As reported by CNN: A pivotal network of satellites doesn't properly guard its communication, making devices back on Earth susceptible to hacking, according to new research.
Lots of companies -- everything ranging from overseas shipping containers to oil drilling rigs -- use location data beamed from GPS trackers to ensure that equipment never goes off course.
But Colby Moore, a researcher with cybersecurity firm Synack, has found that it's easy to crack Globalstar's satellite network. This is a company that bills itself as "the world's most modern satellite network."
GPS trackers beam data to satellites, which send them back to base stations on Earth. Using cheap hardware and small planes, Colby successfully intercepted and decoded data -- none of which was encrypted.
He also found that there are no safeguards to check that data is shared only between real trackers and base stations. With that access, Moore was able to decode the transmissions and create fake GPS data.
The result? High-tech thieves could steal a freight truck full of precious cargo without setting off alarms. Rescuers responding to a sinking cruise ship could be redirected far away from the actual wreckage.
Aviation is especially at risk. Lots of planes transmit their location using Globalstar's system, especially now that the organization that collects pilots' flight plans, Lockheed Martin (LMT) Flight Service, signed a deal with the satellite company in June.
A spokesman for Lockheed Martin did not respond to a request for comment.
A hacker's faked plane GPS signals could cause chaos at an airport that expects a plane to land -- but can't spot anything on radar.
Moore will present his findings at the Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas next week.
Globalstar (GSAT) did not acknowledge the flaw -- or say whether it plans to actually start encrypting its communication.
"This type of situation has never been an issue to date," said company representative Allison Hoffman. Globalstar said it would know if its systems were under attack. But this hack doesn't technically attack Globalstar's systems -- it only fools them.This is an artist's depiction of Globalstar satellites launched in 2010.
In today's world, lack of encryption with sensitive communication is unacceptable. Encryption is required in all electronic banking, and it's expected in email, texting, and even casual Web browsing.
Globalstar's problem could be a result of old technology. The company had already launched 40 satellites into space by late 1999, when encryption was an afterthought. Plus, encryption adds to the size of data being transmitted -- and in space, bandwidth is expensive, especially 20 years ago.
Moore said the only fix would be to add security features to new devices on Earth. But there are currently 649,000 Globalstar customers with devices whose software will be difficult -- or impossible -- to upgrade.
(Note: The original article describes the Globalstar system as a "network of GPS satellites", which is incorrect. Globalstar satellites are communication satellites, which in turn sometimes include GPS location information about their users. Nevertheless, the hacking claims, including the GPS data carried in the messages, could be well founded.)
As reported by The Daily Beast: Aerospace giant Boeing just snagged a $6.6-million contract to design a cheap, reusable spaceplane for the U.S. military. The idea: to equip America’s space forces with an airplane-like vehicle that can fly to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere and quickly boost small satellites into orbit, and then land, refuel, load up another satellite, andtake off again within 24 hours.
The so-called XS-1 program—short for “eXperimental Spaceplane 1”—isn’t a space weapon. Instead, it’s a sort of defense against space weapons—specifically, the growing fleets of killer spacecraft and satellite-destroying rockets that China and Russia are deploying.
U.S. military planners fully expect that, in any future conflict between major world powers, Earth’s orbit will become a battleground as laser-armed satellites stalk each other across orbital planes and ground- and ship-launched rockets lance into space to smash enemy spacecraft.
The country that can recover fastest from the initial orbital carnage stands to dominate space, the ultimate high ground in any high-tech battle. “In an era of declining budgets and adversaries’ evolving capabilities, quick, affordable, and routine access to space is increasingly critical for both national and economic security,” DARPA stated in a press release.
That’s where the XS-1 comes in. DARPA wants the new spaceplane to be able to boost a two-ton satellite into space every day for 10 days straight for less than $5 million per flight.
That’s a hell of a lot faster, and cheaper, than today’s launches, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years of planning. XS-1 could “create a new paradigm for more routine, responsive and affordable space operations,” according to DARPA.
Three XS-1s carrying a single satellite per trip and working at max speed could, in theory, replenish practically the Pentagon’s entire satellite constellation in a couple of weeks—and faster if each spaceplane carries more than one satellite at a time.
Of course, that assumes that contractors can build fresh spacecraft fast enough to keep up with the XS-1s’ busy launch schedules. To that end, the military is also working hard on simpler, smaller satellites that it can produce quickly and cheaply.
