars to react to a phantom obstacle just for the lulz, to be recorded and uploaded to YouTube.
Finally... are we even certain such a system would be of any benefit? Before we start legislating or regulating these sorts of systems into existence, let's allow self-driving technology to mature on its own a bit first, and see if this would even be useful. Otherwise we'll pay an extra $350 (or more likely $1000, as someone else rightly observed) tax for hardware that has no practical purpose.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The opposite wonders how the people will become when they can count on a physical computing device in their car.
They absolute have to pay the creator and negotiate a contract to deal with all future problems. They must talk to this person via a direct liason (individual person) with English words as the US is an English speaking country.
The scientific fact is that it's simple but the people are just too stupid to use it properly and will end up having to have themselves killed because they can't do anything else. In fact they will probably ask for it verbally.
That's quite pathetic if you ask me.
We see things like this already in aircraft. They are very expensive, quite delicate, and not something I expect to see in the common passenger vehicle any time soon. Expense is one reason why people might not like it, the potential for government abuse is another.
It seem that whenever I turn on local talk radio there is almost always a mention of red light cameras, automated speed traps, license plate readers, and other ways the government wants to turn traffic enforcement into a revenue system. The government wants people to put electronics into their cars that transmits location, speed, brake light status, and perhaps other information so that government owned and controlled traffic signals can pick them up. I expect a lot of resistance to this.
The article claims the information would not be personally identifiable. My immediate response was, "bullshit!" Even if the V2V communication did not identify the vehicle over the air we still have license plates on cars and license plate reader technology, this will be abused.
What if a person that disables the transmitter? Is this in itself going to be considered "suspicious" behavior? You have nothing to hide, citizen, therefore you have nothing to fear, right?
I am fully expecting at some point a widespread level of civil disobedience on this, and soon. If taken too far people will rip the license plates off their cars and keep driving. What are the police going to do, arrest us all? The government governs with the permission of the people. People have license plates on their cars only because they permit it. This permission can be revoked.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
needs to have forced updates for at least 5-7 years at no cost to the end user even if an Computer swap is needed.
Make not toll roads track people and they don't send speed tickets based on time or even enforce the 55 limit that much.
V2V-equipped vehicles can identify risks and provide warnings to drivers to avoid imminent crashes. Self-driving cars (and human drivers) could be informed when it's safe to enter the passing lane (or when cars move into a vehicle's blind spot), ...
Then we can be fined if we ignore the safety advise/warnings from our cars.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
They suck and some places want at least $100 min to look at an issue vs say going to a non dealer place and getting a free look with an fix about about $100.
What kills me about all this stuff is the assumption cars are replaced ever week. The AVERAGE age of a car on the road is over 10 years now. The AVERAGE age. So that means some people are driving 20 year old cars. Do we make everybody buy a new one, even if they cannot afford it? The first thing all these standard dips should think about is how is the new stuff going to interact with cars that don't have it for the next 20 years.
As an example merging is one of the biggest bottlenecks is some traffic flow. Varying reaction times, driver choices and risk tolerance all contribute significantly to congestion. If congestion isn't the number one problem it must be near the top of the list.
Networked, self driving vehicles are here. Logically it necessary to establish a industry protocol.
Vehicles could be packed tighter and safer( just a lot more unnerving ) at consistent speeds.
I like the security aspects.
It drastically lowers the possibility of faking a transponder to cause accidents and shut down traffic, while at the same time make you require a subscription to the public key distribution network to be able to use your car.
Instead, I will have to take two lantern batteries, and rip the transponder with the valid keys out of your new BMW, in order to cause accidents and shut down traffic.
Have we learned nothing from the internet and its IoT problem?
Sure we have. I've learned yet again that the government and manufacturers will only get serious about the security of these things only after something major happens. I'm actually surprised that they are this on the ball so early. Normally they wait until a couple competing standards get established which of course are inoperable.
