Posted on 07/23/2015 7:25:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
Over the past three weeks, my family and I spent more than 22 hours driving more than 1,400 miles for our vacation. The trip involved enduring construction traffic, heavy rainstorms and unbelievably frightening, dense and fast traffic along interstates merely two lanes wide.
We made it through safely, partly because I pulled over to let my husband drive through the rain (I hate driving in rain) and partly because he has learned to endure my uncontrollable need to provide commentary about his driving skills from the passenger seat -- even though his driving record is better than mine. It defies logic that the worse driver is the more vocal critic but, as I said, it's out of my control.
We are not the only family racking up miles. We are a nation of drivers, traveling more than 3 trillion miles in the past year. There are 250 million cars and trucks on the road, and roughly 15 million new cars and trucks are being purchased every year. We travel by auto predominantly, and we assume, when we get behind the wheel, that our car will obey our every command.
Not so fast. Last Tuesday, I read an article in Wired that raises questions about that belief. Written by Andy Greenberg, "Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway -- With Me in It" fueled my imagination and filled me with dread. Greenberg reported on a test drive he took while hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek took over his car.
"As the two hackers remotely toyed with the air-conditioning, radio, and windshield wipers, I mentally congratulated myself on my courage under pressure. That's when they cut the transmission," wrote Greenberg. "Immediately my accelerator stopped working. As I frantically pressed the pedal and watched the RPMs climb, the Jeep lost half its speed, then slowed to a crawl. This occurred just as I reached a long overpass, with no shoulder to offer an escape ... The semi loomed in the mirror, bearing down on my immobilized Jeep. ...After narrowly averting death by semi-trailer, I managed to roll the lame Jeep down an exit ramp, re-engaged the transmission by turning the ignition off and on, and found an empty lot where I could safely continue the experiment."
Losing the ability to control a vehicle due to wireless hackers seems like something that might happen in a spy movie or a Brad Thor thriller, but now it is happening in real life.
"Miller and Valasek's full arsenal includes functions that at lower speeds fully kill the engine, abruptly engage the brakes, or disable them all together," noted Greenberg. "Their hack enables surveillance too: They can track a targeted Jeep's GPS coordinates, measure its speed, and even drop pins on a map to trace its route."
While at first Miller and Valasek thought that the ability to hack into the car might be constrained to local or direct wireless connection, it proved to be possible to hack over the Internet. Valasek told Greenberg, "I freaked out ... I was frightened ... that's a vehicle on a highway in the middle of the country. Car hacking got real, right then."
Greenberg's article coincides with the introduction of new legislation to regulate such threats. On Tuesday, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced legislation "that would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ... and the Federal Trade Commission ... to establish federal standards to secure our cars and protect drivers' privacy," according to a press release from Sen. Markey's office.
It will be interesting to see if the legislation advances or gets stalled. Regardless, cyber expert Josh Corman, the cofounder of I Am the Cavalry, a group focused on cyber security, has been traveling to auto-industry meetings and pushing the industry to address security concerns directly rather than waiting for legislation and regulation.
There is a natural tension between convenience -- such as the ability to have your car doors unlocked if you lock your keys in you car -- and privacy. For those of us conditioned to check the "Agree" boxes on privacy notices, there is no visibility into what real privacy we have. In this complex technical environment in which we live, those who expose weaknesses are providing a real service to our privacy and safety.
Next time you get into your car, if it's connected to the Internet, realize that it might also be possible for hackers to take total control of your vehicle.
Of all the wacko control freakery DC has trotted out, Ray LaHood may be the worst recent practitioner with his black boxes, speed control, etc.
After much consideration, I think it best to refrain from commenting on what, to me, appears obvious.
1,400 miles in three weeks? What a lightweight. My wife and I just got done driving 2,500 miles in ONE week. Biggest day was 520 miles, including a 110 mile roundtrip to a job site, lunch 75 miles further with my brother, 150 miles further to dinner with wife’s brothers, then onward to a midnight arrival at our next stop. THAT was a long day.
His point about internet-connected vehicles is not without merit - just like concerns about internet connectivity in commercial airplanes, where it was recently alleged that a white-hat hacker was able to take momentary control of an airplane’s controls from his laptop.
I’ll bet high tech wonders like the $100,000 Audi A8 pictured would be more vulnerable to hacking than lower tech vehicles.
Featherweights.
My wife & I will do 1000-mile trips overnight (leave at 6pm, arrive around noon) a couple times a year.
We’ve done 2000 miles (Atlanta -> Syracuse -> Atlanta) in < 3 days ... just to see a litter of puppies.
“...and unbelievably frightening, dense and fast traffic along interstates merely two lanes wide.”
Wuss. Stopped reading there.
Semi normal week in California....
Lower tech, maybe, but not necessarily lower priced. The system they hi-jacked is the Uconnect system from Chrysler, which is available as an option (not currently offered as a standard item) in many Chrysler (including the entry-level 200), Dodge, and Jeep products. Here's a link to a list of all vehicles where Uconnect is available: http://www.driveuconnect.com/features/uconnect_access/packages/
LOL Me, too. But I kept reading. I’m pretty sure my 2011 Jeep doesn’t have UConnect, but I’m afraid to call the dealer & question them about it. (workin up the nerve) What if it has it & they “threw it in” because they couldn’t take it off/ I didn’t want?
That sure sounds “life threatening” to me. Windshield washer/ wipers- can’t see & the 18 wheeler sure was.
lol Somebody woulda nearly died for the rap music. (strangulation)
“Self-driving” cars won’t “self-drive” in the driving rain. Won’t work. Sensors won’t be able to sense anything. So what the hell good is a “self-driving” car?
She averaged 63.6 mph despite bad weather, children in the car (lots of stops) and lots of cone zones. That’s some very fast driving.
provide commentary about his driving skills from the passenger seat
After many years of marriage I have finally learned how to silence my wife regarding my driving skills. I simply reply with “Yes dear” to everything she says. Surprisingly it doesn’t take too many to get her to talk about something else.
You don't. It was only available beginning in 2013.
I work at a Tier 1 auto supplier on safety critical electronics. Let me give you an ugly truth I am absolutely convinced of:
In 10 years, a frequent nightly occurrence at upscale homes will be a phone call, kinda like the ones we get now from foreign-accented speakers claiming your PC has been hacked. Only these folks will be telling you that they have hacked your car, and if you don’t wire them a hefty payment immediately, your next trip will wind up with you in the ditch... or worse.
I don’t think this is a slight possibility. I regard it as a near-certainty, because it’s just too easy to do whether the criminals are actually hacking your car or not. Who wants to take the chance? All it will take is a few more stories like this one to get the crime wave started.
And the only way to stop it will be to find ways to absolutely lock down all vehicle internet comm so that no one can get hacked like this anywhere. Then people will know to laugh off such calls and they will die off. Otherwise.... keep that old used car you have. You might want it some day.
Did you see the report about the GOOGlE self driving cars having numerous wrecks?
We drove from Philadelphia to Washington State, with stops in New Hampshire and Baton Rouge, Louisiana to see family, because it was, “on the way”.
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