US government lab is probing Chinese lidar for security vulnerabilities
US government lab is probing Chinese lidar for security vulnerabilities
美国政府实验室正在调查中国激光雷达的安全漏洞
A Department of Energy lab is investigating whether Chinese lidar sensors might pose a security risk if they become widely used on vehicles in the United States, TechCrunch has learned. The review is being performed by the Idaho National Laboratory, according to two people familiar with the effort, who were granted anonymity to discuss it. 据 TechCrunch 获悉，美国能源部下属的一家实验室正在调查，如果中国激光雷达传感器在美国车辆上得到广泛应用，是否会构成安全风险。据两位不愿透露姓名的知情人士透露，这项审查正由爱达荷国家实验室（Idaho National Laboratory）进行。
The lab has said the research is being funded by a company — or a group of companies — in the electric and autonomous vehicle industries, the sources told TechCrunch. It’s not immediately clear which companies are supporting the review. Representatives for Rivian, General Motors, Ford, Kodiak, Lucid Motors, Nuro, and Uber — companies that are reported to be considering Chinese lidar — told TechCrunch they weren’t aware of the review. Nvidia, Zoox, and Aurora didn’t respond to questions about whether they are involved. 消息人士告诉 TechCrunch，该实验室表示，这项研究由电动汽车和自动驾驶行业的某家公司或多家公司资助。目前尚不清楚具体是哪些公司在支持这项审查。Rivian、通用汽车、福特、Kodiak、Lucid Motors、Nuro 和 Uber 等据报道正在考虑使用中国激光雷达的公司，其代表均向 TechCrunch 表示他们并不知晓该审查。英伟达（Nvidia）、Zoox 和 Aurora 未回应有关其是否参与其中的询问。
Idaho National Laboratory declined to comment on the review. A spokesperson told TechCrunch in June, and again in July, that “this isn’t a project that we’re at liberty to discuss with reporters.” China’s leading lidar suppliers, Hesai and RoboSense, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 爱达荷国家实验室拒绝就此审查发表评论。一位发言人在 6 月和 7 月再次告诉 TechCrunch：“这不是我们有权向记者讨论的项目。”中国领先的激光雷达供应商禾赛科技（Hesai）和速腾聚创（RoboSense）未回应多次置评请求。
Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a sensor technology that uses laser pulses to measure the distance to nearby objects. It has long been a popular tool for companies working on autonomous vehicles because it offers a high-resolution picture of a self-driving car’s immediate surroundings. 激光雷达（Lidar，即光探测与测距）是一种利用激光脉冲测量与附近物体距离的传感器技术。长期以来，它一直是自动驾驶汽车公司青睐的工具，因为它能提供自动驾驶汽车周围环境的高分辨率图像。
The review is underway as pressure mounts to ban the use of Chinese lidar sensors on American roads, with lawmakers crafting multiple bills. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who is spearheading the Securing Infrastructure from Adversaries Act with Senator Ted Budd (R-NC), told TechCrunch in a statement that she’s primarily concerned about Chinese lidar being used for military or industrial espionage. 目前，随着立法者起草多项法案，禁止在美国道路上使用中国激光雷达传感器的压力日益增大，这项审查也随之展开。威斯康星州民主党参议员塔米·鲍德温（Tammy Baldwin）正与北卡罗来纳州共和党参议员泰德·巴德（Ted Budd）共同牵头《保护基础设施免受对手侵害法案》（Securing Infrastructure from Adversaries Act）。她在声明中告诉 TechCrunch，她主要担心中国激光雷达被用于军事或工业间谍活动。
“As infrastructure becomes more sophisticated, the threat Chinese LiDAR technology poses to American communities and our national security cannot be allowed to go unchecked,” she said. “We need to be doing more to protect Americans and that starts with ensuring taxpayer dollars aren’t being used to purchase technologies that could be used to spy on us.” “随着基础设施变得越来越复杂，中国激光雷达技术对美国社区和国家安全构成的威胁不容忽视，”她说。“我们需要采取更多措施保护美国民众，而这首先要确保纳税人的钱不会被用于购买可能被用来监视我们的技术。”
Congressman John Moolenaar (R-MI), who is co-sponsoring a different bill aimed at banning the use of Chinese lidar, told CNBC last month that he’s concerned “back doors” could “transmit information back to these Chinese Communist interests.” 密歇根州共和党众议员约翰·穆勒纳尔（John Moolenaar）正在共同发起另一项旨在禁止使用中国激光雷达的法案。他上个月告诉 CNBC，他担心“后门”可能会“将信息传回给这些中国共产党的利益相关方”。
Cost over concerns?
