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posted by janrinok on Thursday March 08 2018, @03:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the internet-or-security dept.

Ross Anderson in the Security Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory asks some questions about whether durable goods such as cars can be Internet-connected and yet provide sufficient privacy and safety. It's not a deep discussion but it does raise a few other pertainent questions.

Perhaps the biggest challenge will be durability. At present we have a hard time patching a phone that's three years old. Yet the average age of a UK car at scrappage is about 14 years, and rising all the time; cars used to last 100,000 miles in the 1980s but now keep going for nearer 200,000. As the embedded carbon cost of a car is about equal to that of the fuel it will burn over its lifetime, we just can't afford to scrap cars after five years, as do we laptops.

Meters and medical devices are two more examples of hardware that can cause great harm when control of the integrated software is taken over by malfeasants.

Source : Making security sustainable.
and Making Security Sustainable: Can there be an Internet of durable goods? (warning for PDF)


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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday March 09 2018, @09:38AM

    by anubi (2828) on Friday March 09 2018, @09:38AM (#649893) Journal

    Which was why I was experiencing so much nausea in the new car showroom.

    Don't get me wrong.. the vans I looked at looked beautiful.

    It was those tiny tires that looked like one pothole away from failure, plastic "bumpers" that looked poised to make mountainous repair costs out of molehill sized bumps, and don't even get me started on way un-necessary complexity, nonstandardized parts, and difficulty of repair ( which they repeatedly assured me that I was "covered". ) Uh yeah, I've heard those words before. Covered? More like faith and hope. I have already experienced the business meaning of the word "covered". The closest equivalent word I can come up with is "splotched", but the word "covered" sounds better in presentation.

    I would see such effort put into place by so many artistic types, along with all this marketing "customer lock-in", that all I could see was more problems for me than I really cared to deal with. I just wanted to buy a new car. But not all this "now that you have made a huge investment, you need to protect your investment with these plans, that we may change or modify at any time we please... you must agree to this or warranty will be voided..." kind of businesstalk. I really had my heart set on a Dodge Sprinter or ProMaster, but all that businesstalk made me so nauseated I had to leave.

    They were making it painfully clear to me that in no way would I "own" the van, I would only enter into some sort of agreement where I agreed to anything they asked for, and in return, I could drive the van off the lot without them calling the police.

    I came looking for substance, all I could get was presentation, and someone had gotten to these guys and filled them full of the same crap that used to go through the last major company I worked for when they hired in these teams of "consultants" to teach us "the leadership skills of business" aka "how to get maximal profit before the customer wises up". Executives really lap this kind of stuff up... presentations by lots of very well dressed men with lots of viewfoils and handouts - lots of rounds of handshakes...its a circle-jerk for the suit and tie crowd, but from the other side, the customer, this kind of crap is purely nauseating.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]