Conceptually, the robotic XS-1 is elegant in its simplicity. It’s basically just a high- and fast-flying drone that can lend a single-stage rocket speed and altitude, making it easier for the rocket (and its satellite payload) to escape Earth’s gravity.
“Our design would allow the autonomous booster to carry the second stage and payload to high altitude and deploy them into space,” Will Hampton, Boeing’s XS-1 program manager, said in a company press release. “The booster would then return to Earth, where it could be quickly prepared for the next flight by applying operation and maintenance principles similar to modern aircraft.”
In effect, the XS-1 replaces the biggest, priciest main stage of a single-use rocket, while saving money by being reusable. You buy the XS-1 once and use it over and over, paying only for fuel and spare parts for each flight.
Boeing’s concept art depicts a cigar-shaped airframe featuring a bulbous nose, tiny wings, and big engine nozzles for a powerful motor. In its basic outline, the XS-1 could wind up looking a lot like a miniature version of the Space Shuttle, which NASA retired in 2011, or a bigger take on the X-37B robotic spaceplanes that Boeing built for the Air Force a few years ago.
The X-37B—the objective of years’ worth of conspiracy theories—is positively diminutive at just 29 feet in length. DARPA has compared the XS-1 to an F-15 fighter, which is 64 feet long.
But the XS-1 wouldn’t just be bigger than today’s tiny spaceplane. While the X-37B features internal cargo bays with hinging doors, the XS-1, by contrast, could carry its payload—a single-stage rocket with a satellite attached—on its back. The X-37B, like the Space Shuttle before it, is an orbiter that boosts into space atop a rocket. In function, the XS-1 is more akin to the rocket than the orbiter—and only to the rocket’s initial stage, as it would only ever climb to a height of 70 miles or so, still within the atmosphere.
Which is not to say the XS-1 is any less sophisticated than the Space Shuttle and X-37B are. What the government is asking the XS-1 to do is hard. Especially doing it safely and cheaply. To give its payload the energy it needs to escape gravity, the XS-1 will need to accelerate to Mach 10—“hypersonic” speed.
By comparison, aerospace mogul Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo, a rocket-powered suborbital spaceplane that could also fly nearly 70 miles high, topped out at Mach 2 before its fatal crash in October 2014. No fewer than half of the hypersonic drones that the Pentagon has tested in recent years have also crashed. (And those have only gone Mach 4 or 5.) Russia and China have had even less luck developing aircraft that can withstand the stresses of hypersonic flight. “The work is not easy,” Boris Obnosov, then the head of Russia’s missile programs, said of his country’s high-Mach efforts in 2013.
Boeing beat out two other companies to snag the recent XS-1 contract. Starting in the summer of 2014, Masten Space Systems and Northrop Grumman had also drawn up XS-1 blueprints. DARPA awarded the three firms $4 million apiece to do that preliminary design work. But Boeing’s success building X-37Bs for the Air Force apparently helped the Chicago-based planemaker win the follow-on contract.
And it didn’t hurt that Boeing enlisted Washington State-based rocket start-up Blue Origin to help with the XS-1’s motor. Founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin is working on reusable space rockets that take off and land vertically. It appears Boeing wants to modify Blue Origin’s BE-4 to power the XS-1. Capable of producing more than half a million pounds of thrust, the BE-4 is amonster of an engine.
The next step for Boeing is to complete its XS-1 design and test its basic technologies—all before August 2016. DARPA wants an XS-1 prototype to perform a realistic trial mission no later than 2019. After that, the Pentagon could decide to build XS-1s for regular use.
It’s not clear how much the spaceplanes might cost. The two X-37Bs set the government back around a billion dollars apiece.
A billion bucks or more per XS-1 might seem like a lot, but it’s a small part of what the United States spends in space every year. Counting NASA’s $18-billion budget, the roughly $8 billion the Pentagon drops on rockets and satellites plus space spending by private companies, America invests $40 billion a year in orbit, more than the rest of the world combined. The United States’ more than 400 satellites and spaceplanes represent nearly half the world’s active spacecraft.
“The U.S. has much more invested in space and depends on it for communications, economic and military dimensions much more than everyone else,” said Dr. Laura Grego, a space expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
And that investment is fragile because satellites are fragile, Grego wrote in a recent blog post. “The truth is that it is much easier to attack [satellites] than to defend them.”
With its spaceplanes, maneuvering satellites, and surface-launched missiles, the United States is by far the world leader when it comes to destroying orbiting spacecraft, but that offensive capability doesn’t actually do much to protect America’s own satellites from rival space weapons.
