Engineering Magazines

Aaron Lucas

Ashlyn C Williams

1101-001

12/10/08

What is Automotive Design and Engineering?

The art of designing a car or a truck is nothing short of a miracle.  In this piece I am looking at personal motor vehicles, those that are made with both form and function in mind.  This, to some people, is a very daunting task.  The amount of perfection that people demand in today’s market is almost unfair but somehow all of the engineers and designers can keep up.  People want a vehicle that can reach at least one hundred and thirty miles an hour, zero wind noise, twenty five miles to the gallon minimum, and a sleek attractive body to top it all off.  All the engineers and designers are the people with the amazing minds that create these amazing pieces of art.  What they do is what I want in this piece.  (Fujimoto, 3-24)

            To understand the reason for this paper, you need to know a little bit more about me.  I know this is unconventional but it’s the only way that this paper will make any sense as to why some one would ever want to investigate such a vast field.  Also, why stick to convention if you really want to live.  I am a first year mechanical engineering student at UNC Charlotte.  After I get my bachelors degree in mechanical engineering I hope to get masters in business administration.  With all this work I hope to become the head of automotive design for any car company.  (GM Announces, par.1)

            There is a distinct difference between designers and engineers.  The designers are the people that draw the fancy little pictures of what everyone wants a car to be; big wheels, big engines, and radical lines that could never be made on mass scale for consumer consumption (with today’s technology).  The engineers are the people that take that design and make it doable.  In short the designers are Van Gogh and engineers are Leonardo De Vinci.  Meaning that even though what the designers create is beautiful and simply amazing it has no real purpose and can’t be produced or even function on a custom scale.  Engineers make beautiful things that work like so many of Leonardo De Vinci’s inventions.  (Bob Boniface, par.7)

            There are many aspects of designing a vehicle and designers do play a major part in some of them, mainly in the ascetic aspects of it.  Two of the areas that they have the most say in are the exterior and interior of the car.  But both have to fit the engineer’s numbers for tolerances and so forth.  With the Exterior there are three things that have to be heavily considered besides the obvious safety of passengers and pedestrians and that is aerodynamics, ergonomics, and styling.  Aerodynamics is a highly refined science that vies for position with the other key vehicle design considerations, styling and ergonomics.  (Fujimoto, 223-230)

Early aerodynamics started as more of an art then a science.  Fish were one of the first things to really inspire an aero dynamic design. This is also were the “teardrop” approach evolved from.  But most of the early developments were based on trial and error.  Today there are definite basic principals that every designer and engineer follow to create an aerodynamically efficient vehicle.  Some of the basics are that the underbody should be as smooth as possible.  There should be no sharp angles and the front windscreen should be raked as much as possible.  The front end should start at a low stagnation line and curve up in a continuous line.  That is just a taste of the basic principals but the general idea is to make everything line and contour flow as best it can.  The more interruptions the more drag so if things like door handles and mirrors can flow better or even disappear then designers will jump on it.  (Car Design Online, Aerodynamics, par.1-2)

The interior, unlike aerodynamics, has relatively few things to be held back by.  An interior number one has to fit inside the body of the car and safely hold the passengers in their seats with seat belts and in case of a crash airbags to further protect them.  After that budget and ergonomics are the biggest things that a designer has to worry about.  With an endless list of materials to choose from all with different properties this is one of the biggest factors in designing an interior.  Also one needs to consider how many people can comfortably be sat in the space given.  But ergonomics is not to be forgotten.  People vary dramatically in size and proportion around the world.  And standardizing the production process is the biggest factor of keeping the cost of cars down.  So the main parts of the passenger’s arrangement are adjustable, today more than ever.  Today’s seats can adjust in at least 6 different ways and the streering wheels are no longer just tilting but telescoping as well.  This is were the wheel doesn’t just go up and down like it has but can move in and out to allow the steering wheel to be set to your specific wants.  But things like the gauges and stereo controls are not adjustable in production cars.  In some concept cars they are experimenting with adjustable gauges that would adjust with your height that would be read by a sensor near the sun visor. (Car Design Online, Ergonomics, par. 2-3)

