autonomous vehicles | Idaho Business Review

‘Internet of Things’ introduces possibilities, perils, attorney warns

image of self driving car — While autonomous vehicles could be safer, cheaper and more efficient, they are still illegal to drive in Idaho. Image courtesy of GM.

The Internet of Things (IoT) — the trend toward embedding computer-enabled sensors into other products — offers a massive potential for data and analysis, but it introduces massive vulnerabilities as well that businesses must prepare for.

“Putting a computer into everything turns the whole world into a computer security threat,” said Phil Harris, an intellectual property attorney with Holland & Hart, which recently held a talk on the subject.

More than 30 billion IoT devices are predicted to be available by 2020, Harris said. Already, there have been a number of security incidents where such devices acted as a vector for an attacker, ranging from the casino that got hacked through an internet-enabled aquarium thermostat to a Nest baby monitor where an intruder threatened to kidnap the baby.

Part of the problem is that the market is so hot for these devices that developers aren’t taking the time to include security in them from the beginning or patch vulnerabilities as they appear. In addition, some vendors don’t do a good job aggregating or anonymizing the data they generate and store, making it easier to track information belonging to individuals, Harris said.

The IoT can be used to hack into a company’s network in a variety of ways, for instance, using them as a denial of service vector or flooding the devices with too many requests. “Man in the middle” attacks pretend to be a legitimate IoT device and use it to record data. Another approach utilizes malware that breaks into the network via the IoT system.

Laws have been passed in California, scheduled to take effect next year, that promulgate regulations requiring security features for internet-connected devices. While Idaho doesn’t have such laws, manufacturers will need to develop security features for their products so they’ll comply with California laws, and that would help Idahoans, Harris said.

The IoT Security Foundation publishes a list of best practice guidelines, but they boil down to planning, allocating resources, training personnel, dynamically monitoring the devices, reacting quickly to issues and solving problems such as vulnerabilities, Harris said.

In a related issue, Harris also discussed autonomous vehicles. Currently, autonomous vehicles aren’t legal to even be tested in Idaho, though a number of neighboring states, particularly Nevada, are on the forefront of autonomous vehicle technology.

A working group on autonomous vehicles held three meetings over the summer and recommended that the Idaho Legislature implement testing at least, but no legislation was brought forward at the most recent legislative session. Gov. Brad Little has not yet indicated whether he plans to re-form the committee or provide any other support for autonomous vehicles, such as through an executive order.

Part of the challenge is the chicken-and-egg problem of whether to enact policy first or wait for the technology, Harris said. It’s difficult to enact policy without knowing how people will use technology, he said. And much of the policy is only peripherally related to the technology. For example, if an autonomous vehicle has an accident, who’s at fault?

Driverless vehicles could cost as little as 20 cents per mile, compared with $1.50 per mile for a driver-enabled car, thanks to improved safety and driving efficiency, as well as not having to pay a driver, Harris said. While there is currently a lack of truck drivers, autonomous trucks would put the drivers Idaho does have out of work, he said.

Once Idaho realizes how much the rest of the nation is working on autonomous vehicles, state lawmakers will fall in line, Harris predicted, noting that Idaho-based Micron, through its Virginia subsidiary, is developing products for autonomous vehicles.

“Every vehicle will have a terabyte of data stored on it,” he said.

Autonomous vehicles stalled for the session

Although an interim gubernatorial committee on autonomous vehicles issued a draft report recommending Idaho allow their testing and deployment, it’s looking like that’s not happening during this legislative session.

“I have been told [the Idaho Transportation Department] is not bringing any legislation this year to implement any of the recommendations from the working group as they did not think it was necessary,” said Sen. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee.

The interim committee, composed of legislators and industry representatives, met in May, August and October to discuss autonomous vehicles in Idaho. The report’s recommendations include encouraging legislation to allow autonomous vehicle testing and deployment, and coordinating regulatory, policy and standardization decisions to ensure Idaho’s policies don’t conflict with those of other states.

Committee members also agreed that it was preferable to write a new code section to include autonomous vehicles (“cooperative automated transportation,” or CAT, the most recent acronym) rather than rewriting existing code because that would take too long and risk introducing errors.

