EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door In Every Car By 2020 364
An anonymous reader writes "A secretive EU body has agreed to develop a device to be fitted to all cars allowing police to cut off any engine at will, it emerged today. The device, which could be imposed within a decade, would also allow police to track a vehicle's movements as well as immobilise it. According to The Daily Telegraph a group of senior EU officials, including several Home Office mandarins, have signed off the proposal at a secret meeting in Brussels."
Secret meetings: (Score:5, Insightful)
it's what democracy is about!
Re:Secret meetings: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Secret meetings: (Score:5, Informative)
Considering the two sources given are the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, it's safest to assume this is lies until someone finds a reliable source.
(Two newspapers that make their profitis by getting "middle Englanders" angry. )
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This has been referenced in other places as well, although, the "secret" part is news to me.
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It's like a scientist saying "The change is statistically significant" and the papers reporting "SIGNIFICANT RISK HORROR!". They have their own rules about English.
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Given that Fox, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, ABC, etc... have become nothing but propaganda tools, your statement is simply asinine. Quality "News" has become almost non existent. Maybe you missed the Whistle Blowers from NYP and Washington Post that told you how they only release what the Government has scrubbed.
Should you ask for sources? Absolutely. Should you claim that someone can't be true because of a name? Not today you can't.
Re:Secret meetings: (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we can consider it pretty much inevitable. In fact I'm amazed they haven't already started installing them. Hell, maybe they have. It is such a wonderful tool I'd be shocked if they could possibly resist the temptation. Imagine never needing to chase a car ever again? Always knowing where someone is and where they've been? It almost has to happen.
Re:Secret meetings: (Score:5, Insightful)
In view of the recent events in Ukraine, where protestors or suspected protestors have received a threatening text message from their phone company, saying "Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance", one can easily imagine that this technology which is to be used purportedly to stop car chases can and most certainly will be used to stop private transport in cases of massive anti-government protests.
The power that this will give the government over the population is extraordinary. This is therefore a very bad idea and a serious threat to democracy and needs to be stopped.
Re: Secret meetings: (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the biggest problem I have with all those people who chant "who cares... I have nothing to hide". Sure maybe now you don't. But do you really want to give absolute power to a government entity and just hope they will always be your friend? It's a massive risk to take that is not worth the short term conveniences they're providing us. Wake up people.
Re:Secret meetings: (Score:5, Informative)
BBC also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl... [bbc.co.uk]
The BBC story also includes a link to the actual EU document (pdf) stating the work program.
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6 years to launch and it's "out," either not a secret at all, or a very poorly executed one.
Re:Secret meetings: (Score:5, Insightful)
Far more likely is was released on purpose because it is an incredibly bad idea. Any system to shut every car by every police force across the globe will absolutely positively e hacked before it is even distributed, allowing criminals to shut down peoples cars across the globe. So driving on unlit back country roads would become incredibly dangerous. Driving in the wee hours of the morning with out much traffic about, would become incredibly dangerous. Peak hour mega traffic jams would become routine. Payments to have the system stripped from the cars of criminals would become some routine, that they would become very cheap. I bet those same idiots would considering adding it to aircraft.
Re:Secret meetings: (Score:5, Informative)
Note that this is taking place under the auspices of the Council of European Union [wikipedia.org], i.e. directly at the behest of the member state governments. The document mentions "Remote Stopping" just once:
So there's nothing agreed, there's nothing that is going to be imposed. The technology doesn't even exist. All they're doing is they're going to look to see what they could develop. Once they've done that, that doesn't mean it will be imposed. This working group doesn't have that power. If the public doesn't like it, the *member state* politicians (not EU politicians!) who make the decisions at the Council of the EU level would not put it forward. Even if these *state* politicians *did* want to impose this, they'd still need the agreement of the European Parliament (with its directly elected MEPs). The EP can delay and even block legislation (though, that requires a super-majority, ultimately).
tl;dr: the Dailymail are, as usual, blowing out their arse and making shit up about what's happening at the EU.
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A source familiar with Enlets said it was unlikely that such devices could be in new cars by the end of the decade.
Furthermore, I don't think this is a secret plan. It sounds more like a work group discussing the technical feasibility of such as system.
No way, this was going to be implemented without public discussion... Note, there is no talk of implementation, just talk about feasibility, then they will talk standardization, then there'll be law and then a couple years down the road it'll be implemented in actual cars... Assuming public outcry doesn't kill this quiet possibly sensible idea.
Who kn
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MP says "they can all go to hell".
Tabloid reports "Government Plans Ethnic Cleansing Program!"
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it's what democracy is about!
For those with the votes which trump our puny votes.
Yay freedom :-\
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it's what democracy is about!
What made you believe EU was a democracy? European parliament cannot even propose a directive!