For Engineers there job in creating this vehicle are all the parts that one can’t see but are crucial for the car to work, things such as the engine and transmission.  The engine of the car is an infinitely complex piece of engineering.  Today’s cars, normally, use one of three engines, piston with gas, piston with diesel, or the rotary engine.  The two piston engines are almost exactly the same except for how they combust their fuel.  Gas engines use spark plugs while diesel engines use pure pressure to cause spontaneous combustion.  Though some will use glow plugs (heating element) to help the process along.  Both of these engines have many moving parts that have to work in perfect unison for it to do what it has to do.  Things like springs, belts and pumps can break at any time.  That’s where the rotary motor comes in.  Also known as the Wankel engine after its creator Felix Wankel.  It has an oval like housing with a rounded triangle or epitrochoid shape inside it that rotates around the oval.  It has vastly less moving parts and so is both smaller and lighter.  But it has its disadvantages as well.  While it is more reliable in the short run it wears out much faster then a piston engine and is not as efficient as a piston engine.  So the largest automobile use for this type of engine is for racing but the automobile maker Mazda still has a major investment in personal vehicles with rotary engines.  (Fujimoto, 85-88)

Another unseen component that plays a major part in a vehicles success is the chaise and suspension.  For both there are acceptable variations depending on the application.  The differences for both are directly related.  The Stiffer either the suspension or chaise is the better the vehicle will handle but the worse the ride of the car will feel.  This is because vibrations travel through solids much better then non-solids.  When you have a softer suspension and chaise then the ride will be very comfortable but the body of the car will roll and this shifting weight will throw the handling of the car right out the window.  All of these things are variables that an engineer has to consider when working with the designer to make a great vehicle.  (Fujimoto, 99-105)

To get in this industry where perfection is demanded is not an easy task either.  For the engineers there is a lot of school time involved.  Some have compared getting an engineering degree to pre med for doctors.  With the countless amount of math classes that one has to take just to get his bachelors.  The natural talent that is needed to become an engineer is usually apparent.  Though it is not needed it is usually only those that posses it that make it through all the schooling to a great job.  Most engineers are at least good at math but one of the dead give a ways is the undying need to know how things work.  And to get up to the higher levels of the corporate engineer, like any other job not much helps more then having some good connections.  (GM Announces, par. 2)

With designers it takes a bit less schooling but a lot more natural talent.  The drawings that they have to do for their original design are phenomenal and are almost identical to the end product and have to be.  One example is Bob Boniface he started off his career as an accountant with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and economics from Vanderbilt.  But drew cars in the evenings.  He was eventually talked back into going back to school to College of Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan and graduated with a bachelor of fine arts. He started at Daimler Chrysler but is now with GM working with Chevrolet concept vehicles.  (Bob Bonifice, par. 1-5)

Another successful designer that I would like to mention, to get an idea of what it takes to become a designer, is Bryan Nesbitt.  His father took him to the campus of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California when he was 12 because he said that he could see his talent.  After studying architecture and industrial design at Georgia Institute of Technology he went to the school that his father took him to and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial design.  He also interned at Daimler Chrysler and was later hired by them in 1994 and designed them the PT Cruiser.  In April 2001 he joined General Motors as Chief Designer for Chevrolet. In January 2002, he was appointed Executive Director, Design, Body-Frame Integral Architectures, for all of GM’s North American Brands.  Then in February 2004 was named Executive director of GM Europe Design.  Which means that he is responsible for all Opel, Saab, and Vauxhall design activities.  So as you can see it takes some schooling but a lot of talent.  (Bryan Nesbit, par. 1-10)

