SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The EU is moving forward with legislation to require ISA, Intelligent Speed Assistance, in all new cars starting in 2022. This system will use GPS, map databases, and speed limit reading cameras to limit speed. Speed limiting will be accomplished by limiting engine power. Drivers can temporarily override the system by pressing down hard on the accelerator. It seems that, at least to start, the system will have an off button. Other requirements of the legislation include a system to monitor the driver for drowsiness, and inattention, as well as standard hookups for in car breathalysers. It seems the driver monitoring systems may include in car cameras pointed at the driver.
Sources:
thisismoney.co.uk
fortune.com
euractiv.com
theengineer.co.uk
gizmodo.com
Previously on Soylent: Volvo: In-Car Cameras Will Monitor Drivers and Take Action to Prevent Distracted or Impaired Driving
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:31PM (15 children)
I'm anti-surveillance - but I like the idea of black boxes. The thing is, the black box shouldn't be actively reporting on you. Let it record - then if/when anything goes wrong, like running down Grandma, or Santa, or the Abominable Snowman, THEN the authorities can get at the data. 24/7 surveillance is anathema to - well - everything human!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:51PM (3 children)
I think that hit and run combined with the attempted escape was probably used as an excuse here somewhere. My only question is what sort of consequences this will have for rich fuckers with expensive fast cars and disabled/altered blackbox/speed limiter systems.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:58PM (1 child)
I remember people draining the pellets out of catalytic converters in their vehicles when those first came out. The performance and mileage improvement was pretty noticeable.
Presumably this won't impact performance and gas mileage however, and computers will just be set to require the box to report it is active before you get to drive. Yay.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Thursday March 28 2019, @09:57PM
Limiting speed is by definition impacting performance.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday March 28 2019, @06:58PM
...or the poor people in their 20 year old minivan.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday March 28 2019, @05:01PM (7 children)
I admit 24/7 surveillance is a bigger problem. But with a black box, the same officer that currently installs a warrantless GPS tracking device on your car to see everywhere you go, could instead just plug into the black box and download a complete history of everywhere you've been.
Given the much higher return on investment of downloading data from an existing black-box, I would fully expect such "retroactive tracking" to become far more common than current active tracking. Especially if the law doesn't explicitly state that a warrant is required to download the data (and I see no reason to expect that it would). Downloading your vehicle history would become step one in any investigation of anyone who comes under even passing suspicion, and that data would almost certainly be permanently archived for future reference. Almost certainly with insufficient security to keep out hackers, who would spread that tracking information around indefinitely.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 28 2019, @06:40PM
I'm pretty sure such data is already available on current cars with electronic motor control. And in many cases probably remote-readable, too.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:00PM (1 child)
ok for blackbox but only if it belongs to me just like the rest of the car and i get to READ it too!
without my consent the blackbox cannot be read.
next we need to have mandatory sensors in the index fingers and the elbow that register excessive acceleration due to wielding a club to
murder someone or register the special NFC chip in the gun-trigger etc etc ...
soon we will be covered in sensors and antennas reporting every move and (wrong) wink we make ...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:05PM
no worries, the rabbit eared boyfriend in appleseed is a good guy! ^_^
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 28 2019, @11:35PM (3 children)
They're not all like this. My brother got into a one-car accident about 1/8 mile beyond a traffic counter - they also record speed - the officer at the scene did dump the counter data, and did note to my father that there was a single car in the hour of the accident recorded at 89mph, but never wrote anything about it at all in the accident report, not even a presumption of excessive speed as a cause - the written report attributed it to slick (wet) pavement conditions.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @02:28PM (2 children)
It doesn't matter if they're all like that. Nobody has to worry about the truly noble and honest cops who would never dream of abusing their power for personal gain, or bowing to illegal political pressure. Except to worry that the power may eventually corrupt both of them.
What we have to worry about is how the power we give to cops can be abused by the corrupt ones - because the evidence is that a significant percentage of cops are corrupt in a number of different ways:
Selling out to criminals is the go-to example
Abusing their power for personal satisfaction or profit is another big one
And performing unconstitutional surveillance and harassment for blatantly political ends is a perennial favorite
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 29 2019, @08:51PM (1 child)
We all give power to people every day for countless things.
I used to eat a lot of food from Burger King drive thru windows - that's giving half a dozen minimum wage workers power over what goes in the food I'm about to eat, not to mention the giant FOR PROFIT corporation that supplies them.
Cops, politicians, political appointees, teachers, firefighters, electricians, cable repairmen - they all have far more power over my life than I like - but the alternative (not having these people serve and potentially abuse you) is probably worse.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @11:18PM
Sure - but the that's no reason to carelessly give anyone *more* power. Especially not politicians, executives, police, or intelligence agencies - all of whom have a pretty much perfect track record of both badly abusing the power they are given, and making it extremely hard to take that power back.
I may give that fast food crew power over my lunch today - but the only power they have over where I eat tomorrow is to provide such high quality food and service that I'd rather return than go somewhere else.
Now, I actually have some ideas on ways we could hold politicians to the same standards , but at present that's not the world we live in. And bureaucracies are even more problematic, as institutional culture can be extremely difficult to alter, even with the full support of the top administrators.
So, as I see it, any time you consider giving someone power, you should always ask:
How could this power be abused for the benefit of someone else? Not just by the person it's being given too, but also by all the people they might be bribed, blackmailed, or otherwise manipulated by.
How hard will it be to take this power back?
Exactly what am I truly likely to get in return?
And finally:
Assuming that the power will inevitably be abused, does the benefit outway the risk?
Personally, I can't think of any way anyone would profit from my being poisoned, other than the restaurant owners (by neglecting to pay for adequate food safety), and so I don't hesitate to eat somewhere that has a good safety history.
But ubiquitous surveillance? That's never turned out well. Way to valuable for crushing threats to the current power structure, and thus allow it to become even more abusive in other ways.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:22PM
With all the crap you get dealing with dealers having a black box capturing everything the VEHICLE is doing would be very useful in proving your case. But I imagine it will do everything it can to only track the driver.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Informative) by Unixnut on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:35PM
> I'm anti-surveillance - but I like the idea of black boxes. The thing is, the black box shouldn't be actively reporting on you. Let it record - then if/when anything goes wrong, like running down Grandma, or Santa, or the Abominable Snowman, THEN the authorities can get at the data. 24/7 surveillance is anathema to - well - everything human!
That already happens. Every OBD compliant car (so we are talking from the late 90s onwards) stores historic data (it varies from 30sec to 10 minutes usually, but there is no upper time limit defined) of all events in the car, including speed, acceleration, throttle position, and G forces (if you have built in navigation, then GPS co-ords are kept as well).
This is used to piece together accidents, as well as evidence in court / insurance purposes, to see whose story matches the data.
You don't need an additional "black box" for that, it has been good enough all this time. The new black box tech is pure 100% intrusive spyware, and they can get lost quite frankly. No way will I buy a car newer than my current one.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 29 2019, @01:51PM
Like you criticize the wrong person in power.