Another sci-fi bit becomes reality.

[jup]

Once upon a time, a computer genius by the name of Randy Merrit hacked his way into the Knight Two Thousand to remotely drive it around for some missions.

Well, a few weeks ago, the real world caught up as two computer hackers by the names of Chris Valasek and Charlie Millertake took advantage of some net accessed software that is built in to some modern day Jeep series and basically get control over everything...from the power windows and locks to the steering wheel, easily driving it around from a laptop via the internet. And, they plan on releasing a part of their hacking code to some convention so that many can figure out how to remotely take over other vulnerable cars.

https://youtu.be/8UeJkQ9pz3s

Looks like a danger, written about all so very long ago has just become a reality to be concerned over. Hope your K-2000 anti-piracy software is up to date.

[Knight Racer]

I can see police officers trying to arrest people who try to use a phones or tablet to gain access into a vehicle. My how we've come a long way from crowbars and hotwiring cars. I can see an old man saying in my day we had to jimmy a door lock open with credit cards. Now you kids with your fancy glass computers just hack through key panels and biometric scans.

[jup]

I can still remember the first time I witnessed someone press a button on their key remote and start up their sports car. And thinking that I'd never want a $20,000+ investment to be as easy to steal as broadcasting a couple tones on the right RF frequency.

As for detouring this kind of crime...I must ponder just what the future of Police tools may be coming out. After all, it was quite revolutionary when cruisers started supporting computer interfaces to their databases. Now, some sport these cameras that work with that system over just the camcorder dash board models. It's almost a science fiction show, just imagining what the future cop might have to be equipped with.

And, it's like what they were saying in the video. They could be sitting in New York and be driving a hijacked car in Los Angeles. Takes a new age kind of cop to fight that kind of crime.

[tharpdevenport]

Back when I started to pay attention to things and wrote one of my first articles, I wanred in one about EDR's in cars that tech' in cars could be used to take over and murder somebody. I was proven right. Only a matter of time before somebody is killed that way, assuming governments havent' already done that.


Anybody who'd like a copy of that old writing can PM me and I'll gladly send a copy.

[jup]

I can also see those Google SmartCars and especially their successors...(the models that are permitted to drive faster then 25 MPH)...as becoming real dangers for viral attacks. Just imagine the potentials. From the simple kind of prank that keeps the car from working or acting like it really needs servicing is enough to put real lives into chaos. (I can just imagine how people take their vehicles for granted. When you are going somewhere, more often then not, it's because you got to be somewhere...on-time. Not the time to have to fight a virus or update the car's computer. Just imagine trying to tell your place of work that you can't be there because your car refuses to drive you there. People will get fired over that. And, that can chain react in horrible ways.) Or a far worse virus that rewrites the software. Say, small bits of code that tell the car how to avoid pedestrians/cars/bicycles/cops in intersections/whatever is out there on the road. Wouldn't be hard at all to recode the program to target, instead of avoid. Or suicide virii that wait for a specific date and time to set all infected cars/trucks to go after specific targets...maybe a government building or event. It could get even worse. Say a terrorist type packs a self driving car with some kind of explosive device or fills the whole interior with some kind of detonation material. Then, sets the car to drive itself to a target destination. That nightmare could even happen without programming knowledge. After all, there are sick minds out there that do horrible things for any number of reasons. This one came across the radio, just the other day. A couple guys brought a ton of weapons and ammo to...of all things...a Pokemon Tournament. A place of gathering where families and kids were going to just have fun...and these guys were going to conduct mass murder. That just ranks up there with terrorists setting off bombs at a marathon or in subway stations or some sicko wanting to kill off movie goers to a preview night at a particular movie franchise. And it really pains me to think that such wonderful technology advances that could benefit all can also be twisted into instruments of revenge or statements of terror. After all, give the people 3-D printers and some go printing out functional guns...

I know that if I was in charge of designing a 'SmartCar', I would keep the internet luxury out of the computer that drives the car. Make that portion completely closed off from outside influence. I'd also have the software encoded on RAM chips that could not be rewritten. Perhaps even a checksum that sweeps through and verifies that the program running is equal to what should be there. None of this lazy patch stuff that programmers just love, these days. (Downloading patches have been known to create flaws in otherwise functional software, anyhow. Most certainly don't want unintentional updates causing your SmartCar to go BSoD! I say build it right and make sure it works before releasing to the general public.) Now, if a terrorist is going to make it happen, they would have to gain access and physically swap chips. Where there's a will...after all. But, I'd make it as hard as possible to corrupt the core brain that drives the thing.

Now, the best PC of all for this use is one that actually asks why it is doing something over just obeying orders...mindlessly. Today's computers are smarter, beefier, faster models of the same machines from 1980. Alas, they're still idiot boxes and we are now in need of something that makes that great leap into a new era of computing. (Problem is, morally, such a leap takes computers from being mere tools and crosses the line to slavery. Which is where you also enter that whole fictitious Terminator/Battlestar Galactica realm. AKA: The one where machines may rise up against their Human overlords.)