When personal motor vehicles first came along back with Henry Ford and others the only way to plan out the design was to draw it out.  There have been many innovations since then.  Some low tech and others mind bogglingly high tech.  One thing that a lot of designers do today well before production is make clay models.  There are several stages to producing a clay model.  First, the scale of the model is determined by using drawings and sketches.  They then make a rig based on these dimensions and they will scale it to be either smaller then the actual size or to the exact actual size of the vehicle.  They put the clay on the form that is part of the rig, a foam core to reduce the amount of the expensive and heavy clay that they have to use.  When it comes to shaping it there used to be only one way to go about it.  That was by hand, manually carving out the model using system of 10-lines. These are the reference points that they use to transfer from the drawings to the model.  From there the designers can either strictly follow their drawings or use templates or they can begin to experiment and develop the form freely.  That’s the beauty of using clay; it can always be reworked and adjusted in tangible form.  (Car Design Online, Modeling, par. 1-3)

In today’s technological world laboring over the clay for weeks is unnecessary.  With today’s technology most of the designing can be done on computers with CAD.  CAD stands for ‘Computer Aided Design.’  These designs done on the computer can give you automatic measurements and can be sent to machines that can recreate them with no manual work.  This technology has even brought clay modeling forward.  Instead of the designers having to carve the entire clay model them selves taking weeks a machine can give the rough out line and then designers can come back and prefect it and change it all they want.  And with the giant leaps with materials they don’t even have to use clay any more to make large three-dimensional models.  After the designers are happy with what the have done in CAD and have made any changes to a clay model and then put that new information into the computer they can make a machine mill down a block of high density foam into a exact replica of the vehicle.  (Car Design Online, Modeling, par. 4)

The Future of design most defiantly lies in computers.  The things we see in the movies are not that far off.  For those who have seen the new movie “Iron man” (2008) when you see him using holograms to make his suit and move it around before he produced it that is a example of were the industry could be in a couple years (Paramount Pictures).  If we ever do reach that point then we may not need to use materials at all before production.  But it’s going to be hard to replace the ability to truly feel what you are working on (Car Design Online, Modeling, par. 4-5).

All of these major tasks have to be completed before a vehicle can even be considered for production.  The way that this paper was worded might have let on that there are only a few people that work on a vehicle at a time but in reality there are full teams of engineers and designers that all have to work one vehicle.  And even with these large teams creating an entirely new vehicle can take years.  And to become one of these few it takes much more then just schooling or talent, it takes determination and patience.  As it does to create one of these works of art.  (Car Body Design, Manufacturing Processes, par. 1-3)

The true importance of this has come painfully apparent over the last couple of months.  The big three of Detroit, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, are begging congress to bail them out of their swift fall from being a big as they once were.  This is a perfect example of the free market system; the company with the better product started small but found its way on top of the former big dogs.  I am of course talking about the two big boys from Japan, Toyota and Honda who are now on top of all of Detroit’s big three.  (Fitzgibbons, Patrick, par. 1-2)

There are some very distinct reasons for this.  One of the biggest ones is the rise in energy costs.  The Japanese cars more often then not are more efficient on gas then the American cars.  Also Japan was the first to really capitalize on the Hybrid cars, leaving America to play catch up with their well-established models.  Another big factor was the sub-par quality that was produced back in the 80’s.  The Japanese cars would last a good ten years if you kept the general maintenance up but American cars were falling apart left and right.  (Webster, Larry, par. 2, 5)

That is where I thought that the designers and engineers should have stepped in and made sure that the products that these companies were putting out were any good.  Because now, even though the quality of these cars has stepped up they still carry around the label that their cars are low quality, “Perception trails reality.”  (Webster, Larry, par. 5) For years the Japanese have been making a better product and now the big three are paying for it.  And now they are going to have to do something big to come back to the status that they used to hold, if they can at all.  (Fitzgibbons, Patrick, par. 35)

Aaron Lucas

Ashlyn C Williams

1101-001

12/10/08

Work Cited Page

·      Fujimoto, Takahiro. The Evolution of a Manufacturing System at Toyota. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999.

·      “Bob Boniface.” Car Body Design: Automotive Design & Engineering, 24 September 2008.

·      “Bryan Nesbit.” Car Body Design: Automotive Design & Engineering, 6 March 2007.

·      “GM Announces Design Executive Appointments.” Car Body Design: Automotive Design & Engineering, 2 May 2007.

·      Car Design Online: Dedicated to Automotive Design Information, 23 October 2008.

