logoalt Hacker News

advisedwang • today at 4:29 PM • 5 replies • view on HN

Are there actual national security concerns though? Or is that just an excuse for protectionism? I suspect the latter, and in europe politicians may make the calculation that cheap cars > car manufaturing jobs.


Replies

jerf • today at 4:40 PM

Yes, there are huge national security concerns when everybody's cars are always on the network and all fly-by-wire. It would be trivial for anyone who writes the software for these things to include logic or network bombs in them that would enable a catastrophic strike on a country or the rest of the world. Cars being on the network all the time is really a terrifically stupid idea.

Careful readers may note the complete lack of the word "China" in the previous paragraph. But, yes, technically it is even that much more dangerous to have a whole bunch of potentially-hackable robots roaming up and down all your transportation corridors that were also created by your major economic and military rival.

But I don't even like it when it isn't created by your rival, though, because there's no guarantee that your rival can't hack anybody's software. I fear the day when some significant fraction of cars on the road are given instructions to floor the pedal and then do a hard turn to the left 10 seconds later. (Or the right for countries where that is the "turn into oncoming traffic" direction.)

➕ show 2 replies
petcat • today at 4:30 PM

Ask Europe if they think there are "actual national security concerns" about them being so heavily reliant on USA tech companies and services.

➕ show 2 replies
tocs3 • today at 4:39 PM

I think there are legitimate safety and national security concerns. I also think restrictions are imposed for protectionism / political / monetary reasons. We are living in a world where the people making the decisions wait until there is enough personal gain to act in one direction or another.

➕ show 1 reply
xnx • today at 5:19 PM

There are ways it could be handled. Waymo imports Chinese made Zeekr vans, but Waymo probably replaces all onboard software and hardware.

geye1234 • today at 5:10 PM

Just like with the data center 'debate', it's best to assume both sides are just churning out propaganda.