"This isn't the first time the University of Washington has conducted such an experiment. The computer science department—particularly the work of Tadayoshi Kohno—has unearthed flaws in embedded medical devices, electronic voting machines, and smart cars. (Check out his PBS profile here.) The school has "a long history of showing that interesting, cutting-edge hardware is vulnerable in some sense," Ryan Calo, a co-author on one of the robotics papers, said.
The purpose of pointing out faults, of course, is to make sure the technology gets an upgraded security system before it goes on the market. But sometimes that can be difficult when a generation of entrepreneurs has already snorted the innovation Kool Aid. "[Security can be] a hard thing to expect when often this innovation bubbles up from small startups and other quarters," Calo said. "Security is unfortunately sometimes an afterthought.""
- Date Published:05/08/2015
- Original Publication:The Stranger