(U//FOUO) 'Can You See Me Now?' - GPS Enabled Technologies
FROM: Gary Davis
Technical Director, Joint Proforma Center (S2J34)
Run Date: 04/27/2004
FROM: Gary Davis
Technical Director, Joint Proforma Center (S2J34)
(U//FOUO) Almost everyone is familiar with the cell phone catch phrase, "Can you hear me
now?" The next era, "Can you see me now?", has arrived. Numerous devices using Global
Positioning Systems (GPS) for determining their location have proliferated across every part of
society. These devices are not only able to transmit their location information, but also receive
location information from similar devices. Imagine being able to see where all of your buddies
are located when planning a lunch. You could overlay the locations of Chinese restaurants in the
area, select the best or closest one, and send that location to your buddies. Well, that time is
already here.
(U//FOUO) GPS-based systems, and similar technologies, enable us to know many things such
as:
where am I;
where are my buddies;
where is my car;
where is my boat;
where are other boats in my area.
(U//FOUO) Obviously, these are just a few examples, and the amount of information from these
types of devices has exploded recently, resulting in an "Information Tsunami." This huge wave
of information is only going to grow larger. As costs of Global Positioning Systems become more
affordable, these devices will be integrated into our daily life and become an increasingly
invisible service that we come to rely on for even the simplest of tasks.
(S//SI) One of the first examples of the global use of this type of technology is the ITU-R
M.1371-1 recommendation jointly developed by the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) and International Maritime Organization (IMO) and known in the public domain as
Automatic Identification System (AIS). AIS is a standard that governs the means for
transmitting and receiving information on a ship's position, course, speed, name, type of cargo,
size, destination, etc. It also provides a framework for extending the basic capability to include
TELEX messages, ship way points, and gives vendors the capability to provide proprietary
services to ships outfitted with its equipment.
(S//SI) AIS-derived SIGINT is already available to the SIGINT production chain, with
dissemination limited under interim OGC (Office of the General Counsel) guidance. Although
significant legal and policy hurdles remain, SIGINT exploitation of AIS is already a success in
terms of grappling with widespread self-disclosure technologies. Exploitation of AIS exemplifies
how NSA, as a Combat Support Agency, can help assure information superiority by providing
precise and timely geopositions far beyond the range of most tactical sensors -- allowing not
only enhanced Force Protection but also setting the stage for automated correlation of
unidentified commercial radar intercepts to specific vessels.
(S//SI) And this is just the beginning. NSA's Joint PROFORMA Center (JPC) is the Executive
Agent for developing these new technologies. The JPC is responsible for the technical analysis,
oversight of the processor architecture, coordination of data dissemination, and is the
Intelligence Community's SIGINT focal point for these systems. JPC will help provide an
unprecedented level of detailed information on the location and movements of high value assets
including people, ships, cargo, etc. for support in the global war on terrorism and support to
military operations worldwide. For more detailed information please contact the Joint PROFORMA
Center ("go proforma" in your browser).
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
TOP SECRET
DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108
Interoperability between car vendor will take decades to implement, not to mention the cost would be prohibitive.
Instead, if cars implement just two, currently available features, we can eliminate most accidents:
* Lank Keeping Assist - So cars don't swerve off the road (Distracted drivers, Incapacitated drivers, Drivers suffering from a heart attack, seizure, sleep deprivation)
* Collision Avoidance System - So cars don't run into other stopped cars, pedestrians, cyclists
Thats it. Make those features mandatory, and you will see a dramatic fall in traffic accidents.
We have already seen people hack into cars and do things like turn off brakes, accelerate, and steer despite the driver trying to maintain control. Car to Car increases an already insecure point and could result in massive problems. Forget "I'm 6 inches away", consider "I'm a mile away" and the problems this will lead to on a busy freeway. How about "my speed is 55" when in fact it is 25, so your car crashes into them.
Yet another example of why IoT is not a good idea for mass consumption. It never will be, because humans are humans. Not all of us are good, and not all of us are bad. We can't ignore the latter extreme when considering technology.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
needs to have forced updates for at least 5-7 years at no cost to the end user even if an Computer swap is needed
My current vehicles (8) range from 2 to 40 years old (and, yes they all function to factory specifications, including emissions. Factory trained Master Mechanic in a previous life.) What good would updates for 5 to 7 years do for me? I'm not going to get rid of my paid-for vehicles just so some asshole doesn't have to watch the road! (and I will keep them on the road for another 40 years, easily)
A device that shuts your phone off unless the vehicle is not running.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
it will share all your data with whomever is willing to pay for it and the nsa, It will bend the owner over backwards and fuck them all the while claiming its is giving you the best protection possible.
