US to ban Russian, Chinese software and hardware in vehicles
abcnews.go.com
abcnews.go.com
Well, that's the problem right there! Let's stop with all that nonsense, and then we won't have to worry about where the firmware comes from.
In the meantime, your phone has all that tech and much more, is with you in the car at all times, and is also made in China…
Great. F ‘em all. AEB and a manually operated limiter is all one needs. Maps? In-car db works well, they are updated anyway every so often. Anyway, who cares about maps when every car manufacturer tries to sell me subpar android auto or some other carplay.
> In the meantime, your phone has all that tech and much more, is with you in the car at all times, and is also made in China…
Your phone doesn’t drive around the city filming every damn thing. Mine is either in the pocket or in a door bin.
Now, you can of course choose to walk around the city with a phone streaming everything directly on the internet but you’ll definitely make yourself visible arguing with a group of cops about your 1st amendment rights every couple hundred yards.
None of those require constant internet conectivity.
That’s like saying cooking at home doesn’t “require” a stove. Yeah you can build a fire, at a massive cost to convenience.
No, you no underestand. That no problem. That solution. Chinese and Russians problem. /s
> Let's stop with all that nonsense, and then we won't have to worry about where the firmware comes from.
The collected data wants to be sold. /s
However, it seems unlikely the me that they will (on the long term) — unless they find some huge surprise reservoir of rare earths somewhere within their borders.
BMW meanwhile is wasting more time on fuel cells.
Well they are definitely cheaper
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62694325/ford-ceo-jim-far...
Without clear specifics, it's about as relevant as saying Jobs stole the idea of MacOS from a Xerox PARC demo. Ideas are cheap, execution is what matters.
"Intellectual property" is an economic policy, not a moral imperative.
You mean 4 wheels and a steering wheel ? /s
US stopped having IP in cars a long time ago. Damn, even Ford wanted to close its shop some years ago.
Maybe. I would not be surprised if the was some lobbying in that direction.
But the USA has also recently had it's communications ripped a new one by hackers. Not once, but several times, and they've been able to spy on the communications of the highest levels of government.
That sounds bad enough, but its fairly benign compare to what could happen. For example, I amazed to discover my solar inverter was controlled by a web site in China. I hate it in general, but to be fair to China this delegation of control is everywhere and is done every country - for example I guess most Chinese mobile phones are controlled by Apple and/or Google.
It's all pretty harmless I guess when we are all getting along. But if China and Australia suddenly weren't getting along it means China could literally shut off Australia power grid, as during the day it's not uncommon for Australia to get most of its power from household solar. There is no need for the sort of subterfuge the USA had to pull with getting Stuxnet into the Iraqi centrifuges, as China already has control over a large part of Australia's power generation. If they can program those inverters to change their phase they can probably take out the entire grid.
And now if China wins the bulk of the car market (which seems like a distinct possibility), they could also have control over most of the cars in the USA, along with their video and sensor feeds. This must be the stuff of nightmares in some quarters.
How did we let ourselves get into the situation that allows a robot vacuum send photos of us on the shitter back to a foreign country, without our knowledge? It's just insane. And while I understand the motivation in this case, this ban isn't the solution. It needs to go far deeper.
Okay, but are we putting such import restrictions on computers?
I'm actually pretty okay with certain bans based on national security grounds, but they should do a better job distinguishing between the types of hardware and software that could be potentially problematic and actually do an industry-wide ban. Otherwise this is rightfully going to be picked apart on protectionist grounds.
Of course, in EU is knowledge that it is better to avoid American cars. Ford seems to be the exception though.
I think it is the right approach.
But does it violate Free Speech rights?
I'd expect that foreigners don't have the same rights as the constitution would grant a citizen. The same goes with a reasonable right to privacy - it generally only applies to citizens. The US government isn't there to protect the world (though they may appear to try sometimes).
"You want to ride a train? Sure, what's your mandatory national identification number? You want to register for our little video streaming website? Sure, please enter the home address you've registered with the Ministry of the Interior. Failing to report your official registered address correctly on our sign up form is a crime. Failing to register your new address with the Ministry upon moving is a crime."
Virtually every business, including purely online services, will want your full address (and will often verify that the address is a real residential address by sending it to some dodgy identity-verifying third party). Very few websites will be content with a username and password. This can rise into the absurd, such as not being able to book a table at a restaurant without verifying your personal information with a dodgy B2B provider of identity services. You may have bad anecdotes of your own, but this is really a much more systematic issue in Europe than elsewhere. Europe has lots of privacy laws not because they're taking some benevolent stance against US tech, but because Europe has a genuine problem protecting their citizens' privacy on a day to day basis.