Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!osh3!chip
From: chip@osh3.OSHA.GOV (Chip Yamasaki)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Techno Terror
Message-ID: <1991Apr30.020847.12423@osh3.OSHA.GOV>
Date: 30 Apr 91 02:08:47 GMT
References: <9517@suned1.Nswses.Navy.MIL>
Organization: U.S. D.O.L - Occupational Safety & Health Admin.
Lines: 74

In <9517@suned1.Nswses.Navy.MIL> lev@slced1.nswses.navy.mil (Lloyd E Vancil) writes:

>I have just finished reading an article in the LA Times magazine of a
>couple of Sundays ago about "Automatic Freeways."  This article expounds
>at great length on the development and use of automated freeway systems to
>solve the traffic problems in a metropolis such as LA.  
>Basically, such a system would involve computer guided autos, and a network
>of machines that control the network under the roadway.  This would mean that
>a network of computers (non-motile) would be controling and "conversing"
>with a large number of moving computers.  All in all, a much considered
>concept, nothing new here.

And this in itsself reminds me of the Byte Magazine Summit issue where
they supposedly gathered "experts" to get their opinions on what
computing would do in the next decade.  These IDIOTS should have been
ashamed of themselves!  They said things like tiny computer chips
implanted under the skin and whatnot.  What a joke!

Enough people would NEVER allow such a thing to happen.  I'd bet with
one whif of such a thing the ACLU would go mad, and in this one tiny
case I would support them.  The same could be said for a computer
controlled freeway system.  One of the best things about driving a car
is "driving the car".  People are never going to want to give up the
freedom of controlling the vehicle themselves, and I do mean NEVER!

>I wonder, however, if these designers have given any thought to the potential
>for techno terror.  A "dick dastardly" finagles the computer in one
>sector of the system to change the destination of each vehicle passing through
>its control. The contollers would have to be able to re-route traffic around
>problems.  Or a High-tech assasin targets one car and sets a program that
>alters its destination every few seconds/minutes.  The victim car becomes the
>fellow who was lost on the MTA, forever going nowhere at top speed.  -Boy!
>what an analogy for today.-
>If the entire network could be subverted, all of the vehicles in the net
>would be going nowhere at top speed forever...

Good point, but they could probably make all kind of claims about
super-high security and closed systems and the like.  If I were a
"victim" of such a horrible system I (being a programmer myself) would
be much more afraid of a bug or crash than a "terrorist".  I know of
NOBODY, including myself, that I would trust to write an application
that had my very life in its hands so completely.  Have you ever of an
application that was completely free of bugs?

>How would we react to such techno terror?

What is the techno terror, the subverting of such a system or the
implementations itsself?

>How would we combat it?

Fight it before it IS implemented.

>With the things we have learned about self replicating programs, I tend to
>believe that techno-terror has already happened and will become more pandemic
>in the future.

Yes, this is a perfect reason to keep computing and automation in proper
perspective.  Computers, for me, are the foundation for a good career,
an enjoyable hobby, and sometimes an obsession.  Still I, even more than
many less technically involved people I know, keep my vision of
computer's roles in society much more in their proper perspective.  We
have to limit what we expect of computers and the areas where we try to
automate.

Just as a manager has to know what to delegate, when to delegate, and
who to delegate to, we must know what to automate, when to automate and
how to automate.  If a manager delegates responsibility properly the
production of his unit is increased exponentially.  If he delegates
responsibility irresponsibly he will fail miserably.
-- 
--
Charles "Chip" Yamasaki
chip@oshcomm.osha.gov