In 2007, China blasted one of its own defunct satellites with a rocket, proving it could do the same to another country’s spacecraft. And over the past 18 months, Russia has sneaked three small, highly-maneuverable spacecraft into low orbit aboard rockets carrying communications satellites. “There’s some possibility it’s an anti-satellite system,” said Anatoly Zack, a space historian who closely tracks Russian activity in orbit. Equipped with lasers or explosives, the nimble little spacecraft could sneak up on and disable American satellites.
And if that happens, the Pentagon will have to scramble to restore its orbital infrastructure. XS-1s could take off every 24 hours, boosting a fresh satellite—or many satellites—into orbit at the apogee of each flight. To cut down on the time and money it takes to build new spacecraft, in 2007 the Pentagon established a new “Operationally Responsive Space” organization, now headquartered at an Air Force base in New Mexico.
ORS spends roughly $100 million a year designing comparatively inexpensive satellites—and helping other military organizations do the same. In November 2013, ORS launched a Minotaur rocket from Virginia containing a record-setting29 satellites in its nose cone. Each of the small “CubeSat” spacecraft, named for their four-inches-cubed dimensions, weighed just three pounds and cost no more than $100,000.
“Take the same microprocessors, GPS units, cameras, modems and radio equipment that we use in smartphones and put them in a satellite body instead,” wrote Maj. Ethan Mattox, a U.S. Special Operations Command space official. “Add the appropriate software, boost it into orbit and voila—you’ve built a satellite tailored for a specific mission fast and cheap.” Sure, a CubeSat lasts only three or four years, but even with such a short lifespan, the tiny satellites are a still a bargain compared to billion-dollar spacecraft that last much longer.
Combine CubeSats with XS-1s and you’ve got a great way of putting satellites into orbit quickly and cheaply, preserving America’s foothold in space even if an enemy is shooting down spacecraft. It’s not for no reason that Jess Sponable, DARPA’s XS-1 program manager, called the spaceplane a “game-changer.” (PDF)
As reported by Green Car Reports: It's not just the cars made by electric-car startup Tesla Motors, or the fact that it's the first new automaker in decades that appears to have a serious chance of long-term success.
The Silicon Valley company is also viewed as a potential disruptor of established players.
In just three years, the Tesla Model S has emerged to become a legitimate competitor to traditional luxury cars from companies that have been around for more than a century.
Not to mention that Tesla's direct-sales model is viewed as a dire threat by traditional franchised auto dealers, who have launched armies of lobbyists to make Tesla direct sales illegal in as many states as possible.
Now a new article suggests that Tesla might eventually take down a much bigger target.
Speculation about whether Tesla could mean the end for hydrocarbon vehicle fuels was the cover story in a recent issue of oil-industry trade magazine Alberta Oil (via Charged EVs).
The cover shows a Model S emerging from a black background, with the headline "Hell On Wheels."
In the article, author Max Fawcett argues that the Model S could be one of the "most dangerous" cars ever made--in terms of its impact on the oil industry.
That's because, by his reckoning, the Tesla sedan has managed to do something that no other electric car has done: "become an object of desire."
Fawcett interviewed Quartz journalist Steve LeVine, author of The Powerhouse, a book on the development of electric-car batteries.
Widening the scope beyond Tesla, LeVine said that improved batteries are more or less inevitable, and that they will dramatically increase demand for electric cars.
He notes that breakthroughs in battery technology don't have to come from carmakers. Electronics manufacturers and other related industries could contribute to the push as well.
And LeVine notes that batteries could be paired with other energy sources--such as hydrogen fuel cells or supercapacitors--to increase the range and performance of zero-emission vehicles.
He predicts the electric-car battery industry could be worth as much as $100 billion by 2030.
That would lead to a major drop in oil consumption, a scenario the oil industry may well not be prepared for.
As reported by NPR: For years, Google has had eyes in neighborhoods across the world: Google Street View cars armed with cameras, lasers, and GPS devices to filter "360-degree panoramic views" and "locations on all seven continents" to Google Maps.
Now, on top of having eyes, Google's got a nose. It has partnered with Aclima, a company that designs environmental sensor networks, to equip some Google Street View cars with equipment that allows them to track air pollution in real time. The technology will allow the cars to monitor levels of several pollutants: nitrogen dioxide, nitric oxide, ozone, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon, particulate matter, and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).
