Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!letni!rwsys!sneaky!gordon
From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Techno Terror
Message-ID: <55407@sneaky.lonestar.org>
Date: 2 May 91 12:46:50 GMT
References: <9517@suned1.Nswses.Navy.MIL>
Organization: Gordon Burditt
Lines: 26

>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.
>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!

I'd worry a lot more about (1) bugs, and (2) official tampering with
the system.  For example, if the car is reported stolen, or the owner 
supposedly has unpaid parking tickets (like from 10 minutes ago), or is
wanted for a crime, or he's disputing his property taxes and hasn't 
paid them yet, his vehicle (with someone, not necessarily the owner, 
in it) ends up at the police station.  People who annoy the mayor 
get home by going the long way around the city several times.  
Suspected drug dealers and people from the "bad" part of town find 
they can't get to the "good" parts, only out of town and back to where 
they came from.  Of course, they could use the slow, non-automated route.

					Gordon L. Burditt
					sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon