V2X Technology: Can Openers, Hackers and Trapdoors

Hmmm, is it really safe
to pry open the lid of V2X technology?

I had the opportunity
this week to hear a keynote speaker presentation on Vehicle to Everything technology – aka C-V2X technology. It was an eye-opening hour. I will try to stick
to the facts and not make this another axe-to-grind, technology Grinch post. But
no guarantees.

First, a definition is
in order. V2X is a wireless form of
communication in which information is passed from a vehicle to any entity that
could affect the vehicle and vice versa. It is the emerging technology that
will eventually enable autonomous vehicles.

This means that devices
in the vehicle have the ability communicate with other vehicles, with traffic
light signals, with personal digital devices – just about any digital device
you can imagine.

In the Smart Cities of the future, cellular V2X enabled autonomous vehicles will
guide themselves around city streets without need for human intervention. It
may be a decade or more before this becomes a reality. But make no mistake: It will happen.

I have railed against
this coming revolution in previous posts. But the speaker I heard brought a new
perspective on the subject. He put forward the view that the push for
autonomous vehicles is all about safety and crash avoidance – removing the
element of human error that is the cause of most automobile accidents.

I am not sure I buy into
that viewpoint. But let us accept the premise for now. In theory, eliminating
human error could dramatically reduce the occurrence of automobile accidents.
But what about the human error factor that applies in the development of the
technology?

The speaker also quoted
an interesting and disconcerting statistic. The average vehicle on the road
today has 100 million lines and counting of computer code. No doubt that figure
will increase exponentially for autonomous vehicles.

Let’s put that second
figure in numbers for dramatic impact: 100,000,000
lines of computer code. I am anything but a technology expert. But it seems
to me this opens up endless possibilities of human error in the coding process.
Can even the most skilled programmer effectively and exhaustively debug that
much code? It may be a rhetorical question.

The other disturbing
issue in the equation is cyber security. The speaker, to give him credit,
showed a diagram of a car indicating all the potential points of attack for
hackers. I did not have time to count them all, but there had to be at least
20.

Is the threat of hacking
really an issue for V2X technology? Consider the fact that a hacker used an internet-connected
fish tank – with sensors connected to a PC that regulated temperature, food and
cleanliness – to hack into a casino’s computer system. No, this is not an urban
legend. It really happened.

Human error hidden in
100,000,000 + lines of computer code. 20+ points of attack in an automobile for
hackers to target. I am not convinced that equation computes to safety.

I have heard it said that
technology is a can opener. It opens up wonderful possibilities, but also
daunting liabilities. I am more than a little concerned about the trapdoors that V2X technology is
opening.

~  Now Available Online
from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of
Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also
the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which
was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s
website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go
Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing
are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the
right sidebar. If
you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly
to my page for postings once a week.