
Federal Agency wants black boxes in every new car by September 2014 - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/federal-agency-wants-black-boxes-in-every-car-by-september-2014/
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mindcrime
I love how these stories - and most of the discussion around them - simply
choose to ignore the larger issue of "does the federal government belong in
the business of telling auto makers what equipment cars must have" or even
more, "does the federal government have the authority to do this"?

I would argue that the answer to both questions is unequivocally "NO" and that
we should be raising absolute bloody hell with Congress over this. Despite
what the SCOTUS and Congress have done to brutally butcher the 9th and 10th
amendments, and despite their twisting and mangling of the "necessary and
reasonable" clause and the "interstate commerce clause" it seems quite clear
to me that this is an improper role of government in an open, free society.

I say let's quit nit-picking over details and privacy concerns, etc., and let
Congress know - in no uncertain terms - that we simply don't accept this whole
game, period.

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andylei
> "does the federal government belong in the business of telling auto makers
> what equipment cars must have"

> it seems quite clear to me that this is an improper role of government in an
> open, free society

i'll bite.

from a practical perspective, the federal government should have the authority
to say what kinds of vehicles should be able to drive on public roads paved by
us tax dollars. maybe you think you should be able to drive a car with no
headlights, but the other people driving on the highways at 60mph could get
hurt. it seems pretty clear that federal government should be in the business
of telling car makers that street legal cars have to have headlights.

from a theoretical perspective, the commerce clause, taken at face value,
seems to give board powers to the federal government to regulate any commerce
that happens across state lines. cars are certainly sold across state lines. i
don't understand why you think its so clear that the federal government
doesn't have this authority.

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ericingram
As I understand it, the word "regulate" had a different meaning at the time
the commerce clause was written. It generally meant "to make regular", as in,
prevent states from taxing imports from one state higher than another.

Now it essentially means "control".

~~~
runaway
I can't find any actual citations of the word regulate used to mean "to make
regular". The only references I found are in articles trying to explain the
Commerce Clause.

The word regulate comes from the Latin _regulare_ "to control by rule,
direct". I don't see any evidence that the meaning has changed much over time.

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16s
My former job was systems programming on precisely this sort of project. We
ran embedded ARM based Linux systems in cars, motorcycles and over the road
trucks to gather research data from the vehicle CAN. The volume of data and
variables collected was immense. Lateral acceleration (swerve), turn signals,
seat-belts engaged, gear position, vehicle speed, individual wheel speed,
engine rpm, GPS coordinates, steering wheel angel, etc, etc, etc. We were
collecting petabytes of data for research. We had cameras on the vehicles as
well so that we could correlate all of the collected data with what the driver
was doing, where they were looking, etc. I doubt the cameras will exist in the
mandated black-box systems, but who knows.

I only say this because there are tons of research projects in this area right
now and likely will be for many years to come.

~~~
beagle3
How often did you sample most of those variables?

I don't doubt the petabytes of data, but I'd be surprised if data that wasn't
visual, all included, was more than a couple of terabytes (if even that .. a
terabyte of textual data is a ridiculously large amount).

Counting the gzipped data is the only meaningful thing here, btw - because a
verbose XML document with repeating data
"<absoluteLocation>17,34,25</absoluteLocation><absoluteLocation
remark="notMoved">17,34,25</absoluteLocation>" is not more informative than
"l=17,35,25", despite being 10 times longer.

Video ... that's a completely different story.

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unreal37
"Such devices, which are already in use in 96 percent of 2013 model year cars,
record various types of data that can be accessed in multiple ways."

Whoa. 96% of new cars already have black boxes? Did not know that...

Wait til people get convicted of crimes based on the data in their black
boxes. "OJ, your car shows it was used between 8pm and 10pm, and you were not
home sleeping as you said you were..."

~~~
uptown
You own a cell phone, right? That's your current black box.

~~~
Devilboy
I leave my phone at home when I commit crimes

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digitalengineer
Next up is a peronal rifd card for ALL forms of public transport, eg the bus,
metro, train... A card that can be loaded with dollars using your credit/debit
card only. Think it won't happen? It already did in the Netherlands. They're
trying to add Black boxes to cars here as well. Oh, did I mention the other
privacy-nightmares? How about a mandated centralized database for health-
related issues? Run by the insurance companies. We have licenceplate scanning
CCTV camera's at all major roads as well as all borders.

