Originally published at: Watch someone in San Francisco smashing a Cruise autonomous car with a hammer (video) | Boing Boing
…
4 Likes
Hero.
14 Likes
Go Magnus Go!!!
8 Likes
Is that John Connor?
14 Likes
Meanwhile in London, Tory politicians are defending people who vandalise Ultra Low Emissions Zone (Ulez) cameras.
7 Likes
Would be much more effective with a spring impact glass-break tool, conveniently available at many neighbourhood stores and online retailers: Spring Loaded Window Punch
8 Likes
Cool. Now do one with a skateboard deck and a Range Rover.
5 Likes
Well, see. . . if I had a hammer. . .
I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening, all over this land.
And so on.
7 Likes
I think that Hammer might be something like a Camping Axe or some variant of an Ice Axe. I’m surprised at how resilient the robot’s peepers are.
11 Likes
What I’m getting from this video is that those cars are far tougher than I would have imagined - he doesn’t seem to be doing anything more than cosmetic damage, and barely any of that either.
5 Likes
well, they’ve got to be tough. you wouldn’t want them to crumple just because they hit a pedestrian…
13 Likes
I’m glad there were no passengers. Without a driver to take evasive measures, any passenger would be at great risk during this type of hammer attack. Their only option would be to get out of the car and run.
1 Like
Good point; a rattle-can would probably have been more effective; maybe some sort of self-etching primer? Or, of course, a low bridge.
9 Likes
It would be awesome for someone in the area to figure out the most vulnerable point that would disable the vehicle and post instructions and best methods all over town. I’d bet there’s one critical sensor that could do the trick.
2 Likes
He could have put the hammer through the radiator to disable it.
Is the self driving functionality looking at the engine’s vitals? Would it sense that it was overheating and shut down, or just let the engine destroy itself? Do modern cars shut down in that instance, or just start flashing a bunch of warnings on the dashboard?
2 Likes
“… Mom said robots killed my dad! Is this a robot?”
2 Likes
11 Likes
That’s why I was wondering if this was just random vandalism against a convenient, albeit currently unusual, target. Most of the attacks seemed to be against the windshield or other locations that won’t really affect the self-driving capabilities of the car. 
These do seem to have some redundancy, at least. Look for any cables that might be handy for clipping. Although thinking about it, just because the sensor housing didn’t visibly break, that doesn’t mean it was functional. How degraded does the video image have to be before the system halts. (Maybe this was just QA testing gone wild?)
Now you’re talking! Or, taking a clue from the spear throwing incident reported here a few weeks ago, a pointed stick (with a steel tip) would do a right good job!
4 Likes
That’s what I was wondering about the traffic cone thing mentioned above. Our car has a traffic detection systems that shits down if it’s obscured by something like rain or fog on the windshield. I assume that would completely immobilize an autonomous vehicle. Or at least it should.
5 Likes