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Judge Dredd will be by to see you about your attitude in a little bit.
easy the ferg!
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I wouldn't believe the Daily Mail if they told me I had a hole in my arse
Well apparently having your head up your arse qualifies you as having no hole any more.
It the time it to you to post your little AC triumphant drivel you could have searched for other sources.
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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What the hell is the DM?
I posted a google search, that will find all sorts of hits.
Is the BBC ok for you? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl... [bbc.co.uk]
Or do you have to hear this from God himself?
Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Because criminals won't immediately disable this shit, right?
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Or learn how to access it...
Remember, if "They" can do it, for any value of They, so can someone else.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily, but given this is a government proposal (well, sort-of), it will have all the characteristics these people typically manage to achieve, namely, insecure, unreliable, too expensive and generally a failure. I predict that this thing If it gets implemented...) will not work reliably for the police, but will work reliably for criminals.
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Just because your government is incompetent doesn't mean all governments are incompetent. Heck, I've even heard of a government agency putting a man on the moon.
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Or learn how to access it...
Remember, if "They" can do it, for any value of They, so can someone else.
If it uses any of the same interfaces as the Event Data Recorder ("black box"), you can get the equipment to access it here, [cdr-system.com] for anywhere between $1,500 to $10,000.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Funny)
Or learn how to access it...
Remember, if "They" can do it, for any value of They, so can someone else.
To do that they would have to either defeat a highly sophisticated military grade encryption system, or somehow be able to answer secret recovery questions that only the maker of the car would know.
"What year was this car's engine block assembled?"
"What was the name of the first dealership that this car was sent to?"
"If I tell you the last four digits of the credit card number used to purchase this car, can you tell me the two that come before them in under 100 guesses?"
I'm telling you, there is _no_ way that anybody could break through this kind of security.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Funny)
Because criminals won't immediately disable this shit, right?
Criminals will be targeted by drones. You'll know they are criminals because the drones shot at them.
Move along, citizen, nothing to see here.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure the definition of "criminal" will quickly expand once they get this power. Have an unpaid parking ticket? Your car is now disabled. Behind on child support payments? Your car is now disabled....etc,etc, etc
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Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
No, disabling it will make you a criminal. Cover a surveillance camera, you are a criminal.
It will be fun when a mother and her children are crushed by a bus when a static discharge immobilises her car in an intersection.
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Because criminals (either working for them, or getting access, or just being outside frontiers, like NSA and people that have access directly or indirectly to their secrets) will not be ever be able to trigger it on normal people cars too.
Is already bad for your health (and the ones surrounding you) to drive, is one of the main death causes in the world. Adding the extra spice of carrying a backdoorl on them that you won't know when it will trigger and cause an accident will make driving very popular. And
Posting on /. thru twitter (Score:3)
How low can you go ?
Hacker Extortion Target (Score:5, Insightful)
$10 million, (finger twist), or every other car on the autobahn comes to a halt at 1pm.
Re:Hacker Extortion Target (Score:5, Insightful)
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"In other news, this morning during rush hour there was a random glitch in the Car Safety System, not caused by anything like blackmail at all (how dare you suggest such a thing!) which stopped every other car on the autobahn until
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Re:Hacker Extortion Target (Score:4, Interesting)
It only takes a FEW cars disabled in key intersections to plug city streets.
Police could do this, or criminals could do it keep police away from the bank heist (or what ever).
Or the mythical terrorists, I suppose.
Its bad enough when Obama visits any town in the US and shuts the the airport and motorcade route down
for nothing but a political fundraiser. Can you imagine this technology loose in wild?
I guarantee if this gets passed in the EU it will arrive in the US in short order. Every time there is
a police chase anywhere, there will be a hue and cry from the usual useful idiots lobbying for this on
all cars.
Demonstration (Score:2)
It only takes a FEW cars disabled in key intersections to plug city streets.
See Movie: The Italian Job
(either one will do to illustrate the concept).
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It won't make it to USA.
The TV networks will lobby against it. There will be no more high speed chases to cover.
It's already here. (Score:5, Informative)
All cars with fly-by-wire tech can be turned off remotely, as well as any GM with onstar.
Already done years ago.
Will be used by criminals (Score:2)
Back in 1989, Alfred Herrhausen, a banker, was assasinated with a fairly complex bomb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.wired.com/dangerroo... [wired.com]
DOS traffic jam, anyone? (Score:2)
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The problem is that these will be in a lot of cars when the first hack occurs.
Soon to bring Los Angeles traffic everywhere (Score:2)
As soon as this is hacked and becomes the plaything of miscreants.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, some people will have their automobiles exempted because some people are more equal than others.
My car already has 2 back doors (Score:5, Funny)
And a hatchback door, so I guess you could say there are 3 back doors.
Way to write a headline, editors. How about something a little better like "EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door in Every Car ECU by 2020" ?
