I’m just thinking critically here and I am in no way trying to premeditate crimes here ok? Just a massive disclaimer. I know NSA and CSIS would be on top of this lol.
Ok, so I’ve been thinking about car tech lately, namely, automatic front collision prevention, Mercedes seatbelt (they hug you firmly when you buckle up), lane assist, etc etc.
It’s all good and awesome for the name of safety…but is it actually? >:)
It is, I’m not denying that. My concern though is it can be manipulated for the worst. Here are some examples:
a.) automatic front collision prevention
I’m thinking of spy movies here and if you’re (car) chasing someone, all you have to do is just drop and block the front of the car somehow and the car will automatically stop. This is the part where SWAT (or antagonists in some movies) would walk up to your door with guns shouting “freeze”.
Better yet, you know those funny stupid images about dogs where you strap a rod on them with a dangling dog bone on the other end? This image was supposed to force the dog to keep running forward? (I think there was a variation about this with humans and a strung pile of cash).
With this same concept, create a magnetized equipment that will latch on the under belly of the car, set the plank/pole/rod/bar to be long enough within the range of the proximity sensor, then attach a material there that the sensors look for. I think any object works.
b.) Mercedes Benz seatbelt snug
If you didn’t know already, in MB cars, when you buckle in, the seatbelts automatically hug you firmly, I guess for the safety of keeping your seatbelt tight and close to you. Awesome feature.
But if it’s digital, can you not hack it later on and rig the seatbelt to become tighter? Either you incapacitate someone with that, hold them, or make it fatal 😐
c.) Lane assist
I am assuming that the tech behind this is that there are cameras tracing the position of the lanes (the actual lines on the road) as you move forward. Of course the car’s logic will be to “don’t cross the left line, and the right line”. If so, go the other direction.
Uhm….if that’s the case, you can paint the road yourself, redirect the line—say for example off the cliff—and there you go, crime. Tsk tsk.
There’s plenty more but let’s stop at that. I’m getting scared for my digital presence LOL. NSA must have classified me as terrorist right now LOL.
Anyways, I’m a web developer by trade. We like open-source. We open-source problems, so that communities can solve it faster, better, more efficiently. The intent is not to spread malicious ideas. I hope car manufacturers have these covered already, if not, I hope soon.
Part of my skillset and job requirements is that we preview things in our head, make things go wrong (in code) so we can fix and prevent them (debugging).
So that is what I’m doing here NSA/CSIS ok? 🙂
