Cars, computers and Internet security

Cars are not just becoming more connected; they are slowly turning into real computers. The engine, a part that till now has understandably been the main element in the vehicle, may be relegated to a lesser role in a few years.

Last December in this very column I was mentioning the increasing usage of mobile cameras in cars to continuously film the road ahead so as to provide security and investigative information in case of accident. The week after, Cadillac, the celebrated American maker of luxury cars, announced that it was planning to replace the traditional rear-view mirror inside some of its models (CT6) with a live camera feed, as early as this year 2015. This will come as a standard accessory and will provide the driver with a clearer view, one that is free of dead spots, and in a glorious high-resolution colour image.

Almost at the same time Google seems to have gotten one step closer to putting the driverless car actually and very tangibly on the road. The leading high-tech and Internet company now claims to have a fully working, well-tested prototype, ready. All it is waiting for is a real carmaker to take it from there to the manufacturing and marketing stages.

In the company’s own words: “Today we’re unwrapping the best holiday gift we could’ve imagined: the first real build of our self-driving vehicle prototype… We’re going to be spending the holidays zipping around our test track, and we hope to see you on the streets of Northern California in the New Year.” (from a post found on plus.google.com)

If convenience and amazement are some aspects of these innovations, security is another, perhaps a more important one. Driverless cars, we are told, will be significantly safer. And yet.

Isn’t it a blatant contradiction that Internet security, precisely, seems more elusive than ever? For else how do you explain Sony’s hacking misfortune that today is still resonating in every single media since it took place last November?

Simultaneously every major actor on the Internet, from Google to Microsoft and everyone in between, all are pushing cloud usage in a rather aggressive manner. And of course we’re all going for it, the writer of this column included. I for one cannot see myself working anymore without an estimated 90 per cent dependence on cloud storage and cloud-based applications, especially on mobile devices.

So how come the servers of a company like Sony, very much in high-tech itself, were penetrated and robbed despite firewalls and other kinds of sophisticated IT protection schemes and devices? If Sony failed to protect itself as it was supposed to do, surely countless other organisations will also fail.

Can you imagine yourself in a driverless car in a very few years from now and all of a sudden being subjected to some kind of automotive “hacking” while driving on the highway for example, with unspeakable, dramatic consequences?

It is one thing to have the laptop sitting on your desk being hijacked or attacked and a totally different one to be subjected to such threats while driving.

So far, and perhaps with a few recorded exceptions, large-scale cyber attacks and cyber wars have been mainly confined to movies. Sony’s case last November, upcoming machines like driverless cars, and increasing reliance on the cloud, they all combine to make us worry a little more about the future of high-tech and Internet security. With few choices but to go ahead with the irresistible flow.