A Google technician installing Aclima sensors onto a Street View car.
"We are for the first time able to really take a city scale snapshot of pollution," Aclima CEO Davida Herzl told NPR. "The existing way that we understand air quality in cities is through government-mandated monitoring stations. But those monitoring stations are sparsely distributed in cities. So we understand kind of what's happening at a regional level, but we don't really understand how pollution moves through a city, how it differs block by block, street by street. ... You can think of it like a photograph with a few pixels. With the partnership with Google, we're now able to fill in those pixels."
The sensor devices, or "mini-mobile labs" as Herzl calls them, fit in the back of the Google Street View cars, and the air samples make it to those sensors from a hole in one of the car windows, through a series of tubes "that look like a jumbo straw." The cars also have small anemometers on the outside that can track temperature and wind flow, among other meteorologic measurements. "It's kind of like we've given the cars a nose," Herzl says.
Google says it's been working with Aclima for years, previously on devices to track pollution within Google buildings. And, Google began working with the Environmental Defense Fund last year, to start tracking methane pollution from underground pipelines.
Google's rendering of how pollution-sensor equipped Google Street View cars "see the air."Aclima
Google says the kind of data Aclima's sensors gather on Google Street View cars could have multiple uses.
"If you're a mother of an asthmatic child you could plan your day using this kind of information," Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google's lead on the Aclima partnership, told NPR. "If you're a local government, you could look at this kind of information and say, 'What and where can me make some changes on a small scale to have some good impact?' And if you're a scientist you can obviously use this kind of data for models and to help supplement the data that you're already collecting."
The pollution data gathered is being stored in the cloud by Google, and Aclima has already begun sifting through some of that data and publishing some of their findings. Tuxen-Bettman says that right now, Google isn't publishing any of the data itself, but one day, it might. "In the future, yes, Google Earth Engine, Google Earth, and other tools will be used so that all sorts of people can access it [the pollutant data] in different ways." Aclima says its goal is to make the data available to the public as well.
When asked about some of those privacy concerns people might have, Tuxen-Bettman said right now the Google Street View cars equipped with pollution sensors are only taking panoramic views for Google Maps and tracking pollution. "Air quality, right now, that's the only kind of additional experimentation that we're doing [with the Google Street View cars]. Obviously we're exploring what kind of pollutants we could potentially add.
"We understand that a lot of people will have different opinions," she said, "but our intention is that if we provide accurate and useful information about our air, it's gonna do much more good than harm, meaning that the benefits are far going to outweigh any cons. We're excited to finally make the invisible visible."
Whenever there are stories about Google and data, there are questions about just how much data the company is collecting, who can see it, and whether it's being put to good use. You could wonder: If Google Street View cars now have "eyes" and "noses," what else do they have?
Wired previously reported that Google has already come under fire for its Street View cars. A few years ago a Federal Communications Commission document showed that Google Street View cars were collecting Wi-Fi payload data and observing "typical Wi-Fi usage snapshots."
As reported by The Guardian:Amazon is proposing that a pristine slice of airspace above the world’s cities and suburbs should be set aside for the deployment of high-speed aerial drones capable of flying robotically with virtually no human interference. The retail giant has taken the next step in its ambition to deliver packages via drone within 30 minutes by setting out in greater detail than ever before its vision for the future of robotic flight. It envisages that within the next 10 years hundreds of thousands of small drones – not all of them Amazon’s or devoted to delivery – will be tearing across the skies every day largely under their own automated control.
The company’s aeronautics experts propose that a 200ft slab of air – located between 200ft and 400ft from the ground – should be segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment and flying at high speeds of 60 knots or more. A further 100ft of airspace – between 400ft and 500ft – would be declared a no-fly zone to act as a buffer between the drones and current conventional aircraft such as passenger and cargo planes, thus mitigating fears about the impact on manned flight or dangers posed to people on the ground.
Amazon’s plan, unveiled on Tuesday at a NASA UTM Convention at NASA Ames in California, sets out an audacious model for the unleashing of robots above cities and towns across the globe. At the heart of the proposal is the idea that access to the new 200ft slice of airspace would only be granted to those drones equipped with technology that allowed them to fly safely and autonomously.
“The way we guarantee the greatest safety is by requiring that as the level of complexity of the airspace increases, so does the level of sophistication of the vehicle,” said Gur Kimchi, vice-president and co-founder of Amazon’s delivery-by-drone project, Prime Air, who addressed the NASA meeting. “Under our proposal everybody has to be collaborative – vehicles must be able to talk to each other and avoid each other as the airspace gets denser at low altitudes.”
