https://www.yahoo.com/tech/fbi-warns-that-driverless-cars-could-be-used-for-evil-91959082979.html
The recent debut of new autonomous models from Google, Cadillac, and Audi may have you dreaming of someday putting a self-driving car in your garage.
Alas, the FBI has a warning for you: An idling driverless car is a devil’s playground.
Driverless car technology introduces the potential for criminal “multitasking,” and the cars themselves could be turned into “lethal weapons” by evildoers, the FBI warned in secret documents unearthed by reporters at The Guardian.
“Autonomy … will make mobility more efficient,” the papers, which came out of the FBI’s Strategic Issues Group, apparently read, “but will also open up greater possibilities for dual-use applications and ways for a car to be more of a potential lethal weapon that it is today.”
The report found that the technological autonomy that drivers concede to the vehicles’ systems could, one day, be compromised remotely by hackers. And even if a bad guy in a car chase is himself behind the wheel, he could engage in harmful multitasking, like firing a weapon at pursuant law enforcement as the car drove him away.
And the suits in D.C. may be on to something. The potential of driverless cars being meddled with was a topic discussed at last year’s Def Con hacker conference. Whether it’s by way of GPS manipulation or simply tricking the number of sensors around the vehicle, “like everything else humans ever made, [driverless cars are] going to get hacked,” one speaker said.
The recent debut of new autonomous models from Google, Cadillac, and Audi may have you dreaming of someday putting a self-driving car in your garage.
Alas, the FBI has a warning for you: An idling driverless car is a devil’s playground.
Driverless car technology introduces the potential for criminal “multitasking,” and the cars themselves could be turned into “lethal weapons” by evildoers, the FBI warned in secret documents unearthed by reporters at The Guardian.
“Autonomy … will make mobility more efficient,” the papers, which came out of the FBI’s Strategic Issues Group, apparently read, “but will also open up greater possibilities for dual-use applications and ways for a car to be more of a potential lethal weapon that it is today.”
The report found that the technological autonomy that drivers concede to the vehicles’ systems could, one day, be compromised remotely by hackers. And even if a bad guy in a car chase is himself behind the wheel, he could engage in harmful multitasking, like firing a weapon at pursuant law enforcement as the car drove him away.
And the suits in D.C. may be on to something. The potential of driverless cars being meddled with was a topic discussed at last year’s Def Con hacker conference. Whether it’s by way of GPS manipulation or simply tricking the number of sensors around the vehicle, “like everything else humans ever made, [driverless cars are] going to get hacked,” one speaker said.