[tharpdevenport]

What's even worse is that they'll force self-driving cars on us. They'll keep expanding them into more areas and more and more people will drive them (as apparently a number of today's youth don't understand the need for a car). Cities and/or states will start taxing people for driving non self-driving cars. Auto iunsurance companies will raise the rates claiming self-driving cars are safer and even though we've been overwhlemingly good with cars for over a century, they'll say otherwise. And sure enough studies will come out and say the problem isn't safe cars but old cars that require a driver and it's old-fashioned automobiles that are the problem and causing accidents. Then cities and states will sure enough try to force people out of anything that isn't self-driving, with local and/or state taxes, except some left-wing cities which may try to ban them altogether (though the politicians, as always, will exempt themselves and/or be caught breaking the very law they passed).

If we don't wake people up to this, 50 years from now we'll be using cars that keep track of where and when we go and report it via a satellitle internet system, have countless devices that are "listening" to you and passengers speak, cars with a government kill switch (like we now have for radio, TV and now the internet) when the government deems it an emergency, more government regulation, more beauracracy, more agencies, more taxes, cars -- like posted above me -- that can be taken over and who knows what is done to you, cars that can be hacked to show maybe you went someplace you didn't (like maybe a strip club, or a known area where prostitues are, or maybe a house known to have some kind of illegal activity going on), and of course just general freedom -- the ability to take off when and where you want to without anybody nosing in about it.

[jup]

Actually, I saw a totally different approach to how self driving cars might out date our traditional cars.

Alright. Image if taxi services started running fleets of self drivers. To opt in to one of these, people pay a low, monthly subscription fee. After all, we all pay to drive, anyhow. We must buy fuel on a regular basis. (Or a few lucky types buy electricity.) Cars need insurance in some places and licensing fees. Vehicles eventually need repairs. It all adds up. And, there's also other inconveniences about owning cars. (Like finding parking spaces.) So, what if this service does away with many of the inconveniences? When you want to go somewhere, you use your SmartPhone app and 'request' a ride. If the system works well enough, a self driving taxi is only minutes...if not seconds away. You go where you want to with a minimal conflict time. (Now, owning your own car would cut down on that wait time, for sure. But, we're talking savings, here.) This would work as self drivers are always out there, roaming the roads and awaiting pick up orders. You don't have to worry about parking spaces or car costs/maintenance, as the taxi service handles all that. Imagine never having to drive the kids to school or a sports event or some other activity, ever again. Just let them 'dial a ride' via this taxi service, where they will always get to where they are going, safe and sound. (The way this world is getting, a parent can probably access a public service via their phone that tracks their kids via a vast array of traffic cameras and such at a future point.) And, once arriving, you just go about your way and so does the car...probably to another dialed in ride request. Any cleaning, maintenance, refills or anything else the car needs (like keeping anti-virus up-to-date and insurance needs) rides on the taxi service and not the individual. Imagine if a new generation grows up, preferring to pay $50 a month for an unlimited amount of passenger service miles, (Provided that these cars can always arrive 'clean''; without issues that public buses/trains might have. After all, a computerized taxi could have sensors that say it's become 'dirty' or vandalized and automatically switch to an off-duty mode in order to return to base for maintenance.) the very notion of actually owning a car might be seen as 'luxury' or even 'ancient'. Just imagine never having to stop at a gas pump, ever again. (Why, just stopping at a gas pump, these days, can run that $50.)

If a notion such as that were to catch on, it could do the same thing to personal cars as cel-phones did to pay phones. Sure would kill off a lot of car related businesses, too. (Insurance agencies would suffer. Gas stations would close and become only a few scattered buildings. Auto parts would go out of business. Salvage yards might survive via car collector enthusiasts. Probably other places I'm not thinking about, too. Like car dealerships and whole car manufacturers.)

Whoa...never having to spend the day at the DMV! Now, that's a biggie!

But, yea. Governments could also step in and pressure the public into converting over.

As for concealing where you've been from the government is already growing more outdated, every year. Here in California, there was a massive push to connect video cameras to every traffic signal that could host them. It was funny to see them connected to signals THAT ALSO USED the snapshot cameras that caught red light runners.

Now, Vegas has been using these really advanced computers for quite some time to recognize people by facial profiling. A part of the system is there to catch cheaters. But, this facial recognition is also able to identify people. If Vegas can afford this tech, why not the government? Imagine a main frame, dedicated to facial matches as cars pass by all these thousands of cameras. Always creating files on who passed what point at a certain time. A virtual diary of millions of lives in motion. To stop being tracked, you've got to get away from traffic signals. And spy satellites. So, guess what. Uncle Sam probably already knows when you go to strip clubs and how often. Let's just hope that Uncle Sam isn't the black mailing type. Homeland Security's already been taken too far. And, how do we know if modern cars aren't secretly transmitting GPS co-ordinance? When hackers are breaking in remotely via a software flaw, your new car never truly was yours to control, anyhow.