So drivers can cuss each other out instead of just using hand signals.
If I turn it off, (or disable it, or it just plain breaks), in my car, will my car be "invisible" to other cars on the road? What would having a car that is not seen by the other cars do? Am I at risk of the other cars driving into my car then?
Relative position, or absolute position? If the latter, then do they really think they can get centimeter accuracy out of GPS? If the former, do they really think they can get reliability out of whatever sensing system they plan to use? What about jamming, intentional or not intentional? What about vehicles that don't have this technology? What about motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians? Animals? Random inanimate objects? Will you be able to turn it off if it's causing problems? I see lots and lots of problems with a 'system' like this.
But what happens when a car lies to the other cars?
V2V is trying to introduce laser disc in the era of Blu-ray/streaming video.
V2V is teaching people to write in glyphs to make their scribbles readable by their palm pilots.
When V2V push started the technology for computers to monitor and respond to the world as it is in real-time didn't exist at a cost or form that was practical or affordable.
This is no longer the case. The world has moved while V2V is stubbornly stuck in the past. The only remaining benefits of V2V above CV based technologies which react to the world as it actually is was enrichment of those who lobbied and stand to profit massively from a government mandate and TLAs interested in mass surveillance.
V2V cannot be secured. V2V will be abused by criminal enterprise and governments. V2V will be abused by stalkers and kids with nothing better to do. V2V will be used to trigger bombs. It will be used to catalogue everywhere everyone goes en-masse in the same way AIS and ADS-B is currently abused for reasons having nothing to do with public safety.
Government figures on lives saved and benefits are worthless lies that don't consider competing technologies. Our choices are not either a 70's pinto or V2V.
;-)
Surely it will be very useful to display Ads on back of the car in front of you ;)
Indeed, it is by nature almost useless since anything told to you by any car must be considered malicious and non-authoritative, meaning it can't be used for making any decisions. Anything you learn from other cars must be verified before it is used, but once you can verify that information, you are also capable of just detecting that information yourself.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
While I agree with you generally that this government developed V2V system is a bad idea I will disagree on a point you made. While this V2V system does in fact provide information that cannot be trusted it does give more information than if it wasn't there. The information would have to be verified but the mere presence of the signal gives more information for the driver to work with.
Imagine a foggy day and you are having difficulty seeing cars on the road. With this V2V system one might have a heads up display that can highlight cars on the road ahead. It's quite likely to be much cheaper than a radar system to implement since the radio source would not have to be swept, it needs only to be a beacon for other similarly equipped vehicles to detect. A well behaved transmitter would give good information that should be easy to verify by the computer and the driver. This well behaved actor gives an "I'm over here" signal, the computer can do a shortcut verification routine and/or the driver can see on the HUD if the other vehicle is where it says it is by looking for the vehicle's corner lights in the fog. This reduces driver mental load and gives some confidence in driving.
A poorly behaved transmitter will give bad information but the bad information can be verified relatively quickly in most cases since bad location or speed data will not match things like where the signal is coming from, Doppler effects, and so forth. The shortcut verification used for a good actor would fail and so a longer bad actor system would come in to give as best of an estimate of vehicle speed, location, etc. as it could from the signal it has. The receiving system can indicate potentially bad data with a different color on the HUD or some other indicator. Even a very poorly behaved system, like one designed with an overly strong and noisy signal intended to jam would still give an indication of it's presence. This jamming signal will, with the use of an inexpensive phased antenna array on the receiver, potentially give location and speed. This might mask the presence of other vehicles but again the HUD can indicate a problem and perhaps even offer solutions, such as slowing down, taking an alternate route, or simply shutting down and not causing distraction until the poorly behaved vehicle is out of range.
A vehicle with no V2V system would not offer helpful information but then this is no worse than not having the V2V system at all. Such vehicles could be lost in the fog but a careful driver should still be aware of the surroundings since other potential obstacles on the road, like animals or downed tree branches, would not have this V2V system either.
