Imagine yourself reclining in a vehicle built for comfort. When you open the door, the seat adjusts to your liking, the radio switches to your station, the temperature is set to your preference. The window tint adjusts to an appropriate level based on time of day, and you specify your destination and lean back to catch up on the latest episode of Westworld. Your car selects the best route based on real-time traffic reports, and sets off in your driving style, fast and aggressive or slow and careful. Just the way you like it.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already under development by several major players in the auto industry, but the convenience and comfort we envision does come with a price. Uber recently purchased Geometric Intelligence, an AI startup, and launched Uber AI Labs.
Today's cars are just big computers with wheels, and that means every modern car on the road is vulnerable to hacking in some way. What does that mean now and for the future?
Most cars can already be hacked.
Security research teams have been surprised by how easy it is to hack cars, break in, steal information, or even hijack car operations. The fixes they recommend are not new: firewalls at every point, randomly generated passcodes, data encryption, not allowing Bluetooth paring without the driver putting the car in pairing mode. They also advise hardening the underlying code structure. The only real mystery is why it wasn't done in the early days of programs such as OnStar?
While it's unlikely anything more than theft will happen, your fob does not provide the only possible hack. Your car may be at risk from hacking from half a dozen different access points, including things you plug in.
It's hard to imagine why hackers would attack random cars on the highway, even though researchers have proved it is possible.
What happens if driverless cars are hacked?
Fast forward ten years, when every car on the road has multiple hacking vulnerabilities and most are driverless, and it's easier to envision dire situations.
Several companies are exploring driverless cars. Uber is testing a fleet in Pittsburgh, Tesla's autopilot program has encountered some issues, and Google driverless cars have been in the works since 2012.
Before long, the Internet of Things won't just allow you to answer your home doorbell from your office or see whether you are out of eggs. Traffic signals will send information to your car, cars will communicate with each other on the road, sensors will be embedded in the roads and in directional signs. It's ambitious, and it will make the roads safer. Eventually.
The problems encountered by driverless cars usually center around driver error, unexpected obstacles (bridges are confusing) and poor road markings. You've seen every road project, ever, where they paint new lines over old ones. Humans can figure out which lines are new most of the time. Computers, not so much. Snow or ice can obscure markings, and old, faint markings are difficult to identify under the best of conditions. There's still plenty of room for improvement.
The concern over driverless cars is valid. Protecting connected cars from hacking is not easy. At risk is a wealth of data about the car and its passengers, including personal information, passwords, daily routine, preferences, interests, and personality traits revealed by driving habits. Personal data we have tried to manage carefully among financial and health data systems, while failing miserably on public WiFi and social media. In terms of keeping our private information private, users are their own worst enemies.
For drivers, local governments, and companies, the risks may be considerable. The areas of liability will become murky. Who is liable in a driverless car crash? What if something interferes with traffic or roadway signals? And what happens if hackers gain control of the president's motorcade?
Teenagers recently set a wildfire in Tennessee that burned thousands of acres of land, killed 14 people, and injured 150 more. It's not that hard to imagine teenage hackers shutting down the cars in a whole city...just for fun.
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