AMEN!
Posted on 05/14/2010 9:20:32 AM PDT by dangerdoc
We think you're going to be hearing a lot about this one over the next few days... or weeks.
A team of researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California San Diego have determined that, with physical access to your car's ECU, a hacker could "adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input -- including disabling the brakes, selectively braking individual wheels on demand, stopping the engine, and so on."
For example, the team was able to connect a computer to a car's ODB-II port, access that computer wirelessly, and then disable the brakes in the first car while driving down the road in a separate vehicle. The conclusion is that these in-car systems have few if any safeguards in place and, with physical access, nearly anything is possible. The solution, of course, is to prevent physical access. So, if you see a hacker hanging around in your car looking all shady, or a laptop computer sitting in the footwell that totally wasn't there before, well, you know who to call.
The advantage of having an older car.
Too many bells and whistles on cars today, and more to come. I like the simple life, and cars that don’t talk back to me.
AMEN!
Those Model A’s were great.
Personally, ESC, ABS, EMS and all the stuff that makes today’s cars outperform anything before seems to work for me.
Joe, you never cease to amaze me.
You ever see those OnStar ads where they brag about remote killing the engine in police chases? Sends shivers down my spine because you know that technology is just asking to be abused.
The joke’s on them! My car doesn’t have brakes!
I don’t need a car that parks itself.
I don’t need a car that gives me directions.
I don’t need a car that when one of it’s sensors go, I need to have someone with the latest software hook into it so I can know what’s wrong.
I do like fat tires.
I do like the retro look on some of today’s cars.
I do like fuel injection.
I do like turbocharging.
I do like supercharging.
These are “real” performance options on today’s cars, and guess when they were invented?
Ping
I agree with that!!! There’s something to be said about simple.
You may have a legitimate complaint about self-parking and other options, if you were forced to pay for them.
Those “fat tires” are modern versions of something barely akin to what you knew 20 years ago. Kevlar. New rubber compounds, new designs all manufactured on new automated equipment. Or, do you still prefer bias-ply?
Modern fuel injection that’s 20x more reliable and far more efficient than the “fool induction” systems of the 1980s.
Don’t even get me started on super- and turbocharging improvements.
What about all those “new fangled” materials that have lightened cars by over 40%?
Let’s perform a crash test on models of only 10 years ago and see how they compare.
Time marches on (for some of us) ;)
“I like the simple life, and cars that don’t talk back to me”
My 1977 Mercedes 450SE and my MIL’s 1959 Dodge Custom Royal have sat undriven in her 1920’s era garage for years. They will be put back into service later this year.
BTW, I don’t own a cellphone and I know how to fold a roadmap.
I CAN SEE NO DOWNSIDE!
External control represents a new way to make murder look like an accident or operator error.
Sophisticated assassins have used techniques such as changing the software in an airplane’s avionics for decades in order to strike protected targets.
People are so naive; they think these hits only happen in the movies.
I don’t even understand the purpose of that sign.
“Bait Cars” are, by design, supposed to lure criminals in and trap them. Hence, the world “bait”. Then, they post a sign telling the criminals not to steal the bait car.
The self-parking is interesting and an amazing bit of tech, but I can’t remember the last time I actually needed to parallel park. If I had that I’m sure I’d have to go someplace and do it just to watch it happen.
I got the onboard GPS on my Jeep, and at the time I thought it was a little superfluous and I wouldn’t use it very much. Wrong... I use it *all the time* and now wouldn’t even consider a car without it.
The rear-bumper sensors are awesome, and I’ve found them to be really handy in parking lots and garages. The real-time tire pressure sensors too... have alerted me to a low-pressure tire long before I might have noticed it or tested it.
More information is good.
My first car was a 1955 Chevy stepside pickup. I painted it and put white spoke wheels on it. I thought it was beautiful.
It had a straight 6 with three on the tree and would go 55 mph. That’s it 55. They vacuum powered wipers wouldn’t work if I mashed on the gas. To start it on a hill, I had to put one foot on the brake, on foot on the clutch, one foot on the gas and my last foot on the starter. Needless to say, although I think my old truck looked better, my car is a dream.
I could fix about anything on that truck with a couple of standard wrenches, a flat screw driver and a hammer. In fact, I could sit on the fender with my feet dangling next to the engine while doing so. My new car is a complete mystery and I have to take it to a mechanic. The upside it that it requires almost no maintenance whereas, I was working on the truck at least once a month.
All in all, I really like the new cars.
That's exactly the point. Your OBD port sticks out a little from under the dash on most models, and if you get in your car and there's wires coming out from under your dash and going to a laptop that doesn't belong to you, I don't think most people are going to just fire it up and drive off. Now someone with the intent to do this maliciously might select a very small computer they could conceal in your glove box or somewhere and also try to make the wires unobtrusive, but there's still going to be wires coming out of this connector at the bottom of your dash that aren't normally there. A very dedicated and sophisticated attacker, in addition to hiding the computer, might go so far as to tap into the wires behind the connector, so there's no visible clue to the driver, but that's going to take a significant amount of time unsupervised with your car.
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