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Way to write a headline, editors.
Right! Slashdot's target audience are people who hear "back door" and think physical door.
Stupid editors don't have a clue who reads their own website.
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They probably think “porn.”
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What if I only want a 2-door coupe?
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Not all cars have backdoors. Rroadsters and coupés for example.
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I was worried too, because I thought this proposal would mean the end of the coupe.
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean only hatchbacks will be permitted in the EU going forward?
(Note to eds: bad titles are bad, and will be mocked.)
Yaz
Say what? (Score:2)
According to The Daily Telegraph a group of senior EU officials, including several Home Office mandarins, have
Is 'mandarin' the new 'chinaman' or something?
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Full Definition of MANDARIN
1
a : a public official in the Chinese Empire of any of nine superior grades
b (1) : a pedantic official (2) : bureaucrat
Re:Say what? (Score:5, Informative)
Mandarin
(informal, UK) A senior civil servant.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the dictionary definition is:
1. A member of any of the nine ranks of high public officials in the Chinese Empire.
2. A high government official or bureaucrat.
3. A member of an elite group, especially a person having influence or high status in intellectual or cultural circles.
It's sometimes used in a negative manner, especially with definitions 2 & 3.
Re: (Score:2)
Ive long suspected that my traitorous canned oranges were plotting against me, skulking about the pantry in their RF shielded little can-bunkers, using their knowledge of citrus-based automotive control technology.
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4. A small orange that comes in a can.
In a can? Really? Here in Vancouver, ours come in 2-kilo boxes, with the oranges wrapped in green paper, usually around Christmas time.
Never seen them in a can.
http://www.vanwhole-produce.com/wp-content/themes/vwf/images/products/13.gif [vanwhole-produce.com]
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http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/03/89/00/04/0003890004205_500X500.jpg
man Darrins? (Score:2)
More importantly, Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt or Lee Meriwether. Those are the only choices.
I worry about the script kiddies (Score:2)
...suddenly a vulnerability is found and a kid rips off the first DDOT (Distributed Denial of Transportation)
and all of London's cars come to a grinding halt...
Re:I worry about the script kiddies (Score:5, Funny)
And this will be different than the M1 or M25 during rush hour how?
Mandarins (Score:2, Funny)
What the.....
Some secret. (Score:2)
Zing!
"According to The Telegraph..." (Score:5, Informative)
Call me when they release these "classified documents", name the "mandarins" concerned and find someone who can give a more reasoned opinion than Nijel "why does this man deserve equal coverage on the BBC?" Farage, otherwise I'll just assume this is just more of The Telegraph's usual anti-EU ranting.
Oh, look, the Mail's covering it too.
Fancy that.
For heaven's sake, there's more than enough EU bumbling going on as it is without editors concocting more of their own.
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More to the point, I'm struggling to get excited about this idea - the document is probably right that high speed car chases are extremely dangerous. The people in the article going "zomg what if it goes off accidentally in traffic" amaze me. What if it goes off accidentally? Er, the car glides to a halt. What if someone is in a high speed car chase? Better not be a pedestrian in the way ....
I'm usually pretty concerned about erosions of civil liberties, but seriously, if you're being chased by the cops and
~# sh gridl0ck -horns -flashinglights -lockdoors (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought I read where this was a secret (Score:2)
If that is true, than someone leaked it. They should be found and tried for treason. Isn't that what happens to people who let the public know how the government is ......
Tin Foil Hats (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical British story (Score:2)
More significantly they forget about the EU parliament.
Had The Telegraph serious worries about this EU police group they would have included opinions from other EU member states.
Further these discussions are not 'secret', at best they are confidential, not exactly unusual for police matters and concerning our security.
But this proposal is indeed a move to the unwanted and unnecessary, yet totally along the lines
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well, I say forget this dangerous, insta-hacked concept... go back to what you think of every time you watch those cop-chase TV shows: police helicopters should be armed with missiles to stop those scumbag car chases. Its the only truly safe way - after all, if you remotely-immobilise a fleeing car carrying criminals, they will just get out and run away!
Note, also works against terrorists. I can only think they didn't go for this simply because the liberal democrats threatened to vote against it. Either tha
*Every* car? Not on your life. (Score:2)
Five gets you one hundred that, assuming this agreement actually exists, there are exceptions in it for cars being used by high officials and the well-enough-connected-to-pay-sufficient-bribes.
Onstar remote disabling (Score:2)
OnStar has had the ability to remotely disable a car for years
http://latimesblogs.latimes.co... [latimes.com]
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Shouldn't they rename themselves "OffStar"?
OnStar coming to EU? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of the above posts go on and on about hackers, yet I don't hear about this happening to all those OnStar equiped vehicles that have the ability to remotely disable your engine.
The End (Score:2)
And so it begins.