The Autonomous and Connected Vehicle Testing and Deployment Committee was formed by previous Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter on Jan. 2 by executive order. Currently, autonomous vehicles are forbidden in Idaho, even for testing. A bill to change this, S.1108, made it through the Senate in 2015, but died in the House transportation committee.

Gov. Brad Little could decide to reappoint the committee, or another one, to continue its work. “The Governor is consulting with ITD about the findings of the committee formed under the Otter administration in order to determine how best to proceed on the issue,” said Marissa Morrison, press secretary.

Eight other states are also looking at autonomous vehicles via executive order, while 25 states — including all three states on Idaho’s southern border — have already implemented legislation allowing autonomous vehicles in some form. Nevada is the furthest ahead, having first authorized autonomous vehicles in 2011 and now running a three-stop autonomous shuttle in downtown Las Vegas.

ITD said it was not aware of any legislative proposals.

Committee recommends Idaho allow autonomous vehicles

Jeff Marker, ITD freight program manager. Photo courtesy of ITD.

A gubernatorial committee on autonomous vehicles has issued a draft report recommending Idaho allow their testing and deployment, but with sidebars to ensure roadways remain safe for everyone, including pedestrians and bicyclists.

The most recent meeting, held on Oct. 16, was the last of three meetings for the committee in its current form. Previous meetings were held on May 30 and Aug. 21. The report is due to the governor by Nov. 1 and was released to the committee in draft form at the meeting, presented by Jeff Marker, Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) freight program manager.

The report’s recommendations include encouraging legislation to allow autonomous vehicle testing and deployment, and coordinating regulatory, policy and standardization decisions to ensure Idaho’s policies don’t conflict with those of other states. Committee members also agreed that it was preferable to write a new code section to include autonomous vehicles (“cooperative automated transportation,” or CAT, the most recent acronym) rather than rewriting existing code because that would take too long and risk introducing errors.

Some sections of code might need to be rewritten, however, because in some cases they are predicated on having a human driver in the vehicle who is in control. Committee members were also encouraged not to require that the operator of the vehicle be a licensed driver, because that would mean that people who are disabled wouldn’t be able to take advantage of autonomous vehicles.

One way to get people used to autonomous vehicles is via public transit, Marker said, adding that Boise State University and Kootenai County were interested.

A significant issue is going to be finding funding to support autonomous vehicles, particularly in rural areas, Marker said. For example, communities that have trouble finding money to pave their roads are going to find it difficult to maintain the striping that autonomous vehicles require, he said. At the same time, without the involvement of rural communities, Idaho runs the risk of having a disconnected road system without the safety and efficiency advantages of autonomous vehicles in rural areas, he said.

In addition, because the majority of autonomous vehicles are expected to be electric, Idaho will continue to face transportation revenue pressures, because highways are currently funded by a gas tax, Marker said. Idaho belongs to a consortium of Northwest states that are looking at other alternatives, such as road user charges, he said.

The draft report also recommends that Idaho study the economic impacts of CAT on issues such as the displacement of workers, disruptive technology leading to new industry, business opportunities and new training opportunities. However, ITD Director Brian Ness said at the first meeting that it was beyond the scope of the committee to answer the financial questions raised by allowing autonomous vehicles.

Marker and Ness, with the support of the rest of the committee, also stressed the importance of staying technology-neutral – in other words, not implementing any requirements or specifications, such as communications protocols, that limited Idaho’s future development options.

What happens to the committee going forward is undetermined, Ness said. A new governor will be elected in November, to take office in January, and that person will determine whether the committee is dissolved completely, continues in some form, or is re-formed with different people, he said.

The Autonomous and Connected Vehicle Testing and Deployment Committee was formed by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter on Jan. 2 by executive order. Currently, autonomous vehicles are forbidden in Idaho, even for testing. A bill to change this, S.1108, made it through the Senate in 2015, but died in the House transportation committee.

Eight other states are also looking at autonomous vehicles via executive order, while 25 states – including all three states on Idaho’s southern border – have already implemented legislation allowing autonomous vehicles in some form. Nevada is the furthest ahead, having first authorized autonomous vehicles in 2011 and now running a three-stop autonomous shuttle in downtown Las Vegas.

With autonomous vehicles, security is a looming concern

A conceptual image of the General Motors Cruise AV, schedule to be available in 2019, with no driver, steering wheel, pedals or manual controls. Image courtesy of GM.

