[DTNick]

TheOldTopkick, on 29 July 2011 - 04:52 PM, said:

I can't help but wonder if we are being reasonable about the things that are computer controlled. I fully expect to read in the paper where some drunk caused an accident and his lawyer claims the accident was not the drunk's fault. The control module on his car had been hacked. While you are lying on the floor laughing, think about it for a minute.

Robert Vamosi (who does some writing for PCWorld) recently wrote a book that digs into this sort of thing:

http://whengadgetsbetrayus.com/

--Nick
GeekTech blog editor

[Evildave]

Razor91869, on 29 July 2011 - 09:08 PM, said:

No, it doesn't does it. Neither does 3 years for jaywalking and 6 months for murdering a pedestrian in the street with a car. Looks like the world aint fair all around. And perhaps if the cab gets in an accident, you shouldn't trust it to drive you while you're passed out in the back seat. However, to be realistic, there's a difference in completely automated vehicles and vehicles that drive themselves with a driver present. If that driver is drunk, he goes to jail.. no questions asked. But to be further fair.. I hold a strong dislike for drinking, and I hate drunks, but I loath drunk drivers. Drivers are not the same as passengers though.

If the car is self-driving, then everyone in the car is a passenger, no matter where they're sitting. So long as nobody 'takes control'. Which the car's black box would note.

Human driven cabs get into accidents all the time. So if you were drunk, you wouldn't 'trust' a cab to take you home? You certainly couldn't trust any other human to take you home, either... So you'd drive?

A robot driver would at least not become tired, irritable, impatient, etc. But it could obey every rule of the road, and still have an accident. Things drop out of the sky. Kids go dashing out from between parked vehicles that fully mask them from sight until they're 12" in front of your fender. Bicyclists do all kinds of chaotic things. Animals wander into the road and do surprisingly suicidal things. Human driven cars signal left and turn right, or slam on their brakes for no reason, or go the wrong way down the freeway fast lane for miles.

[dstarfire]

42n81, on 29 July 2011 - 04:00 PM, said:

dstarfire, on 29 July 2011 - 10:31 AM, said:

Yes, Apple is the bad guy because they've put their customers at risk by ignoring a standard security procedure (always change passwords from the default). Even if the senior management didn't know, you can be pretty sure that at least one person noticed it and reported the danger to his/her supervisor. Even if he didn't pass it along, Apple is still at fault for creating a corporate culture that encourages ignoring product flaws and dangers.

I'm not even going to touch your suggestion to ignore vulnerabilities or vilify the people who discover them. I just hope your doctor doesn't follow that same "what you don't know can't hurt you" philosophy.

I'm not saying to ignore vulnerabilities. I'm saying it's not OK to call the homeowner the "bad guy" for not putting bars on his windows and imprisoning himself in his house.

Since when has it become OK to break into somebody's property and damage it. Who would you rather have locked up, the lowlife who violated your property or the home builder?

This has nothing to do with my doctor discovering an illness and telling me about it. If you want an analogy, it's like your shrink finding a weakness and using it to have you get rid of his wife.

Like I said, Apple should have known better and should have locked the barn door. But unless you have mashed potatoes for brains, you know that the bad guys are the horse thieves and not the rancher.

There seems to be some misunderstanding here. Charlie Miller discovered the exploit by experimenting on his OWN machines. He has published the existence of this vulnerability and speculated on how it could be used maliciously. He hasn't damaged anybody else's computer, he's not providing instructions on how to abuse this vulnerability, he is merely saying "Hey, macbooks are vulnerable because of this." He even suggested a possible solution (use a third-party battery from the other manufacturers he tested that change the default password).

The only difference between between what Mr. Miller did and what consumer safety agencies such as Underwriter's Laboratory (that UL mark you see on many electrical devices is their seal of approval), as well as product review writers is that Charlie didn't warn Apple he was testing some of their products.

Another

[rdchas]

42n81, on 29 July 2011 - 05:31 AM, said:

Wait a minute!!!!

"Someone" could hack into my MacBook, trash my battery (or worse), and APPLE is the bad guy?

Either our value system is totally broken or our brains have been replaced with mashed potatoes.

Granted, Apple should know better. Come to think of it, we all should know better. Since when has it become expected, even mandatory that every vulnerability be exploited?

All the exploit "geniuses" who ferret out weaknesses in someone else's work, in my books anyway, are several notches below ambulance chasers looking for their fifteen seconds of glory.

Yeah, Apple is the bad guy. Microsoft is blamed for malware that requires user interaction. Yeah, Apple is the bad guy.

[rdchas]

42n81, on 29 July 2011 - 05:31 AM, said:

Wait a minute!!!!

"Someone" could hack into my MacBook, trash my battery (or worse), and APPLE is the bad guy?

Either our value system is totally broken or our brains have been replaced with mashed potatoes.

Granted, Apple should know better. Come to think of it, we all should know better. Since when has it become expected, even mandatory that every vulnerability be exploited?

All the exploit "geniuses" who ferret out weaknesses in someone else's work, in my books anyway, are several notches below ambulance chasers looking for their fifteen seconds of glory.

Yeah, Apple is the bad guy. Microsoft is blamed for malware that requires user interaction. Yeah, Apple is the bad guy.