Uber looking into hacker issues

Uber has hired two hackers who successfully hacked into an automobile, specifically a 2014 Jeep Cherokee, by remotely taking over the vehicle. Fears of remotely stopping or navigating vehicles then fueled online speculation from those who are already skeptical about the imminent revolutionary technology.

And this is not just about future, completely autonomous, vehicles. Just as that 2014 jeep had wireless technology built in, so do many of today's vehicles. However, vehicle-to-vehicle technology is advancing and security measures need to be advancing alongside. Similarly, we certainly do not want a roadway or entire metro area's roadways hijacked by hackers. (Okay, despite my enthusiasm for dirverless technology, I can speculate with the best of them.)

Legitimate Reasons to "Hack"

Police see similar issues looming for law enforcement, but they differentiate good hacking and bad hacking. The bad hacking is, of course, constitutes nonconsensual invasions of privacy and interference with software, information, and equipment. But police have legitimate reasons to identify people and interfere with driverless vehicles. Police might want to track someone, stop someone from violating a protection order, keep someone on house arrest, and on and on. All of these can be legitimate law enforcement tasks - sometimes requiring first that a judge issue a warrant (though that will be left to future litigation). As with all public dollars, people can weigh in or vote on these matters. 

However, private monitoring, such as Google or Apple knowing where you are and what you are doing at every moment is more insidious and not subject to the Fourth Amendment the way police conduct is. As much as I want driverless vehicles and other technologies, the fact is that we want to remain a free society and I certainly want a zone of privacy from prying eyes.

Big Brother - Protecting Pedestrians from Driverless Vehicles OR a Privacy-Violating Opportunity OR Both

I assume that everyone is in favor of increasing pedestrian safety and Google and two universities are working on better pedestrian-identifying frameworks, and, presumably, software. Those universities are the University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Texas at Austin. Turns out, there are privacy concerns here. If one can detect and identify a cell phone - and its owner - as a pedestrian for purposes that are good (preventing a vehicle/pedestrian collision), then so too for evil. One writer summarized speculation in a Computer World article (scroll down) about identifying and accessing information from private phones as one waits in airport security lines. I'm thinking that fast food outlets and maybe food trucks will predict and prepare food orders while we stand on line, so there will be not waiting when we get to the counter.