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Comment by themaninthedark | Hacker News Reader

Ford has a large number of cars out there - Drunk driving is a rare problem but with a large number of cars there will be enough cases for there to be newsworthy stories. -Drunk driving just takes one driver to create an arbitrary number of deaths.

We would not accept having breathalyzers in every car.

Or to bring it closer to the child abuse problem: Would we accept cameras that take pictures of the occupants of the car to make sure that the minors in the care are not being trafficked?

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> We would not accept having breathalyzers in every car.

lol, that's not up to us. It's in the infrastructure bill.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/infrastructure-bill-could-requ...

Oh for fucks sake.

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." - George Orwell

How long until general computing is given up due to hackers and piracy ala The right to read(https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html)?

There's a stipulation just above that portion of the bill where the Secretary of Transportation can determine that it is not possible to 'passively' determine if a driver is impaired and decline that rule so long as they issue a report to congress as to why.

And I trust Buttigieg to give the issue a solid looking over, but aren't breathalyzers pretty well established as a positive indicator of driver impairment?

Though requiring the driver to blow into a straw doesn't seem particularly "passive"--whatever that means.

My coworker had a breathalyzer. Kombucha and mouthwash would pretty easily trigger the alarm.

But the text makes it seem like they would position cameras toward your face and do analysis on impairment indicators like eye movement.

That is less invasive than making you blow. But there will always be edge cases.

Imagine a medical condition that makes it look like you are impaired. Now, you have to go to the dealer with a doctor's note to get this system disabled. Or when you want to rent a car.

Or, if there is a case when driving impaired would be better then the alternative. You and a friend are camping in the woods out of cell range, you both have some beers then one of you trips and gets a deep cut on the leg. Now you have to wait a couple hours before he can drive you to where you can get cell signal, hope you don't bleed out.

> We would not accept having breathalyzers in every car.

Funny you would bring that up. I think the new infrastructure bill requires that for cars built after 2029 (or some other "future, but not that far" date)

That's not the same thing at all. This would be like your car reporting you to authorities if you get into it drunk, turn the key, and step on the gas. It does nothing unless you've committed a crime.

All of the photos that you upload scanned and hashed. All of the hashes are either sent out for comparison to the database or checked locally.(I do not know which.) That means that for every picture you want to upload to iCloud, you must prove it is not abusive material.

So the equivalent is that for every single trip you take, you must prove you are not under the influence.

The equivalent is that for every single trip you take on public roads, you must prove you are following the public road rules - like you do with having to first obtain a driving license, registered car, car insurance, MOT (in the UK), road tax (UK), medical approval if you have certain health conditions.

If you're going to pay to use a hired car, expect to have to show the car hire company sufficient proof that you won't expose them to unnecessary risks. If you're going to pay to use a hired server to store your photos, why shouldn't you demonstrate to the owner that you aren't going to misuse their services or break their terms of service or break the law?

If you want to drive your car on your land, it doesn't need any of that.

So we should mandate a scanner in the car that makes you input your planned route, takes a driver license, has a camera to do facial recognition. It will then connect to a DMV database that verifies the information is correct and then to the insurance database to verify coverage. Check the tax database to make sure that has been paid, check with a medical database to make sure that you don't have any conditions as well as making sure that you have not been prescribed any medicine that says not to operate heavy machinery.

If you are going to hire someone else's car[1], you will need to provide them with your driver's license and the person at the desk will do "face recognition" to check whether it's your license, and they will check with some kind of database - at least their own to see if you've been banned from their premises, maybe a DMV one or their insurance to see if you have points on your license for previous driving related convictions which will affect their decision to lend you a car. Since it's their car they will deal with tax, but they will ask you if you have medical conditions which will affect your driving (or make you read the terms and sign that you haven't). And they will do all this in advance of you hiring their car, and after you're done they will check over the car looking to see if you misused it, and will keep a record of use so if they get informed about a speeding ticket or parking fine in future, it goes to you to pay it.

So ... this is your hellish dystopia, your "boot stomping on a human face forever", Hertz rent-a-car?

[1] analogous to you using Apple's iCloud servers.

Except that in the analogy, I have purchased the car just as I have purchased the phone.

The public roadway, something I don't have a right to, is what I am accessing, just like the iCloud service.

It's 13 years since Nissan released the GT-R with a speed limiter that only disables itself if the car GPS reports that it's on a racetrack:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/2008-nissan-gt-r-uses-gps-to-d...

Trucks have tachometers which track drivers aren't driving too long, and are taking sufficient breaks.

> "It will then connect to a DMV database that verifies the information is correct and then to the insurance database to verify coverage."

Wouldn't it be nice to know that if you're in an accident, the other party can't simply say "I'm not insured lol" and drive away and leave you and your insurance to pick up all the costs?

That's not true. The photos you upload are hashed, yes, but they're not scanned. Only the hashes are compared and that's done locally. Apple never gets any of your content so your equivalency is completely false. Signatures only get sent if the hashes match known CSAM. Therefore, it's like your car reporting you if and only if you've broken the law.

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