My main opposition to such a system is the imposition of it by government. If a private company offered something similar on the market then I'd have much less of a problem with it's use. A privately developed system could offer levels of features to match the driver's preferences and budget. For example a privacy conscious person might want only a receiver, they'd see others on the road with these systems but give no indication of their presence on the road except, of course, they'd be seen by other drivers. A person that is safety and cost conscious might want a transmit only version, the car would announce itself so that other drivers with V2V receivers can get an extra notice of the vehicle's location. A fully decked out version could make use of all the features and add in things like an actual short range radar to make non-V2V cars more visible.
I'm skeptical of it's utility like you but I have some optimism that it could add to traffic safety. My main problem is the potential imposition by the government for its use. This system would no doubt be abused by bad actors in the government to do things like make stalking easier, mission creep where the claim of no personally identifiable information being transmitted is gone in a future version, and be a means to create more revenue for the government by fees, fines, and traffic enforcement that is merely another means to tax drivers than actually keep us safer.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The main thing that concerns me with your analysis is that there is too much focus on what can be done if there is a well-behaved actor. In fact, there are no well-behaved actors: you must assume they are all malicious or incompetent.
Your example suggests that the only thing that can be learned is "I am here!" messages. I will concede that these might be useful, but depending on them instead of radar (or vision) is foolish.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I make no claim that this V2V system should be depended upon instead of actually looking at the traffic ahead. I make the claim that if implemented correctly it would be much cheaper than any kind of radar system and provide additional information to the driver that the driver might not actually be able to see. One example given was being able to detect a driver braking in front of the car immediately ahead. This would give a driver additional time to slow down. A safe driver should always give ample room for braking safely but this could turn a panic braking situation into a much safer and more comfortable slow down.
We see much of the benefits claimed by this system already from things like additional sensors and cameras added to vehicles. What this claims to add is not just better situational awareness of other vehicles on the road but also communication with infrastructure, like traffic lights and such.
I do understand may have a concern that people might rely on this system too much and get too "cocky" and think they can pass safely because the system does not detect an oncoming vehicle only to get a surprise from a non-V2V equipped vehicle, a large wild animal, fallen tree, or other obstacle on the road. If this is where your concern lies then I share it.
USDOT claims the system will have a means to sign and/or encrypt all transmission so that bad actors cannot be a part of the system. This seems to be a solved problem for the most part since this trust network for the WWW exists and seems to work well.
What I find a bit odd is that you seem to believe the greater threat comes from bad actors in the vehicles. I believe the bad actor is the government by the mere act of wanting to impose this as a mandated feature on vehicles.
I agree with you in a large part that this adds little value since much of the advantages of this system can be obtained from adding sensors to the vehicle and not relying on other vehicles to transmit data. I also believe that the claimed infrastructure interaction features already exist for the most part. Sensors in the road, above the road, or on the side of the road can show traffic flow without the added cost of a transmitter on the vehicle. Sending information to the drivers also largely exists by means of static signage, automated signage, and traffic radio.
I believe a big gain in safety could be given with little cost by adding weather band radio reception to the in-dash radios. I find it extremely frustrating that this is such a difficult to find feature. I find NOAA weather radio transmissions exceedingly useful but getting that in a car radio is like hunting for unicorns.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Aircrafts already have this. It is quite useful.
As for as people afraid of privacy. How many of you carry a cell phone? Because if you do carry a cell phone then you are already giving away your position.
After all the obvious bases have been covered, here's a new wrinkle to consider as these systems get hacked. I'm sure car insurance fraudsters are licking their chops at the possibilities on offer with these car-to-car communications being hacked to give bad info and create accidents on demand.
As this technology deploys, drivers will become more and more dependent upon it, which could lead to more dangerous accidents. Recall just a few years ago, pilots for Asiana Airlines in San Francisco crash when they had to land with a visual approach since the Precision ILS approach was not working on that runway. Similarly, if people are dependent upon this technology, people with cars with failed systems (out of service sensors, perhaps network not working) will be a hazard due to people assuming these systems are working 100% - when they aren't.
It's great if your car tells you that there's something in your blind spot, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't turn your head and personally visually confirm that before you change lanes. People already don't look well enough now, and this will just give them more excuse to drive without proper attention of all the vehicles around them.
Nothing to keep hobbyists from creating Arduino gadgets that do such a thing.