·      Fitzgibbons, Patrick.  “U.S. auto execs plead for Congress to fund bailout.” Reuters, 18 Nov. 2008

·      Webster, Larry.  “GM in Crisis-5 Reasons Why America’s Largest Car Company Teeters on the Edge.”  Popular Mechanics, 18 Nov. 2008



By: Aaron Lucas

About the Author:

I am a first year student at UNC Charlotte

The goal of my paper will be to explore the topic of Social Engineering in all its facets.  But what really is social engineering?  Is it a term that can be applied in any field other than Information Technology?  Your Dictionary references Webster’s Dictionary, which defines social engineering as thus (Your Dictionary, 2006):

A deceptive process in which crackers “engineer” or design a social situation to trick others into allowing them access to an otherwise closed network, or into believing a reality that does not exist.

 

However, in a much broader sense, social engineering can indeed take place outside of a technical field or applied to describe a non-I.T. related situation, because in reality, the act essentially involves deceiving another individual into divulging information that should be kept secret.  The following definition better describes social engineering in this light (Social engineering (security), 2009):

Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery or deception for the purpose of information gathering, fraud or computer system access; in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim.

 

 The goal of this paper aims to explore these many situations that others might not classify as an social engineering act to steal information, and in addition to that goal, explore similar objectives throughout: to create a conversation about social engineering by generating awareness, discuss the many different kinds of social engineering methods, cite examples of real world social engineering events & the people responsible, and finally, cover a list of best practices to avoid social engineering attacks.

 

        So now that we have established a “working definition” by which to base the foundation of this discussion on social engineering, the next logical step would be to mention a few of the well-known techniques employed in social engineering acts (Granger, 2001). 

A very widely recognized form of social engineering occurs over the phone, which gives all the anonymity in the world a person with malicious intent could ask for.  Those that are particularly vulnerable to this type of threat are help desks, customer service reps, and of course, the common victim: the innocent individual minding their own business at home, on the comfort of their couch.  But just because most of these attacks are known to occur over the phone, does not mean that you are safe when actually using the phone yourself.  What do I mean by this?  IT’s known as shoulder surfing (Dwyer, 2008), or when someone else gleans your PIN number or ATM number by simply standing over your shoulder at either a large airport or phone booth. 

Another great example of why social engineering isn’t just something to worry about at the workplace is how often thieves thrive on another technique known as Dumpster Diving, which involves hackers or anyone with malicious intent attaining information such as: calendars showing when employees might be out of town, policy manuals detailing how internal systems are protected, or even hard drives that can be restored & vital information discovered (Berg, 1995).

But my favorite form of social engineering has to be the form described as Quid Pro Quo.  (Wikipedia, 2009) Imagine, if you will, that the “attacker” attempts to randomly ring up someone claiming to be returning their technical support call; eventually, said attacker will find someone who is grateful to have been called back, who will have no problem following whatever instructions the attack doles out… which will most likely be either a series of malicious commands or the giving up of valuable information (such as a credit card number or name and password).

        While there are certainly many more techniques that could be discussed, I would like to focus the next section on elaborating on the techniques described above with specific, real world scenarios of social engineering taking place.  A very fascinating example of an attacker making the victim believe that he is of a higher authority is described by McAfee Avert Labs and SANS analyst Lennny Zeltser (Kumar, 2009):

Apparently, yellow fliers were placed on vehicles in a parking lot, and the fliers claimed that the vehicles were in violation of parking regulations. The fliers further stated that the owner could visit a certain website to get more information and pictures about the offense.

 

Now you can imagine the result of this very clever form of social engineering: said victim sees the fliers and once they reach home, attempt to visit the designated website – only to be told to download a toolbar or some other form of disguised malware, which in turn infects their PC with even more malware. 

Kevin Mitnick, who was once one of the most wanted hackers in the U.S. in the late twentieth century, wrote a book entitled The Art of Deception (Mitnick, Amazon, 2009).  In his book, he describes several examples of social engineering, and in one he describes how someone could wait for a snow storm to occur, and then calling the network center posing as a… you guessed it, snowed-in employee.  In other similar examples, Mitnick gives a smaller example of how someone could get a police officer to divulge when he might be out of town, and by scheduling a court date at that specific time; get out of the speeding ticket (Mitnick, Social Engineering Books, 2006).   

