Did I Mention . . .

there are a host of issues surrounding regulation of autonomous cars and if left to the states the automakers are going to have a mess to navigate?  Oh yeah, I think I did back in July in my Driving Me Crazy post on autonomous cars:

http://financialspiltmilk.blogspot.com/2016/07/driving-me-crazy_97.html

There I noted:

Driver's licenses are issued at a state level, driving laws are at a state level, required insurance is at a state level and liabilities for accidents are determine under individual state standards.  Giving a lot of this control over to the federal government is not going to be an easy sell.  Can you imagine Texas giving this up?  But it is something that has to be uniform to work and it will not be uniform on a state level.  Thus, Volvo, for one, has been pushing the federal government to regulate this area and not leave it to the states.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/volvo-urges-u-s-government-to-regulate-autonomous-cars/

There is enough money and societal benefit at stake that it will likely eventually happen, but it will be a long and painful journey.

Well, the painful process of state regulation is taking hold.  You see the NHTSB recently released guidance for the states but is leaving regulation up to them.  And I am sure that will work out quite well, because if you are making autonomous cars programming them to navigate cities, foul weather and the like is nothing compared to trying to navigate differing laws in 50 states.

Recently the following article was posted in Insurance Journal noting objections by Google and others to new California regulations being proposed for autonomous cars:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2016/10/20/429908.htm

You can find the bill and its Legislative Counsel's Digest for your digestion here:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120SB1298

And if you read the bill it has a host of wonderful provisions that lawyers are going to love as they will get to fight over these in courts for years to come.  For example, "Autonomous Vehicle" means any vehicle equipped with "Autonomous Technology" and "Autonomous Technology" means "technology that has the capability to drive a vehicle without active physical control or monitoring by a human operator."

Let's consider these fine words in the context of the 70,000 Teslas that the company seems to be beta testing with or on its customers.  The cars have Tesla's "AutoPilot" feature.  Now from what I have read, the human driver is supposed to monitor at all times "AutoPilot" is engaged and not, for example, be watching a movie on his iPad.  The driver also apparently has to touch the wheel every now and then so the car knows the driver is most definitely not just watching a movie.  I mean, seriously, how on Earth could someone watch a movie and still occasionally touch the steering wheel.  So certainly Tesla will argue that its "AutoPilot" does not qualify as "Autonomous Technology" under the proposed bill.  Indeed, the bill is for companies testing their autonomous vehicles, not those foolish enough to sell them and let their customers take them on the road even if data from these customers is helping the company refine its technology.  Oops, did I say technology?  I meant something else because the Tesla autonomous stuff is not by any means Autonomous Technology; at least not under the bill language.  And beta testing through your customers is not really testing in the sense the bill means, is it?

But Google on the other hand, who is carefully testing its autonomous cars with technicians and drivers and who has only had one minor fender bender in many years of testing is going to bear the brunt of this bill, which no doubt was prompted by wrecks and fatalities involving Teslas.  Folks at Google have to be fuming.

Excuse Me, Can I Have a Little Privacy Here

So one of the fun features of autonomous cars is that they will be recording everything.  Kind of like the black box in airplanes but here it is just a computer saving data on what you are instructing the car to do and what it is recording from sensors.  So let me ask, are you going to be allowed to instruct your autonomous car to exceed the speed limit?  If you can and do, do you automatically get a ticket?  Will our speed limits even apply to the superior technology of autonomous cars and do they need to?  I can see these cars being programmed to drive at the safe speed for the conditions, whatever that is.  Oh, so many questions so few answers.

Either way, the car will definitely track where you have been, when you got there, how long you were there, when you left and where you went.  Your personal life will be anything but autonomous, but hey, your car is autonomous so who cares. 

One of the issues with the regulations will be the extent to which the government, as in police, have access to your vehicle information without following that little warrant thingy, which requires a court thingy and requires a reason justifying the search thingy. 

Do you even realize currently if you have a late model car there is likely a tracking device in your car tracking where your are?  Probably not, but hey, it is an excellent device for all those sub-prime auto lenders to find your vehicle to repossess it should you miss a few payments. 

You entered the 21st century and just checked any privacy at the door.  Heck, if you are reading this, someone, if they want, can retrace everything you have done on your computer today or ever.  Sure, deleting the history on you internet searches can hide the porn searches from your wife or husband, but it is still there, waiting to be found.  Sleep well . . .

 

My Toaster Is a Terrorist!!

Many folks in the Eastern US and apparently in Europe know full well of the recent attack that severely slowed or virtually shut down the internet for certain popular sites like Amazon, Twitter and PayPal.  The botnet DDoS attack was basically millions of internet connected devices (Internet of Things "IoT") all connecting or sending messages in at the same time. 
http://blog.rackspace.com/internet-of-things-why-connected-toasters-and-other-smart-home-devices-matter

Apparently, such wonderful things as toasters, cameras, refrigerators and the like are all now being connected and they are easily hacked to install malware that allows them all to send signals or requests at the same time.  Tens of millions of such requests can shut down a web portal, like Dyn. 

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/hacked-cameras-dvrs-powered-todays-massive-internet-outage/

And yet, a few years from now we are all supposed to trust our lives to autonomous cars.

By the way, if you have noticed your internet connection at home slowing down otherwise, perhaps it is because you have so many IoT devices connected, all of which will eat a tad of bandwidth.    How good is that connected toaster, doorbell or pool vacuum looking now?