After the most recent hearing of the state’s autonomous vehicles committee, which focused on security, attendees were frightened.

Brian Ness

“The consensus is, this is pretty scary stuff,” summarized Brian Ness, director of the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), after hearing from each of the attendees. “I don’t even want to use Bluetooth in my car anymore.”

Part of the issue is the complexity of autonomous vehicles. “With higher complexity comes more vulnerabilities,” said Ken Rohde, a cybersecurity researcher at Idaho National Laboratory, noting that even a 2016 Ford F150 pickup has more lines of code than a Boeing 787 airplane.

Ness, insurance company representatives, and state officials gathered August 21 for the second of three meetings of the Autonomous and Connected Vehicle Testing and Deployment Committee. The first meeting, held May 30, covered issues such as liability and cost, while the third, scheduled for October 16, is intended to wrap up loose ends before the committee generates its report for Gov. C. L. “Butch” Otter. The committee was formed by the governor on January 2 by executive order. Autonomous vehicles are now forbidden in Idaho, even for testing. A bill to change this, S.1108, made it through the Senate in 2015, but died in the House transportation committee.

At the security-focused second meeting, the committee learned that the industry will also need to learn how to protect itself from incidents such as people carrying software-defined radios, which they could use to pretend to be ambulances to part autonomous vehicle traffic in front of them, Rohde said. Even the electrical grid itself is vulnerable, because autonomous vehicles are all-electric, he said. Sabotaging the grid could leave a region immobile, he warned.

According to the 2018 Cox Automotive Evolution of Mobility Study: Autonomous Vehicles, 84 percent of the population wants to have the option to drive themselves even in a self-driving vehicle, compared to 16 percent who would feel comfortable letting an autonomous vehicle drive them without the option of being able to take control. “The number of respondents that believe roadways would be safer if all vehicles were fully autonomous versus operated by people has decreased 18 percentage points in just two years,” the report noted.

“Malicious actors are going to be a problem, and they will attack anything that’s exposed,” said Simson Garfinkel, a Washington, D.C., computer security expert. He expects, though, that physical attacks will be more of an issue than cyberspace ones.

A similar opinion was expressed in Securing Self-Driving Cars by Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, known for hacking a Jeep Cherokee in 2015. Now employees of Cruise, General Motors’ self-driving car division, the two wrote that vehicles are more likely to be at risk from a physical attack. In fact, autonomous vehicles offered by a service, such as Uber or Lyft, would be more likely to be safe than individually owned vehicles, because they would be more likely to be kept secure and updated regularly, they wrote.

Another security issue is that of the streets themselves. ITD speakers showed examples of situations that flummoxed autonomous vehicles in tests, such as graffiti-covered stop signs and large white trucks, which led the autonomous vehicle to conclude it was seeing a horizon. (Autonomous vehicles in Australia have been confused by bounding kangaroos.) Attendees expressed concern that bullet holes might also render signs invisible.

But such situations might be less of an issue because the system will “learn” what a street looks like and “know” that a stop sign is there, even if it doesn’t recognize it, Miller and Valasek wrote. That functionality is required because autonomous vehicles aren’t capable of processing all data about a street in real time — only the parts that are changing or different, they wrote.

Jeff Weak, Idaho’s director of information security, said he was torn between thinking of all the benefits autonomous vehicles could provide, such as mobility for people who couldn’t drive themselves, and the security issues. But somehow the state, as well as the nation as a whole, is going to have to figure it out, he said.

Committee ponders autonomous vehicles

ITD director Brian Ness, right, discusses autonomous vehicles with Department of Commerce Director Bobbi Jo Meulemann. Photo courtesy of ITD.

Autonomous vehicles are “knocking on our door” and Idaho needs to be ready, said Brian Ness, director of the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), after the first meeting of a working group on the subject on May 30.

The Autonomous and Connected Vehicle Testing and Deployment Committee was formed by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter on January 2 by executive order. Autonomous vehicles are forbidden in Idaho, even for testing. A bill to change this, S.1108, made it through the Senate in 2015, but died in the House transportation committee.

A number of attendees – including department heads of ITD and the Department of Commerce and the owner of used car dealer Fairly Reliable Bob’s – are fine with banning the vehicles in Idaho for now. Idaho should let other states solve the problems that arise with use of the vehicles first. But the state needs to be at the table, Ness said.