        A few of these examples of social engineering are really quite startling.  How can one hope to avoid falling into these tricks when many of them are so clever?  There are a few “best practices” that can be taught which will help falling into the social engineering traps.  Some may be ideal for teaching fellow employees and others might just be applicable to the individual, helping him or her to live a more secure life in regards to their important information’s safety. 

        Some of the best techniques to teach employees, as identified by US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team), are as follows (McDowell, 2004): 

Be suspicious of any phone calls, visits, or email messages from individuals asking about employee or internal information.  Always ask any individual claiming to be of a legitimate organization to verify their claims; this is especially true if they could use your position as a gateway to attain privileged information (for example, you work at a help desk).  Almost never reveal sensitive information over the internet.  Never.  Before doing anything with any amount of sensitive information, consult a higher authority or person with full knowledge of your company’s security policy. Always shred any company documents before discarding them.  Even the slightest bit of information can give an attacker inside knowledge as to who works at the company, their operating hours, or phone numbers.

Richard Steinnon of the website CIO Update decries what is often touted as the “best defense against social engineering:” training.  He stipulates that if you determine a mandatory training in order to sharpen peoples’ awareness is needed in order to avoid social engineering attacks… then you already have a hole in your defenses.  Ultimately, the very best defense against a good social engineering attack is: enforce policy (Stiennon, 2009).

            In conclusion, I have covered a wide ranging of topics all of which involve a discussion centered on Social Engineering.  What began as an initial exploration into the definition of Social Engineering, the discussion then progressed into examples of the varying types of social techniques that attackers employ to trick others into divulging sensitive information. 

Many common examples of real world attacks were also covered and how devastating their implications can be to the victims; corporations or individuals are not safe against any sort of Social Engineering attack.  Chief among those who used to be considered the most dangerous of all, Kevin Mitnick, wrote a book describing in detail how wide-ranging Social Engineering attacks can be. 

And finally, I briefly covered some “best practices” to avoid such social attacks from occurring to you or future employees.  While it may seem obviously to a technically inclined individual, everyone can be a victim of these kinds of attacks when not following the most basic of policies.  Being intelligence with information essentially keeping it to yourself.  But rest assured that there are those out there who are constantly inventing new and dangerous ways in which to trick innocent people into giving away important information.  And it’s only with constant diligence and a re-affirmation to confidentiality can we hope to avoid the trap known as Social Engineering.

 

 

Works Cited

Berg, A. (1995, November 11). Social Engineering. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Packet Storm Security : http://www.packetstormsecurity.org/docs/social-engineering/soc_eng2.html

Dwyer, J. (2008, January 12). Picking Pockets? Nah, Surfing Shoulders. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/nyregion/12about.html

*Granger, S. (2001, December 18). A True Story. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Security Focus: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1527*

Kumar, L. (2009, February 4). Real World Social Engineering. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from McAfee Avert Labs Blog: http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/index.php/2009/02/04/real-world-social-engineering-to-spread-malware-online/

*Major, S. D. (2009). Social Engineering: Hacking the Wetware! Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective , 40-46. *

McDowell, M. (2004). Tips. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from US-CERT.GOV: http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-014.html

Mitnick, K. (2009). Amazon. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Controlling-Element-Security/dp/0471237124

Mitnick, K. (2006). Social Engineering Books. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Social Engineering: http://www.social-engineering.eu/books/artofdeception/

Social engineering (security). (2009, April 16). Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)

Stiennon, R. (2009, October 19). The Best Defense Against Social Engineering. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from CIO Update: http://www.cioupdate.com/trends/article.php/3638951/The-Best-Defense-Against-Social-Engineering

Wikipedia. (2009, April 16). Retrieved April 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)

Your Dictionary. (2006). Retrieved April 19, 2009, from http://www.yourdictionary.com/hacker/social-engineering



By: James Banicar

About the Author: