Uber cover up?

[bigegg]

The assumption is that roads will not evolve to match ACs -
I don't think that's neccesarily accurate, in the medium term (ie, 10-20 years).
I would expect drop off points to evolve - even if you owned a car, rather than renting the nearest a la "bike sharing", you wouldn't need it parked at your destination because you could send it a couple of streets away to park - less parked cars on the street means less hazards.
If you then fenced off roads, you would remove a second hazard.
Roads could be made narrower since autovehicles can judge width better than us - doors could be only opened if the way was clear, and approaching traffic could be warned in advance to take an alternative route if a delivery lorry is parked in a residential street.

Long term, roads could be moved underground or above head height. - or pedestrian paths could.

I'm thinking the m1, same width as now, but taking 10 or 12 lanes of traffic - no central reservation, and central lanes reversing direction as needed to account for traffic flow.
Add a segregated, covered, cycle path with an airflow to push you in the right direction (and uphill assist) to busy town roads, and you could remove 70%? of rush hour traffic within 50 years.



Economically speaking: I read an essay a few years ago regarding increased automation.
It concluded that eventually, automation would reach a point where very little human "labour" would have to be done. Everyone would have a good standard of living, with plenty of free time to devote to hobbies - it might have been "star trek"

 

[daleyd]

Economically speaking: I read an essay a few years ago regarding increased automation.
It concluded that eventually, automation would reach a point where very little human "labour" would have to be done. Everyone would have a good standard of living, with plenty of free time to devote to hobbies - it might have been "star trek"

Arthur c Clarke I think said the same would happen, he also said the most difficult period would be the transition from traditional work based economy to the society of the future. A very visionary guy, never knew much about him until I watched a very interesting documentary about him.

 

[bigegg]

Arthur c Clarke I think said the same would happen, he also said the most difficult period would be the transition from traditional work based economy to the society of the future. A very visionary guy, never knew much about him until I watched a very interesting documentary about him.

You could be correct - my reading material from 8 or 9 years old through to my 20s was virtually all Clarke,Asimov, and Heinlein. I think I've read pretty much everything they wrote, and it does seem to ring a bell now you mentioned it.

 

[Welderpaul]

We can’t even manage/afford to fill the massive holes in our crumbling road network that damage our cars and throw cyclists off into the road.

Automated cars? Start with the basics first!

 

[Bryan Williams]

It's an outrage!
There's enough people driving round in cars already without driverless cars whizzing around empty.

 

[dannyp]

i think were setting ourselves up for a fairly big fall.

if we automate everything using microprossors and programs all it needs to cause chaos is 1 good virus, solar flare or a good emp. all of these are unlikely to happen often but all can happen and have happened. if everything is automated and stops working ? what happens

 

[fizzy]

i think were setting ourselves up for a fairly big fall.

if we automate everything using microprossors and programs all it needs to cause chaos is 1 good virus, solar flare or a good emp. all of these are unlikely to happen often but all can happen and have happened. if everything is automated and stops working ? what happens

You are quite right.
Why on Earth do power stations etc need to be connected to the outside world?
A 1960s or 70s nuclear power station had loads of lovely analogue dials. Try hacking that!
2 years ago I would have said nonsense but the government sponsored viri attacking the Internet can cause untold damage.
TNT lost over a billion a few months ago. If they hadn't just been bought by Fedex they would have gone bust putting 100,000 people out of jobs.
Nothing is truly safe any more.

 

[daleyd]

Any power stations I’ve worked in (I wouldn’t profess to be an expert but I have worked at a few nuclear ones, plus the reprocessing side of things) the control system will not be connected to any outside network, not even their corporate network.

They may well have monitoring stuff that is collecting data that will be connected to their corporate networks, to send reports etc but there will be no control done by this, purely data collection.

I’m not saying it’s the same everywhere but the sites I’ve been to have been paranoid about external access (no usb sticks, dvd drives disabled etc) so I can’t imagine others being any different.

 

[MattF]

You are quite right.
Why on Earth do power stations etc need to be connected to the outside world?
A 1960s or 70s nuclear power station had loads of lovely analogue dials. Try hacking that!
2 years ago I would have said nonsense but the government sponsored viri attacking the Internet can cause untold damage.
TNT lost over a billion a few months ago. If they hadn't just been bought by Fedex they would have gone bust putting 100,000 people out of jobs.
Nothing is truly safe any more.

As DaleyD mentioned, I doubt most places are connected "online". Lack of security is no-ones fault bar the IT admins. If something doesn't need external access, it shouldn't be connected. If user introduced threats are a concern, remove unnecessary input devices. It's the blaise, buy a turnkey solution and trust it implicitly, (combined with forgetting just how clueless most users are), mentality which leads to opportunities existing. Mistakes get made, (sometimes you can overlook the simplest of things, security wise), but ineptitude is inexcusable, and it's simple ineptitude when anything critical is exposed.

 

[fizzy]

The older sites won't be connected. The newer sites often are.
I used to work for several large companies and certain government depts in intrusion detection and network security. The vulnerabilities get worse all the time.
I am surprised there haven't been direct attacks on the backbone fibre lines. It isn't difficult to find out where they run. It would be very easy to bring the country to it's knees or divert lots of data.

http://www.powermag.com/the-future-is-now-connected-power-plants-are-here/

 

[daleyd]

The older sites won't be connected. The newer sites often are.
I used to work for several large companies and certain government depts in intrusion detection and network security. The vulnerabilities get worse all the time.
I am surprised there haven't been direct attacks on the backbone fibre lines. It isn't difficult to find out where they run. It would be very easy to bring the country to it's knees or divert lots of data.

http://www.powermag.com/the-future-is-now-connected-power-plants-are-here/

Erm, no they won’t be. At least not the part that moves the valves and does the control of the power plant. The external stuff for sure is more vulnerable due to it being connected to the wider web, but plants are not suddenly going to be shut down as they simply won’t be connected to a network. If someone does manage to get access to an isolated system then there has been a monumental failure of processes.

I did a job about 18 months ago for reprocessing fuel waste - a fairly low level and low risk activity in nuclear terms, but any changes I had to make to their system had to be sent by email, then recreated on site by me physically typing the code in - we had no network access, usb drive was disabled and there was no dvd fitted. It’s the same on power plants, though obviously the less critical bits have much wider access.

 

[fizzy]

The Ukraine national grid was taken down twice by hackers and it is a growing concern.
I am not saying that there will be a major leak or meltdown but there could be disruption. Perhaps fooling external sensors into thinking there was a leak causing a shutdown.

 

[daleyd]

The Ukraine national grid was taken down twice by hackers and it is a growing concern.
I am not saying that there will be a major leak or meltdown but there could be disruption. Perhaps fooling external sensors into thinking there was a leak causing a shutdown.

Yeah agreed the wider network could (is) certainly be an issue, and I think it’s an area companies are trying to clamp down on - whether they will ever stay a step ahead of the people trying to get in is debatable.

There was a bit of tabloid sensationalism when these stories first broke, saying they had got control over the control systems etc but the reality is not quite as scary, nonetheless it is obviously a concern.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Stick to safe topics
Please avoid religion, politics, criminal justice, or any non-welding related topic that is going to get members annoyed. Fight that out elsewhere - we'll not solve the world's issues in a welding forum.

A few too many political opinions being shared on the forum at the moment.
No more please.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I was chatting to one of the quarry delivery drivers when I went to collect some stone, he was telling me that they have a constant supply of stone going into the new Hinckley nuclear power station site and its strictly no mobile phones allowed on site, they have to be handed in at security on the way in. Personnel caught with a mobile on site are ejected/sacked.

 

[bourbon]

These Nuclear power stations that are that secure that, in 2006, I took a wrong turn when doing a re-enactment at Berkeley castle. I drove into the power station down there, drove round an internal roundabout and back out, not stopped once. Scary thing was, I was carrying 5KG of black powder at the time!

 

[rtcosic]

At least not the part that moves the valves and does the control of the power plant. The external stuff for sure is more vulnerable due to it being connected to the wider web, but plants are not suddenly going to be shut down as they simply won’t be connected to a network. If someone does manage to get access to an isolated system then there has been a monumental failure of processes.

As a former refinery manager I confirm that under no circumstances whatsoever did I ever allow any of the control system to be connected to the outside world in any way.
Much to the irritation of the 'IT' types this meant everything being manually input. No floppy disks, USB sticks etc, let alone connection to the Wibbly Wobbly Web - not even the vendor's supposedly 'secure' links.

Not just the overall Digital Control System but the lower level PLCs as well. Caused issues with 'embedded' PLCs in packaged systems which required the vendor's standard offering being replaced with a locally programmed PLC , often at great cost.
No mobile phones allowed on site - even before the era of camera phones let alone Bluetooth.

I trust that my successors are as rigid.

 

[daleyd]

As a former refinery manager I confirm that under no circumstances whatsoever did I ever allow any of the control system to be connected to the outside world in any way.
Much to the irritation of the 'IT' types this meant everything being manually input. No floppy disks, USB sticks etc, let alone connection to the Wibbly Wobbly Web - not even the vendor's supposedly 'secure' links.

Not just the overall Digital Control System but the lower level PLCs as well. Caused issues with 'embedded' PLCs in packaged systems which required the vendor's standard offering being replaced with a locally programmed PLC , often at great cost.
No mobile phones allowed on site - even before the era of camera phones let alone Bluetooth.

I trust that my successors are as rigid.

Quite so, from my experience not much has changed.

To even be considered for a lot of projects (nuclear is probably the worst followed by pharma and oil/gas) we will often get audited with a fine tooth comb at the factory for things like data security, vetting checks for people involved in the project, disaster recovery procedures (here’s a completely blank system, we want you to build it up from scratch will the relevant software, not from an image) etc - this is all before any work has actually begun.

Once we get on site their procedures are generally no less rigorous.

 

[RaceDiagnostics]

Seems like the Uber experimental tests on the Arizona population unwitting guinea pigs have now rightly been banned by the State.