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Jenks forum discusses autonomous vehicles, computer hacking

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By John Brown, Ron Latanision, and Walter Hubbard

On Nov. 8, Peter Ciriscioli spoke with seniors at the Jenks over Zoom about Autonomous Vehicle Policy Issues

Public road Autonomous Vehicle (AV) testing poses safety problems. Autonomous Vehicle developers have reported “miles driven” by their cars, but the number of injuries and fatalities that have occurred is not well known.

His talk examined what is and is not known about the current state of Autonomous Vehicle safety, and he proposed that Autonomous Vehicle safety validation should be modeled on well-established testing protocols used in the Aerospace and Defense industries. 

Peter has extensive professional experience in development of ground vehicles, aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft. He received a patent for a vehicle armored window system. On the basis of these experiences, his position is that rigorous safety checks should be required on new AVs to prove that they are at least as safe as the average human driver before they are allowed on public roads.

Protecting Your Computer

On Nov. 22, Walter Hubbard, president of PC QuickHelp in Winchester, spoke at the Jenks Center (and to others over Zoom, in a “hybrid” presentation) about “Why Bad Things Happen to Good Computers.”

Perhaps this has happened to you:  Your computer was running fine and then: Wham!  You’ve been hacked!!  Whether you have a PC or Mac makes no difference.  You are at risk! 

Walter has been helping people deal with these issues for 30 years. Every week, he sees people in the Winchester area who have been hacked out of thousands of dollars. 

In this important and useful talk, Walter offered a number of concrete steps you should take to protect yourself and your life savings from computer hacks, scams, and identity theft. 

During the Q&A, Walter was encouraged to produce a video and a written guide of this material that would be readily available to the public online or in written form.

This talk was in keeping with one of the Wilson Forum’s major goals, to help the public understand evolving technology that impacts their lives.

All the recordings are available on https://jenksst.blogspot.com/.

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