At present there are about 85,000 conventional flights a day in the US involving commercial, cargo, military and general aircraft. Amazon believes that within a decade that number will be dwarfed in the US and globally by unmanned drones flying at low altitudes.
In two new position papers, the online retail company lays down the architecture of a new airspace for drones. It calls for a “paradigm shift” that will allow hundreds of thousands of small unmanned aircraft to fly under their own technological steam without the current involvement of humans through air traffic control.
To realize that futuristic vision safely, Amazon sets out five capabilities that drones must meet if they are to be allowed to fly inside the new 200ft high-speed corridor. They must have:
Sophisticated GPS tracking that allows them to pinpoint their location in real-time and in relation to all other drones around them.
A reliable Internet connection on-board that allows them to maintain real-time GPS data and awareness of other drones and obstacles.
Online flight planning that allows them to predict and communicate their flight path.
Communications equipment that allow them to “talk” and collaborate with other drones in the zone to ensure they avoid each other.
Sensor-based sense-and-avoid equipment that allows the drones to bypass all other drones and obstacles such as birds, buildings or electric cables.
Under this scenario, drones would take to the skies with virtually no human interaction at all. “We aim to have high levels of safe automation so that the only time intervention is needed is in emergency situations, national security crises and the like,” Kimchi told the Guardian.
The image of the skies filling up with autonomous drones sounds like the script of a Hollywood sci-fi movie. But advances in GPS technology, sensors and internet-based communications are happening so rapidly that the concept is no longer in the realm of fantasy.
Current hobbyist restrictions.
Before it is realized, however, pioneers like Amazon will have to assuage the doubts of privacy activists concerned about the impact on civil liberties and of government regulators worried about how flying robots would interact with manned aircraft. Amazon has been in a long-running tussle with the regulatory Federal Aviation Administration, which the company has accused of dragging its feet over drone innovation.
The other interested party that may take some convincing are amateur drone hobbyists and modelers. Under current rules in the US, they are allowed to fly their aircraft within line of sight up to 400ft as long as they stay away from airports and other out-of-bounds areas.
Under Amazon’s proposals, by contrast, hobbyists would only be allowed to fly within the new 200ft-400ft corridor if their vehicles were equipped with the latest hyper-sophisticated gadgetry for autonomous flight. Otherwise, they would have their activities confined to geographically demarcated airfields in relatively unpopulated areas that would be set aside specifically for the purpose.
Brendan Schulman, who has been building and flying drones as a hobbyist for 20 years and is now a senior executive at the drone manufacturer DJI, said that by far the greatest use of unmanned aerial vehicles today was by amateurs. “That’s currently by far the most common use of the technology, so before you disrupt their experience you want to think carefully about what slice of airspace would really be needed by these new technologies.”
Kimchi said that Amazon did not envisage much change in the way modelers operate under the new proposal. “They will have low-risk areas in more rural areas where they can continue to fly safely to their heart’s content.”
Presenter Martin Tajmar is a professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, interested in space propulsion systems and breakthrough propulsion physics. A Revolutionary Development for Space Travel
The EM Drive (Electro Magnetic Drive) uses electromagnetic microwave cavities to directly convert electrical energy to thrust without the need to expel any propellant. First proposed by Satellite Propulsion Research, a research company based in the UK founded by aerospace engineer Roger Shawyer, the EM Drive concept was predictably scorned by much of the mainstream research community for allegedly violating the laws of physics, including the conservation of momentum.
However, NASA Eagleworks – an advanced propulsion research group led by Dr. Harold G. “Sonny” White at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) – investigated the EM Drive and presented encouraging test results in 2014 at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference.
White proposes that the EM Drive’s thrust is due to virtual particles in the quantum vacuum that behave like propellant ions in magneto-hydrodynamical propulsion systems, extracting "fuel" from the very fabric of space-time and eliminating the need to carry propellant. While a number of scientists criticize White's theoretical model, others feel that he is at least pointing to the right direction. The NASASpaceFlight website and forums have emerged as unofficial news source and discussion space for all things related to the EM Drive and related breakthrough space propulsion proposals such as the Cannae Drive.