First the range-sensing features, mounted in the front and rear license plate frames and connected to the gadget. Connect it into the car's diagnostic port to get speed and perhaps other information.
Even without interacting with other cars' gadgets, it could still announce useful things, like "Yikes! That car's slowing down fast!" or "You're tailgating more than usual." or "You've been averaging 27 MPH in stop-and-go. You might want to back off a little and just drive 27 for a while."
After more cars in a vicinity have it, adding car-to-car features starts to make sense.
Get enough of them, and reporting of bumper-to-bumper conditions becomes (at least sometimes) available.
I'd love to know about a slowdown (or a speed-up) that was over the next hill or around the bend, and adjust my speed and following distance to save on braking and accelerating before it became obvious it was a good idea -- 30 seconds ago.
With adequate shared data and appropriate algorithms, maybe we could avoid those damn standing-wave blockages that persist long after the original cause has been removed. It might help even if the gadgets were not on all cars.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
This seems to be a solved problem for the most part since this trust network for the WWW exists and seems to work well.
You sure about that? It works well enough, most of the time, but can be compromised, I wouldn't trust it with my life.
I find the privacy concerns here overrated. If you are afraid of being tracked, disable your transmitter, or spoof your vehicle ID, etc. Go ahead, who cares. Hopefully you'll also have the ability to buy a third-party device (or build your own) which lets you do stuff like this, instead of depending on the original manufacturer who probably won't. While the Fords and GMs won't like alternate suppliers, they're also not likely to provide retrofits, so an aftermarket might spring up to handle older vehicles... and user-preference scenarios. Does NAPA have lobbying power?
The real benefit seems to be with new robo-cars (driver-less), or commercial services like taxis & uber, big things like trucks, and utility functions like police, firetrucks, ambulances - which would benefit from broadcasting their INTENTS of direction, speed, maneuvers, maybe even destination, etc. Also smaller vehicles like bicycles and motorcycles which may want to broadcast just to be noticed, as their accidents often involve other drivers who just don't see them.
How to RECEIVE and process this incoming data is an interesting question. Maybe an augmented windscreen, showing small color-enhancements of what to expect, and warning indication of impending hazards? There's also automation potential in some form. I assume reception will be free and without required login, ie, the familiar broadcast model.
Security against hackers is certainly a good topic, but just part of the picture of bad data. What if a real registered driver intentionally give "fake indications", or merely makes a mistake in giving it, or simply changes her mind?
I recall a cop saying that turn signals are only suggestions; they can fine you for not using them (or doing so falsely), but you are still liable for accidents if you believe someone's mistaken signal and trust that instead of doing diligence in watching what the other driver really does. In other words, it's a mandatory but still advisory system. Contradictions and displeasure aside, at least we have a working model to build upon.
...this sounds extremely cool. Imagine a low-level protocol, where cars can communicate with each other and help each other out. If there's an accident you could get notifications before you ever arrive at the accident site.
Yeah, there are security concerns. Duh! What doesn't have "security concerns" these days? I'm not saying to ignore those concerns and do stupid stuff with protocol design. Just design the protocol with those concerns in mind and make it hard-to-impossible for Big Brother to leverage the inter-car communications. It won't be perfect of course. And you will have endless "bright" politicians who keep trying for the Big Brother thing to make themselves look good. "Think of the Children" they will bleat. Ignore them, and save thousands of lives from accidents on our roads.
Also sounds like a bit much for a software package. Modern cars usually have the communications hardware and all the necessary processing power to handle this available if not standard, right?
"I make no claim that this V2V system should be depended upon instead of actually looking at the traffic ahead."
Yes, but people do become dependent and lazy. They get lulled into that sense of security that the system will save their ass, so they can keep looking away at their cell phone, doing their makeup, etc. Case in point...blind spot warning systems. They're great, but not perfect, and you see it all the time where people don't look over their shoulders anymore.
Just another day in Paradise
So this article links to a story here, and on the very same page, NHTSA links to the remote exploits story below. Someone there needs to connect the dots.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-re...
Motor Vehicles Increasingly Vulnerable to Remote Exploits
https://www.ic3.gov/media/2016...
Just another day in Paradise