[tharpdevenport]

Let's just hope that Uncle Sam isn't the black mailing type.

Well, we are talking about a government that hacked into Sharyl Attkisson's computer when she apparently was going too far in her research of Benghazi, and started deleting things from her computer. She got an expert over and they both witnessed it happening in real time. Her told her they were "f**king with you".

Or a government that that just a month or two ago had somebody from DHS (I think it was) braging about how they are putting tracking and other survallience equipment in telephone poll lights and that we'd never know it was there.

Or, as I recall, a few years ago the C.I.A. said it wanted to put cameras into TV's so they could use them to see the other way.

Or a government that has the ability to read information from your computer even when you aren't connected online, via the power cord.

Or what they did to Brandon Raub.


Off the top of my head, from credible news sources, not conspiracy sites or George Noory stuff.


But blackmail? No -- that's way over the line for them.

[jup]

I do remember driving through a few neighborhoods and noticing on select light posts these odd box things on top. And, in traditional notions of warnings, they had plastered on them warnings about producing radio waves. It's never made any sense. Nor have some of those...erm...'things' that started appearing alongside the freeways awhile back.

It's like when I saw that Terminator 3 movie for the first time and just chuckled when the grown John Connor said he was staying off the grid by not having any credit/debit cards and taking up odd jobs. Because, even back then, I pretty much suspected that by driving around on public streets on his motorcycle, cameras were probably recording his facial image and making a database that the future Skynet could easily use to know exactly when and where he was for easy elimination.

Oh, yea. Government's getting way beyond that old notion of a camera in every room. (Ever ponder why any laptop/tablet/heck...portable gaming system has micro cameras in it that look right at you? Nice of these companies to promote visual conference calls...or something more sinister. On that note, I remember this guy's posting about when he started using a new OS on a brand new machine. He also had an older Mac with a camera that was old enough to have a 'power light' on it. Says he never actually used the camera. But, right after this new machine was up and running, that old camera just decided to activate for the first time, ever.) One of their more recent projects were cameras that utilized new light frequencies in a goal to turn solid walls into virtual windows, basically allowing the user to see inside a room through a better spectrum then just heat vision. The reason some of the footage about these cameras was even leaked was because they were catching something totally different then 'Invisi-Wall vision', so to speak. They were catching cloaked ships. And, last I ever knew, no Human nation on Earth could hide a plane from the naked eye. Sure, Wonder Woman and the Klingon's could...but these cameras don't come from Mt. Olympus or Star Trek.

[jup]

Rather then starting up a new thread, this seems like the perfect place to add this into...

https://youtu.be/UIWWLg4wLEY

(Alright. I don't know how...or even if...this YouTube tag works. May have become broken, for all I know.)

Suddenly, those movies like 'A.I.' and 'Bicentennial Man', 'I, Robot', 'Robot & Frank' and and even 'Knight Rider' suddenly don't seem so science fiction, but fact just waiting for the world to catch up. While I've always thought that holding a two way conversation with a computer was pretty much beyond it's traditional capacities, it is becoming obvious that the lines of trickery are blurring and more powerful CPU's can take on a better grasp of language crunching then I thought was going to happen. (At least without a totally new way of working with computers from the inside.) Kind of like how I viewed that program that was running a while back on this very web site. Sure. You could type things into it and it generated responses. But, it always felt like it was taking words from select databases and just pasting them together. What's seen in this video looks like it's getting closer and closer to becoming a walking, talking 'being' that might just fool the unsuspecting. And, this video is already three years old, as of this typing.

[tharpdevenport]

Here's an Apple co-founder who says in 20 years people won't even be allowed to drive:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/11 ... e-allowed/


Enjoy your eventual new Apple freedom; by "freedom" I mean not being allowed to drive. People gleefully throw their money at them still.

[jup]

I wouldn't be surprised if the world 'might' go that way.

I'm reminded of a couple sci-fi flicks where A) The roadways of the future take on a totally different approach and might suddenly go from horizontal to vertical and back to horizontal, which would demand a more radical set of interfaces then typical wheel/pedal controls could manage. (Why, even KITT had to auto pilot in order to drive sideways. (Happens in a scene that was cut out of syndication and probably exists in the best of DVD sets.) And B) Cars/trucks will start taking on some crazy fast speeds. Talking like 300 MPH is for the sluggish models, here. Speeds too fast for Humans to safely keep up with things and require computers. Might even go with C) BTTF 2's notion of flying cars...where computer navigation for the third dimension would be a ton safer.

Of course, with computers, things might not always run right, anyhow. After all, four days ago, (as of this typing) it would seem that some kind of military grade rocket was launched over Los Angeles and sent inland towards some unknown destination. There's a whole lot of video footage of this thing that took flight. And it makes me ponder if even our government's cyber hacking defenses are up to current spec's. Of course, the channel that gathered all the footage was also pulling together lots of people crying aliens and 'that's not a military weapon' stuff.

https://youtu.be/E5iakClXwtM