[SystemSafety] Fwd: U.S. DOT advances deployment of Connected Vehicle Technology to prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes

[Graydon, Patrick J. (LARC-D320)]

The U.S. Department of Transportation issued a proposed rule on vehicle-to-vehicle communications a bit over a week ago.  The press release is at:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/us-dot-advances-deployment-connected-vehicle-technology-prevent-hundreds-thousands

I haven’t had time to read it yet, but I am curious as to how they think the inherent vulnerabilities can be mitigated.  When I first heard the idea of vehicles autonomously reacting to data sent by arbitrary other vehicles, it occurred to me that a prankster could build a box, sit by the side of a road, and cause pileups by making cars brake sharply for no visible reason.  A few years on, a more dangerous threat came to mind: to a nation state, the ability to bring an enemy state’s vehicular traffic to a halt — and with it their economy — has got to be tempting.  I imagine some states would find it worth spending whatever time and computing resources were needed to crack whatever encryption gets stuffed under the hood.

With that cheery thought, happy winter solstice, everyone.  :)

— Patrick

Dr. Patrick John Graydon
Research Computer Scientist
NASA Langley Research Center
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 7843 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman/private/systemsafety/attachments/20161221/2b269846/attachment.bin>