成本高于担忧？
There are different layers of risk when it comes to using Chinese lidar, according to Omer Keilaf, CEO and co-founder of Israeli lidar company Innoviz. The first is basic supply chain risk. Keilaf — who said he wasn’t aware of the Idaho National Laboratory review until TechCrunch asked him about it — said that China’s government has deemed lidar to be a strategically important technology. 以色列激光雷达公司 Innoviz 的首席执行官兼联合创始人奥默·凯拉夫（Omer Keilaf）认为，使用中国激光雷达存在不同层面的风险。首先是基本的供应链风险。凯拉夫表示，在 TechCrunch 询问之前，他并不知道爱达荷国家实验室的这项审查。他指出，中国政府已将激光雷达视为一项具有战略意义的技术。
“So, if, for example, an OEM now builds its entire autonomous driving stack based on a Chinese supply chain, that’s a huge risk down the road,” he said in a recent interview. “因此，举例来说，如果一家原始设备制造商（OEM）现在完全基于中国供应链构建其自动驾驶技术栈，那么未来将面临巨大的风险，”他在最近的一次采访中说道。
The review is more focused on the cybersecurity risks, though — and possibly on giving Chinese-made lidar a clean bill of health in this area, according to the two people familiar with it. Keilaf described two major cybersecurity risks that Chinese lidar might present. One is that the sensors could be disabled en masse, disrupting vehicles in motion and bricking ones that aren’t. 据两位知情人士透露，这项审查更侧重于网络安全风险，甚至可能旨在为中国制造的激光雷达在这一领域提供“健康证明”。凯拉夫描述了中国激光雷达可能带来的两大网络安全风险。一是传感器可能被大规模禁用，从而导致行驶中的车辆瘫痪，并使静止的车辆无法启动。
Researchers have shown in the past that individual lidar sensors can be disabled using lasers. But it’s not obvious how China could cause a widespread disruption of lidar sensors being actively used by robotaxis. 研究人员过去曾证明，单个激光雷达传感器可以通过激光禁用。但目前尚不清楚中国如何能对自动驾驶出租车（Robotaxi）正在使用的激光雷达传感器造成大范围干扰。
Keilaf also said it’s possible to compress the finely detailed data that lidar sensors collect about their surroundings and transmit that data via a cellular chip. “As a person that spent seven years in the [Israeli] intelligence force, I can assure you, it’s not very difficult to extract that information. Eventually, the amount of data that the lidar is generating is pretty easily compressed if someone wants to,” he said. 凯拉夫还表示，激光雷达传感器收集的周围环境精细数据有可能被压缩，并通过蜂窝芯片传输。“作为一个在（以色列）情报部门工作了七年的人，我可以向你保证，提取这些信息并不困难。归根结底，如果有人想这么做，激光雷达产生的数据量是很容易被压缩的，”他说。
These concerns are relevant now because the cost of lidar has come down dramatically in the last decade. Lidar has traditionally been far more expensive than other sensors like radar or cameras. Tesla has eschewed it altogether, with CEO Elon Musk calling it a “crutch” and preferring to build his company’s entire autonomy stack around cameras alone. 这些担忧之所以在当下具有现实意义，是因为过去十年激光雷达的成本大幅下降。传统上，激光雷达比雷达或摄像头等其他传感器昂贵得多。特斯拉完全摒弃了激光雷达，首席执行官埃隆·马斯克称其为“拐杖”，并倾向于仅围绕摄像头构建公司的整个自动驾驶技术栈。
But Chinese companies like Hesai and RoboSense have quickly scaled and lowered prices, bringing the cost of a product that cost as much as $75,000 a decade ago down to just a few hundred bucks in some cases. American lidar companies have tried to keep pace, but it’s difficult to match China’s economies of scale and lower costs of labor and capital. 但禾赛科技和速腾聚创等中国公司迅速扩大了规模并降低了价格，使十年前售价高达 7.5 万美元的产品，如今在某些情况下仅需几百美元。美国激光雷达公司试图跟上步伐，但很难与中国的规模经济以及更低的劳动力和资本成本相抗衡。
As a result, U.S. lidar makers have spent the last few years consolidating or, in the case of Luminar, filing for bankruptcy. This has prompted several automakers and autonomous vehicle companies in the U.S. to consider using Chinese lidar sensors as part of their autonomous vehicle sensor suites. 因此，美国激光雷达制造商在过去几年里一直在进行整合，或者像 Luminar 那样申请破产。这促使美国多家汽车制造商和自动驾驶公司考虑将中国激光雷达传感器作为其自动驾驶传感器套件的一部分。
Rivian, which is planning to make a version of its new R2 SUV with a lidar sensor integrated into the roof, is reportedly one of those companies. In March, CEO RJ Scaringe told Reuters the company is considering making its own lidar sensors in the U.S. by leveraging Chinese tech, possibly as part of a joint venture, according to the outlet. 据报道，计划在其新款 R2 SUV 车顶集成激光雷达传感器的 Rivian 公司就是其中之一。据路透社 3 月报道，首席执行官 RJ Scaringe 表示，公司正在考虑利用中国技术在美国制造自己的激光雷达传感器，这可能通过合资企业的方式实现。
“A number of different car manufacturers are thinking about how they could do that either together, or at least through a shared alignment to say, hey, let’s develop production capacity in the United States for this, or at least outside China,” Scaringe said at the time, noting the company was in “active discussions” with lidar firms and that the effort might also include other automakers. “许多不同的汽车制造商都在思考如何共同实现这一目标，或者至少通过达成共识，即：嘿，让我们在美国，或者至少在中国境外开发这方面的生产能力，”Scaringe 当时说道，并指出公司正在与激光雷达公司进行“积极讨论”，且该计划可能还包括其他汽车制造商。
Rivian’s chief financial officer later said the company has no plans to bring lidar development in-house. U.S. companies are allowed to use Chinese-made lidar, but the future… Rivian 的首席财务官后来表示，公司没有计划将激光雷达开发转为内部进行。目前美国公司仍被允许使用中国制造的激光雷达，但未来……