American Civil Liberties Union

A disgruntled worker at a Texas auto dealership hacked into a vehicle-immobilization system and disabled more than 100 vehicles. Our automobiles are getting more and more computerized, so the threat of hacking vehicles is being taken increasingly seriously, according to this interesting article in CIO Magazine. And as computerization proceeds, with cars tied in to GPS, social networks, and who knows what else, the threat will increasingly be not just to security but also to privacy. Already today’s cars contain as many as 70 independent computers with up to 100 megabytes of code. And, vehicles—perhaps we should start calling them “transportation computers”—are increasingly being plugged into various networks, which greatly increases their vulnerability. Already, the job description “car thief” has come to take on some of the qualities of “hacker,” with today’s thieves plugging into vehicles’ data ports, replicating RFID key fobs, and otherwise manipulating data rather than hardware. It’s always seemed to me that one way to increase the security in cars and other publicly important software, is to require that their code be open source.

It’s funny how unpredictable the course of technology is. A few weeks ago it was reported that a Texas school district plans to implant RFID chips in student IDs, and use them to track the whereabouts of students. RFID chips, of course, are what make all kinds of contactless technologies work, from toll booth speed passes to contactless transit passes and entry keys. We have seen attemtps to use RFID’s in schools before and have opposed such efforts, not only because we don’t want to see this kind of intrusive surveillance infrastructure gain inroads into our culture, and because we should not be teaching our children to accept such an intrusive surveillance technology, but also because RFIDs are a generally insecure technology not appropriate for use with children.

Every parent should be able to send their child off to school knowing that he or she will spend the day in a safe environment.   For many parents across the nation, however, that peace of mind was shattered by the unthinkable tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.  Today, the House of Representatives will take up the issue of school safety with a hearing in the House Education and Workforce Committee.  The ACLU has submitted a statement suggesting ways to ensure that schools are safe places for students to learn, grow, and thrive.

By Dr. A. Scott Henderson. When I was a first-year teacher, I had the opportunity to tutor an eighth-grade boy (I’ll call him “John”) who had recently moved to the United States from India. We spent an hour together each day for an entire school year. During that time I got to know John pretty well.