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It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
They Want Back Doors In My Car? (Score:5, Funny)
I can see this being reversed (Score:2)
If it's legitimate, why is it secret? (Score:3)
People like to argue that these kinds of surveillance and control are legitimate and nobody cares about them; if so, then why are they done in secret?
If it's secret... (Score:2)
Dailymail story on EU: Guaranteed to be wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Dear Slashdot,
You've posted a story from the Dailymail that has the form "EU wants to do outrageous thing!". The Dailymail has a long track record of:
a) Hating the EU.
b) Printing utter falsehoods about supposed plans "the EU" has, at least in their headlines and leading text.
E.g., a previous instance, which I complained to the PCC about (who turn out to be toothless and/or cowards): http://paul.jakma.org/2011/11/... [jakma.org] .
Please do not feed the Dailymail troll.
Mostly nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
This story is mostly nonsense.
There's a thing called ENLETS (or European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services), which is meant to be "the leading European platform that strengthens police cooperation and bridges the gap between the users and providers of law enforcement technology." From what I can tell it is a sort of advisory committee of law enforcement technology experts, working through Europol, who brainstorm how to use technology to help law enforcement stuff. Currently it gets about €600k in funding, mostly from the EU, some from the UK and the Netherlands. They're asking for that to be increased to €915k. Most of that seems to be in hiring some new full-time advisers; from their personnel costs, they want about 8 people working full time; a leader, a policy officer, and admin person and 5 senior advisers. So if they don't get their budget increase, there's a good chance none of this stuff will happen.
This article is based on a "secret" document (which I think is this one [netzpolitik.org]), which is a (draft?) work programme for the group for 2014-2020; so what they're supposed to be looking at.
This document stems from a recommendation by the Council of the European Union that ENLETS look into this kind of thing - the instructions etc. can be found here [europa.eu] (or if that doesn't work, search for document 12103/13 on their search page [europa.eu]). They asked ENLETS to monitor and coordinate the development of new technologies.
The actual "secret" document is listed on the Council's website (do a search for 17365/13) as "Law Enforcement Technology Services (ENLETS) 2014 - 2020 - Work programme", but the document itself isn't accessible. I don't know whether that's because it's such a minor report (and not really an official EU thing) that they haven't bothered uploading it, or if they are claiming it should be withheld; I'm tempted to make a formal request for it to see what they say.
The five short-term goals they have been asked to look at are in some places a bit scary:
Boston Brakes (Score:4, Funny)
...from CSI.
I predict lucrative markets for . . . (Score:2)
1. Jailbreaking vulnerable car systems
2. After-market engine performance and firewall firmware/hardware replacements
3. Advanced "radar" detectors which now become AIPS and AIDS (Authority Intrusion Prevention & Detection Systems)
4. Automotive GPS spoofs
etc etc
My guess is that since the NSA revelations, it is easy to give wing to any story about government intrusion into everyday life. It might even be true. I am sure that even if this story is out of the Weekly World News* bin, somebody in authority
Re: (Score:3)
Yes! Exactly.
Think of anything that happens to personal computers and servers on the internet now and then imagine automobiles being rooted and forced into remote servitude.
I like the way you think.
Combine this with NFC purchasing and the obesity/heart disease problem could go through the roof with massive line ups at Jack-In-De-Box or what ever your favourite fat delivery system is.
Police Cars too (Score:2)
Secretly (Score:2)
When you say "secret..." (Score:2)
When the headline/summary/article says "secret" does that mean "knowledge (previously) restricted to authorised people" or the journalistic meaning of "most people just didn't know about it until now"?
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Also plenty of people have "secret meetings" all the time, in the sense that they don't announce them to the public.
"Secret" (Score:2)
You keep using that word.
Re:The EU (Score:5, Insightful)
Where all member states are gathered *as equals* to do what Germany wants.
While that's often true, I'm sure I remember the British government suggesting this some years ago.
What usually seems to happen is that EU governments who want to impose draconian rules but can't get them past their own voters go to the EU, get it passed there, and then say 'sorry, we can't stop it, it's the EU, got to to what they tell us, boy, we're so totally upset about this'.
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Good to know that the security will be impervious to attack. and that police will never make a mistake when using it.
Seriously though Germany (which runs the EU) is reverting back to its Nazi roots with every piece of privacy busting legislation.
No offense mate, but the Germans are the only ones to be trusted in this regard. They - the people - are the only ones who take all this shit seriously and who are willing to protest, and they make a difference. I'm Dutch, which is supposed to be liberal and we always pretend to stand up against injustice, but in reality most people here don't care.
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I've got 3 back doors!
LIKE A ROCK! (Score:5, Funny)
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Silly boy, this story's from Britain. You need to call it a "boot" (which has a chain of etymology that does in fact involve footwear).