No different from phoning in bomb threats.

And likely to result in the same jail time if you get caught.

At some point use of the normal societal methods for dealing with criminal behaviour works best. It can be the least expensive way to go.

To be fair, as soon as a vehicle is broadcasting any information it can be received and recorded.

For example every overpass can have a radio and record all information from all cars passing by.

That IS NOT a reason to not do this. And in fact makes a lot of sense as it can be used for lots of interesting and good purposes (if nothing else to keep the Google map traffic information up to date.)

The sixties called they want their talking points about why seat belts should not be installed back.

Yes, it would be a good idea to have a law mandating that people carry a personal beacon at all times while they are travelling on foot on the interstate highway system.

Bike riders complain that cars and trucks break the law.

Motorcyclists complain that trucks and cars break the law.

Cars complain that trucks, cyclists and motorcyclists break the law.

Commercial drivers throw their hands in the air and complain that everybody else breaks the law. Ditto for bus drivers.

To get all biblical... And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Which is also why 80% of all drivers (of all types of vehicles) think they are above average in driving skill and behaviour.

This is really not much different from simply (for example) removing traffic signs.

I recall that some kids removed a stop sign as a prank, (Florida, mid 90's?) There was a bad accident and the result was a man slaughter charges and something like 20 year sentences.

Well our local municipal engineering department obviously has not read that memo.

We have various lights that are always green and switch on demand when a car approaches on the side street.

I'll note that the counter argument is that people using those roads get used to them always being green, but also get used to them switching quickly to red when a car approaches from the side street.

We'll need some new laws that make using unmanned vehicles (cars, planes, quadracopters) to commit any crime an extra N years in jail.

And you would think that /. readers would understand the ramifications of Moores law (the general version...)

Current efforts are about the equivalent of the original iPhone. Sort of nice compared to what it replaced at the time. Laughable compared to what is available seven years later. But even today the current efforts are pretty good.

Get something into production and deployed, then five to eight years of scaling (software and hardware) and the cars of 2020 will be about as different from the current cars as the iPhone 6 is (will be in a month) from the original iPhone (both for hardware and software.)

"So no. No company would take that risk. And anyone stupid enough to try would not write perfect code and would be sued out of existence after their first patch."

There are two options. Do it here (where here is wherever you live...) by convincing YOUR government to set up the appropriate legal standards. Or let it get done elsewhere (hmm, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Korea) where the government will simply make a decision and mandate that as long as the cars have insurance there WILL BE NO LAWSUITS...

With option A, your town, city, state/province may reap some of the early benefits (aka jobs, profitable local businesses, safer roads sooner). With option B, you'll end up buying cars designed, tested and built elsewhere once they have proved to be reliable and useful (so fewer local jobs and businesses and you get to live with unsafe vehicles longer so more people dead or injured.)

It will happen. It might not happen where you live until somebody else has figured out how to profitably do it.

It may end up with government run no fault insurance, possibly funded by (for example) fuel taxes (drive more, higher risk, pay more.)

If you are in an accident, you are covered. Since, in theory (if all the vehicles are autonomous) there IS no fault, this makes a lot of sense.

The usual complaint is that no fault insurance (especially government run) usually also means capped settlements. Especially from the legal industry who make their living pursuing big payouts.

Yes, I only want access to your stupid site for one transaction or comment or whatever and you make me jump through stupid fscking hoops to register an account with a password that would protect my online banking...

Type in some random garbage twice, use it, and forget it. If I ever need to go back just hit the "forgot password" link and do the same again.

Depending on where you are of course...

But in many places your Doctor can only bill your insurance if they actually see you in the office. They cannot bill or can only bill less if they talk to you over the phone.

The point is that Google is a US company operating in the US under US laws. They won't enforce Russian laws.

A Russian ISP would enforce Russian laws but won't (can't be forced by a US court to) enforce US laws.

They don't have to search for it... maybe.

On the other hand simply having possession is against the law. It could be construed (especially in the US where you can "get an indictment for a ham sandwich") that Google has possession of it while it resides on their servers. So IFF they have the means to ensure that they don't have it then pretending they can't check for it may not get them a pass.

They may not like having to check for it, but it may also be the safest thing for them to do.