RNTF Commentary

At the US PNT Advisory Board meeting last month, Regulus discussed its spoofing trials using a Tesla automobile. The company was able to cause the car to rapidly accelerate, brake, and exit the highway on command and counter to the auto-drive’s programming. – Full disclosure, Regulus is a corporate supporter of the RNT Foundation.

After information about these experiments appeared in the media, some criticized the trials as being unreasonable and to not have shown what Regulus claims they demonstrated.

Responding to these critiques, Regulus held a webinar on July 11th to discuss their experiments, how they were conducted, and the results.

If, like us, you were not able to attend (we were traveling with family at the time), don’t despair. Video of the webinar is available here http://bit.ly/RegulusTesla and slides are available here https://hubs.ly/H0jMMW80.  You do have to provide you email to access both, which we think is fair.

While no future media releases on these experiments are planned, Regulus is eager to continue dialog on this with those who have questions. These should be sent to Roi Mit at [email protected].

We think these discussions are great – a very important way for the community to highlight and explore vulnerabilities.

Two things to remember, though. While a Tesla was selected for these trials, Regulus found vulnerabilities in receivers used in many autodrive systems.

And, while folks may disagree on some of the details, any remote interference with an automobile is unacceptable. If anything like that is possible, the industry has a duty to eliminate that possibility.