I have no problem with my car running Linux, but god I hope that they find a replacement for make and Configure.

The idea that I am going to have to pullover, run Configure and then re-build the whole thing in order to adjust my seat position, the electric mirrors or close the sunroof when it starts raining scares me sh...illy.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Making cars" and home-builds :)

You will usually need to run configure and make once, and that will be done at the factory, so only car hackers will worry about it. Afterwards you just need to edit ~/.carrc, or, if you want the changes to affect all users of the car, /etc/carrc . :-)

I have no problem with my car running Linux, but god I hope that they find a replacement for make and Configure.

Portage! I want to check for upgrades to my car every night when I come home from work! I think having a Gentoo Jeep would be awesome. :-)


--
Linux, sci-fi, and Nat Torkington, all at Penguicon 3.0
perl -e 'print(map(chr,(0x4a,0x41,0x50,0x48,0xa)))'

I don't have a problem with make or configure.

What I would find scary is cars driving on the street that could be programmed by anyone. That's far more scary than whatever OS it might be running (which I strongly doubt will be Windows or a Unix flavour).

I'd rather not see either one used. There are already thoughts of using Bluetooth-enabled cars as a potential virus infection path. Having a few different systems makes it more difficult to write a single virus that can infect all the cars on the road.

Monocultures are inheirantly unstable, wheather it's Windows, GNU/Linux, *BSD, or Irish Potatos.

Well you have to admit, that an OS with a "protected root filesystem", will be safer than any Windows solution. Of course, the police will probably like Window's cars, they will be able to cut your motor, with a single mouse click. (And probably listen to your conversations thru the backdoors to the microphone). :-)

So I would not doubt that Windows is used for exactly that reason, touting "increased public safety" as the rational. Of course, Microsoft will have "fine print" on every car sales receipt saying " we are not responsible for any accident , injury or death due to the wild viruses which are known to affect their OS".

---

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh

"Safer", sure. It's safer still to keep seperate systems and avoid monocultures.

Cutting engines is already possible. The devices used by police in "2 Fast 2 Furious" are a bit fanciful, but actually not far from the truth. There are systems that can cut any engine by bombarding the computer with microwaves. This uses a fundamental vulnerability in semi-conductor technology.

There are also lasers microphones which can pick up minute vibrations on a window, thus letting you hear whatever is inside. IIRC, it was recently ruled in the US that police need a court order to use such a device.

In either case, the technology is available to do these things now, without exploiting the car's OS.

"There is no shame in being self-taught, only in not trying to learn in the first place." -- Atrus, Myst: The Book of D'ni.

Well you have to admit, that an OS with a "protected root filesystem", will be safer than any Windows solution.

Doubtful. I don't think that if your car gets an OS, the OS will have actual users. There will be just one user - and since that user will need super user permissions to access the various device files, I give you one guess which user that will be.