The good thing is that this is a solved problem, as the theory is sound. It is the implementation of a trust system and the "if a nail sticks out, pound it down" parts that need to be worked on. That way, a vehicle telling cars to "slam brakes, veer hard left" while everything else around is giving an "all clear" can be ignored or weighted negatively (thank SpamAssassin), with other vehicles passing the "dude, this car over here is on crack; ignore it" messages to others around.

Of course, the hard part is giving thought to security. This is a mindset that is alien to business because for decades, it has been, "release now, fix later." With automotive work at this level, there is no "later". Security can't be just strapped on; it has to be built in every layer from the physical chips to the antenna and network. The physical chips need to be hardened against tampering, and the module potted in epoxy to further protect against attack. Even the voltage inputs must be secured so one can't figure out what keys are used by the computations, or use fluctuating voltages as a way to affect the internal chips.

Since it can't really be upgraded, multiple encryption/signing algorithms must be used. Not because it gives a bigger keyspace, but if one fails or is decoded easily, communications are still protected by others.

This isn't impossible... it just is something that hasn't been a focus by companies since the Cold War.

Here in Texas, one could go to a school, take a semester offered in high school, then there would be two phases. A written test for a learner's permit, then the test with an officer sitting in the car for the actual drive.

Licenses here need to be renewed every six years, one renewal allowed via the Internet, one with a visit to the DMV for checking vision.

Here in Texas, we have those, except they are nicknamed "Braille lane markers", and are square, with one side beveled and reflective white, the other side beveled and reflective red (so if one sees a bunch of them red, that should give a hint that one is going the wrong way on a highway.)

I too am leery about depending on other cars. Yes, a module could be made if the core chip was made as secure as the Clipper chip (where the dies were put in a top secret area where the Skipjack algorithm was written onto them)... but car to car communication isn't something easily upgraded, barring all the auto makers getting together and coming up with a standard, then implementing the standard in a proper way.

What could happen is that vehicles use some tamper-resistant item like a SIM for V2V communication... however, to hackers, the payoff would be immense, especially if they could cause wrecks in a lot of the country at once.

It isn't unsolvable though. GM's OnStar has not had a successful attack, although if bad guys do get access to it, they can easily disable vehicles if there is a hurricane or other evacuation just to compound the damage and loss of life. So far, this hasn't happened yet.

It's a two-step process. The first is a chemical that dissolves the proteins (still in their "cooked" folding), and the second is some sort of centrifuge or similar (they don't go into details on the device in the article) that subjects the proteins to very high sheer strain, effectively mechanically unfolding them so that they can then relax back into their natural state.

Not exactly a spice you can sprinkle onto your steak, but still pretty neat. :)

The last laptop that I remember having that was a Thinkpad 365XD. It was nice because no matter what, if you wanted the sound off, it was off. Now, you have to beg/plead with the OS and hope it mutes whatever sound it might want to make.

I'm glad that in critical areas, physical controls are used. I just wish they would return back to cars for radio and climate control systems. Touch screens like the large one on the Tesla are nice and can serve a large number of functions, but every second the driver's eyes are averted from the road is a second a wreck can happen. Controls on the steering wheel do help in this regard, but they can vary widely.

I wish the industry would go back to knobs, dials, and buttons, a HUD [1], or at least haptic feedback on the touch screen.

Even nicer about using physical controls, security is a non-issue. There wouldn't have to be one shared touch screen that has to be sitting on the core CAN, but the dials and such can go to the more or less critical modules, so that the dial for turning on and off ABS would be going to a completely separate assembly than the one linked to the climate control system.

[1]: The Nissan Maxima used to sport a small HUD with the speed and other core info. It was pretty useful where one didn't have to glance down for that.

I've had decent luck with it overall. At the time I bought my vehicle, one could choose a SYNC navigation system with or without touch screen. I chose the one without. So far, it has worked without issue, alongside quite a number of iOS and Android devices, and the voice system is "meh", but it does work.

Just because it has worked so well on a day to day basis, I'd buy it again. It isn't perfect, but with modern tech where things get obsoleted in a year or two, what is?

That just raises another issue - why are you services and utilities so unreliable in the US? Here in Iceland we get hurricane-force winds several times a year on average - I've had gusts over Cat 5 on my land. Winter isn't incredibly cold but is super wet (all precipitation forms), windy, and lasts a long time. Up at higher altitudes you get stuff like this (yes, those are guy wires... somewhere in that mass). I lived in the US for a long time and had an average of maybe two power outages a year from downed lines and such - sometimes lasting for long periods of time. I've never once had a power outage here that was anything more than a blown breaker in my place.

It's really amazing what you all put up with - your infrastructure standards are really low.

Brought to you by Verizon and Comcast, bitter rivals that are working harmoniously to provide you with the best access to information; anytime, anyplace*

*At our discretion.

Yeah, here in freaking Iceland most people have 50 or 100 Mbps fiber for a lot cheaper than that. And not just in the capitol region, it even runs out to Vestfirðir now where the largest city is under 3k people.

It makes no sense whatsoever that a hunk of rock just under the arctic circle, 3 1/2 hours plane flight to the nearest land mass with any sort of half-decent manufacturing infrastructure, consisting often unstable ground constantly bombarded by intense winds, ice, landslides, avalanches, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, etc, with the world's 2nd or 3rd lowest population density and heavy taxes on all imported goods, can do this while the US can't. What the heck, America? You've got half of the world's servers sitting right there, why the heck can't you manage to connect people to them?

Yes. There is for thing dedicated random number hardware and there is hardware that can produce partially random data, such as network cards and radios, but the latter are only really good when combined with eachother and with a random number tracker, which is something the OS can do.

No, I prefer GPL when other choices are equal. GnuTLS has just never had a very good reputation, and even from the most optimistic point of view, it has always been secondary to OpenSSL just by having fewer users and fewer developers. I would be great if it was better, but it has had some unfortunately design choice and a long string of serious vulnerabilities. Just look it up.

there's some beverages with no dna in them, though.

vodka should be pretty clear of it too.