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sami36
Not that I like the surveillance state anywhere, but I'm a lot less concerned
about "advances" like these in societies where democracy is already
established than countries were authoritarian regimes are still in charge.

EDIT : Why is my comment being down-voted ?? what part of "Not that I like the
surveillance state anywhere" don't you understand. It's a FACT, the
consequences of Big brother are magnitudes of order more terrifying for
societies that still don't have institutions to protect them.

~~~
arikrak
I agree. Often the benefits of these kind of things outweigh the risks of
abuse. Law-abiding citizens rarely have what to fear from normal
"surveillance".

~~~
CamperBob2
_I agree. Often the benefits of these kind of things outweigh the risks of
abuse. Law-abiding citizens rarely have what to fear from normal
"surveillance"._

Do you live in the US? If so, you're not almost certainly not a "law-abiding
citizen." The only question is, which laws count?

~~~
AutoCorrect
and which laws will be enforced, or ignored by the reigning excecutive

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stcredzero
Involved people at the site of an accident often have no compunctions about
lying. If such data can be securely provided in only 5 minute increments, I'd
be all for it. We should be able to do this with a sequence of keys based on
timestamps. Basically, each 5 minute parcel of data would be timestamped, then
a symmetric algorithm with a master key used to derive a parcel key from the
timestamp. The master key would never be revealed and only the parcel key
given to the authorities.

Authentication could be done through PKC and/or a hash chain. (As in bitcoin.)

~~~
X-Istence
The data records only the last 30 seconds, and will only save said data if a
crash of substantial force happens, at least in the cars that I am familiar
with.

~~~
stcredzero
A much more elegant scheme for protecting privacy.

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nja
There's a good summary of what this means, what the implications are, and who
has rights over what here: [http://jalopnik.com/5966628/everything-you-need-
to-know-abou...](http://jalopnik.com/5966628/everything-you-need-to-know-
about-the-black-boxes-coming-to-your-next-car)

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antihero
Perhaps they should be mandatory, but they should be signed by a user-owned
key. In this way the data exists, but it becomes optional to share it.

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jamesjporter
I don't plan on being a car owner any time in the near future, but out of pure
curiosity I wonder how easy/legal it will be to remove these?

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ctingom
What is the potential cost of this?

~~~
lawn
What is the potential profit for whoever is contracted to make the boxes?

~~~
jrockway
Just think how rich the manufacturers of seatbelt latches are getting in this
era of mandatory seatbelt laws. It's clear proof that all laws exist only to
make special interest groups ultra rich so they can screw us over in some
future dystopia more easily.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Hey, if you want to increase your chances of not being around for that
dystopia, don't use the seatbelts.

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signa11
this is waaay more scary than itu standardizing on deep-packet-inspection ;)

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maeon3
Insurances agencies are going to love this one, they might even want to fund
this whole idea, if they can get the black box data, they might save billions
on not fixing your car as much because you drove like a primate would,
breaking all traffic laws and showing signs of intoxication or extreme
carelessness.

If it can be shown that the party who is technically guilty of causing an
accident has a perfect black box record, while the one who didn't has a
terrible black box record, does it change who is at fault?

~~~
jasonlotito
Insurance companies already offer this to clients. The understanding is that
it won't raise your rate, but it can lower your rate.

That being said, if someone is "breaking all traffic laws and showing signs of
intoxication or extreme carelessness," I'd hope they are paying more for
insurance than I do. Sort of common sense.

~~~
unreal37
<http://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot.aspx>

I saw this advertised the other day...

~~~
X-Istence
They say they don't check for speeding, yet they have full access to your OBD-
II information, which definitely does include that. They could for instance
easily add when you go over 85+ Mph which is the highest allowable speed in
the US...

They might not be able to check on the location you are in to compare it to
local speed limits, but they can definitely know if you are driving faster
than the max.

I'm wondering how I can get one of these devices to play around with, without
handing anything over but cash.

