We have all heard the expressions “Big Brother is watching” and “nanny state,” which means that many people feel the government interferes in their personal lives too much. Who is to say that we don’t really need it?
After all, over a five-year period, more than 50,000 infants and toddlers were seen in emergency rooms across North America that prompted regulators to put two warning labels on baby strollers. The first was “Remove child before folding,” and the second was on the sun shade: “Not a shelf.”
I ask you, how smart do you need to be to figure out that a sun shade shouldn’t have coats or parcels put on it or it might collapse? Better yet, what do you think is going to happen if you fold your stroller up with your child in it?
Here’s the scary part: these people have driver’s licenses too! We have to make cars so complicated to keep these people from hurting themselves or us. This is where modern electronic controls come in. First it was antilock brakes to give us a reduction in collisions. Some insurance companies even gave discounts to ABS-equipped cars because they were going to reduce accidents.
Along with personal computers came increases in electronic vehicle management. It is now to the point where your new vehicle has more computing power in it than was used to put a man on the moon.
Now we have vehicle monitoring companies like OnStar. This is a useful nanny. If you pay a fee, the system will give you GPS and can tell you where the nearest pizza place or Chinese takeaway is. You can subscribe to anti-theft system where your car can be tracked remotely and if reported stolen the police will be notified of its location and when the cops give the word, the car is disabled.
In fact several police departments use this technology to catch car thieves on a regular basis and it has spawned a TV show called “Bait Car” where a car is set out as bait and the police wait for someone to steal it. When they do, the car locks are remotely activated so the thieves can’t get out and then the ignition is turned off — remotely of course.
Now imagine someone’s crazy cousin Billy, the hacker, deciding that it might be funny to have a bunch of cars pull up to a stop light and not be able to move. Or, program a fault in engine operation so that service departments are swamped.
This isn’t a concern limited to OnStar; it can potentially affect any car that has the ability to be scanned or have software upgrades done remotely.
I don’t know enough about systems to know if this can really happen, but there is someone who does and I really hope his name isn’t Billy. Could it?
After all, over a five-year period, more than 50,000 infants and toddlers were seen in emergency rooms across North America that prompted regulators to put two warning labels on baby strollers. The first was “Remove child before folding,” and the second was on the sun shade: “Not a shelf.”
I ask you, how smart do you need to be to figure out that a sun shade shouldn’t have coats or parcels put on it or it might collapse? Better yet, what do you think is going to happen if you fold your stroller up with your child in it?
Here’s the scary part: these people have driver’s licenses too! We have to make cars so complicated to keep these people from hurting themselves or us. This is where modern electronic controls come in. First it was antilock brakes to give us a reduction in collisions. Some insurance companies even gave discounts to ABS-equipped cars because they were going to reduce accidents.
Along with personal computers came increases in electronic vehicle management. It is now to the point where your new vehicle has more computing power in it than was used to put a man on the moon.
Now we have vehicle monitoring companies like OnStar. This is a useful nanny. If you pay a fee, the system will give you GPS and can tell you where the nearest pizza place or Chinese takeaway is. You can subscribe to anti-theft system where your car can be tracked remotely and if reported stolen the police will be notified of its location and when the cops give the word, the car is disabled.
 |
| Photo: General Motors |
In fact several police departments use this technology to catch car thieves on a regular basis and it has spawned a TV show called “Bait Car” where a car is set out as bait and the police wait for someone to steal it. When they do, the car locks are remotely activated so the thieves can’t get out and then the ignition is turned off — remotely of course.
Now imagine someone’s crazy cousin Billy, the hacker, deciding that it might be funny to have a bunch of cars pull up to a stop light and not be able to move. Or, program a fault in engine operation so that service departments are swamped.
This isn’t a concern limited to OnStar; it can potentially affect any car that has the ability to be scanned or have software upgrades done remotely.
I don’t know enough about systems to know if this can really happen, but there is someone who does and I really hope his name isn’t Billy. Could it?