Remember the car chase in “Tomorrow Never Dies” where James Bond remote controls his car from the back seat, using his mobile phone? (->YouTube). It is a good example of 007 movies showcasing technology that may become mainstream in a not too distant future (without the car-to-car missile system, I presume). Not that remote controlling cars are anything new: The Russian Lunokhod drove on the Moon in 1970, remote control cars were sold in toy stores in my childhood and who knows how long the Opportunity rover on Mars will keep going(?). What is new, though, is that soon somebody may (unauthorized) remote control your car from their mobile: OwnStar Wi-Fi attack…. Not good.
Connecting cars to the internet is a good idea. For example:
- There will always be up-to-date weather and traffic information available
- The car can schedule service and order spare parts on its own
- IFTTT can turn on car heating 15 minutes before you leave for work if the temperature is freezing
and then there is all the communication and entertainment options, which can of course be handled with a mobile phone already, but integrating the functions would be convenient. All these good ideas comes with their potential issues due to buggy software, failing connections etc, and then comes all the opportunities for abuse via insecure connections, back doors and admin accounts, like the mechanic triggering car service requests when business is slow and people held hostage inside hot cars with closed windows and air condition off (there will be some action movie where the villain takes remote control of all cars in the city and the day is saved by the only guy who knows how to operate a stick shift).
I am sure none of these cave ats will prevent cars from joining the Internet of Things, but I hope that the risks will be addressed in time, especially those related to security. It is not impossible: there are strict regulations in place for development of software for medical devices, and including security in the equivalent regulations for cars would do a lot to improve the situation, as would some simple design rules, such separating the navigation, communication and entertainment systems from the core control functions of the car in such a way that getting access to one system does not enable access to other systems (cf. the case of Chris Roberts allegedly taking control of a plane after hacking the inflight entertainment system ->link).
Addressing the risks requires a proper understanding of the issues and solutions all around, including the automotive industry, the legislators, the press and the organisations representing the consumers. It hope this post will move things a bit in the right direction.
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