Jeff Marker. Photo courtesy of ITD.

Autonomous vehicles (see box) are being considered for several reasons. First is safety. Currently, 94 percent of accidents are caused by human error, said Jeff Marker, ITD’s freight program manager. Second, vehicles that don’t require as much human intervention could save money on drivers, as well as operate continuously for 24 hours – a particular consideration for the trucking industry.

However, autonomous vehicles face roadblocks. First is liability. If an autonomous vehicle gets into an accident, who is at fault: the operator, the owner, or the manufacturer? “If it’s speeding, who gets the ticket?” asked Bobby Peterson, owner of Fairly Reliable Bob’s. Tennessee has already passed legislation assigning the manufacturer with some liability, Marker said.

Second is cost. Autonomous vehicles typically work using sensors along the roadway, meaning markers including stop signs and lane stripes need to be maintained. Idaho is already behind on road maintenance, noted Sen. Bert Brackett, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. Moreover, highway revenue – paid for by the gas tax – has been dropping as cars become more fuel-efficient. “Discussions need to be had,” he said.

Ness said it’s beyond the scope of the committee to answer the financial questions raised by allowing autonomous vehicles. He noted, though, that while Idaho could consider using general fund money for transportation — as some states, such as Utah, do — that would mean taking money away from other general fund entities such as public education and social services. This fall’s election could also make a difference, he added.

On the other hand, autonomous vehicles could save money because they require narrower lanes and less following distance, meaning roads could support more vehicles, said Ed Bala, district engineer for District 5, in southeast Idaho. The shorter following distance allows for “platooning,” or having a number of vehicles operating in a line, which is more fuel-efficient – 8 lanes, 8 feet wide, traveling at 80 mph, for example. Autonomous vehicles can double the capacity of a road, but not until 75 percent of the vehicles are automated, according to a Princeton University study he presented. That may take until almost 2060, according to statistics he cited from the RAND Corporation.

Finally, there are cultural considerations. For autonomous vehicles to interact, they need a common, nationwide agreement on factors ranging from vehicle design to appropriate driving behavior. How will that be determined? Will driving standards be based on New York drivers? asked David Lincoln, commissioner for the Golden Gate Highway District, in Canyon County. In addition, how will people express their personalities through autonomous vehicles, the way they do now with traditional cars? Driving may even become “transportation as a service” instead of people owning their own vehicles. It will be a massive cultural change for America and car dealers, Peterson said.

Plus, some people are afraid. A May 22 survey by AAA found that respondents were actually more afraid of autonomous vehicles than they were last year. However, insurance companies may offer incentives to customers to encourage them to switch, said Tom Donovan, deputy director for the Idaho Department of Insurance. He added that insurance companies could collect information from autonomous vehicles, raising questions about privacy.

The committee will meet next on August 21 to discuss cybersecurity, and then will have a final meeting on October 16 to meet its November 1 deadline.

What does autonomous driving really mean?

As a relatively new field, some of the terminology around autonomous vehicles is still being determined. Terms such as automated driving systems (ADS), autonomous vehicles, connected vehicles, automated driving, and cooperative automated transportation are all being thrown around.

In particular, a connected vehicle has internet access to communicate with devices inside and outside the vehicle, such as vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to infrastructure, or vehicle to “other,” such as pedestrian, bicyclist, or construction worker.

There are also several levels of automation:

Level 0: the human driver does all the driving
Level 1: the vehicle’s ADS can assist with steering, braking, and accelerating
Level 2: the vehicle’s ADS can control steering, braking, and accelerating under some circumstances, but the human must pay full attention at all times
Level 3: the vehicle’s ADS can perform all aspects of driving under some circumstances, but the human must be ready to take back control at any time
Level 4: the vehicle’s ADS can perform all aspects of driving under some circumstances, and the human doesn’t need to pay attention then
Level 5: the vehicle’s ADS does all the driving under all circumstances, and the human doesn’t have to pay attention at all

While some cars today offer some level of automated features, they are mostly around Level 2, with some approaching Level 3.

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Tag: autonomous vehicles

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With autonomous vehicles, security is a looming concern

Committee ponders autonomous vehicles