Shawyer has often been dismissed by the research establishment for not having peer-reviewed scientific publications, but White and Tajmar have impeccable credentials that put them beyond cheap dismissal and scorn. Physics is an experimental science, and the fact that the EM Drive works is confirmed in the lab. "This is the first time that someone with a well-equipped lab and a strong background in tracking experimental error has been involved, rather than engineers who may be unconsciously influenced by a desire to see it work," notesWired referring to Tajmar's work.
Hacked has obtained a copy of Tajmar's Propulsion and Energy Forum paper, co-authored by G. Fiedler.
"Our measurements reveal thrusts as expected from previous claims after carefully studying thermal and electromagnetic interferences," note the researchers. "If true, this could certainly revolutionize space travel."
The nature of the thrusts observed is still unclear.
"Additional tests need to be carried out to study the magnetic interaction of the power feeding lines used for the liquid metal contacts," conclude the researchers. "Nevertheless, we do observe thrusts close to the magnitude of the actual predictions after eliminating many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena. Next steps include better magnetic shielding, further vacuum tests and improved EMDrive models with higher Q factors and electronics that allow tuning for optimal operation."
Contrary to sensationalist reports published by the sensationalist press, the EM Drive is not a "warp drive" for faster than light travel. It could, however, according to current experimental evidence, be a revolutionary development for faster and cheaper space transportation.
Wired notes that an EmDrive could get to Pluto in less than 18 months and mentions more ambitious ideas including a manned trip to the moons of Saturn with a three-year mission time. "Some damage to our theories of physics is an acceptable payoff if we get a working space drive," concludes the Wired article.
As reported by Engadget: If you don't like the thought of autonomous robotsbrandishing weapons, you're far from alone. A slew of researchers and tech dignitaries (includingElon Musk,Stephen HawkingandSteve Wozniak) have backed anopen lettercalling for a ban on any robotic weapon where there's no human input involved. They're concerned that there could be an "AI arms race" which makes it all too easy to not only build robotic armies, but conduct particularly heinous acts like assassinations, authoritarian oppression, terrorism and genocide. Moreover, these killing machines could give artificial intelligence a bad name. You don't want people to dismiss the potentiallylife-saving benefitsof robotic technology just because it's associated with death and destruction, after all. There's nothing legally binding in the letter, but it lends weight to the United Nations' preliminary talk of a global ban on deadly automatons. If officials, academia and the tech industry are all against removing humans from the equation, it's that much more likely that there will be rules forbidding lethal bots. While that doesn't preclude rogue nations and less-than-ethical companies from forging ahead with their own equipment, you might not see a world full of AI-driven warriors.
Perhaps we only need a refresher on Issac Asimov's, Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot (or AI system) may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Later, Asimov added a fourth or zeroth law that preceded the other in terms of priority: 0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Issac Asimov was one of the first to foresee AI/Robotics in the 1960's, and the need for a code of 'morals' for the machines to operate by in order to work cooperatively and safely with humans. His book of short stories - 'I Robot', was related to the implications of tampering with these basic laws, and their inherent pitfalls.
Any attempts to disable, or circumvent these basic functions should render the system useless; which from a design standpoint is easier said than done. That is why it may be difficult or impossible to engineer or design into future AI systems in a reliable way. Keep in mind that 1% (or more) of the human population can and do violate the first law regularly without regard to the social or moral contract with those around them; and they do this even when it's not in their own self-interest; and in some cases simply because it's 'fun'.
HUM∀NS does a good job of portraying humanoid AI systems within the 'uncanny valley' of creepiness.
If we are unable to abstract reason within ourselves to uphold such social contracts, embedding them in an intelligent machine that one day could meet or exceed our own level of consciencness our world will evolve in ways that will be fraught with danger previously unimagined in the history of humanity. Without something like the above, we run the risk of creating an intelligence that could be considered purely sociopathic by human standards, while being superior in many ways (think a robotic Hannibal Lecter); which is why we're so fascinated of late with tales of Terminator (Skynet), iRobot, The Matrix, Transcendence, HUM∀NS, The Age of Ultron, and Ex Machina.
However, even if the western societies are in agreement regarding limits on AI, can we depend on other societies with a different view of this technology such as China or Russia to adhere to these rules; especially if it gives them access to a highly competitive technology (think Atomic Bomb)? What about potential tech savvy terrorist organizations with a desire to destroy any opposing society standing against them (ISIL comes to mind)? It also seems possible that at some point even benign organizations may consider advanced defensive AI technology out of fear or distrust; and thanks to modern filmmakers, we all have some idea of how that may turn out.
