[RinaseaofDs]

I can tell you from experience that this isn’t far fetched:

You can hack a car, since a car is a computer.

Why is it that I know this?

Someone tried to hack my son’s insulin pump, and succeeded. He pushed the max bolus limit to 100 units of insulin. My son caught it when he heard the beeps coming from the pump. If the hacker had been a little more skilled, he may have been able to silence the pump before changing the max bolus and then initiated a massive bolus.

I know for a fact you can hack any heavy commercial aircraft and lock out the pilot - Boeing or Airbus. I saw it demonstrated at a BlackHat conference, and I have the powerpoint if you want it. The entire purpose of the demo was to illustrate the complete lack of network safeguards on most programmable vital systems.

So, could someone have hacked his ride, tracked it, and then locked out his brake while maxing his accelerator?

Maybe, and I’d go so far as to say probably.

Did it happen?

Depends on whether you can wipe a black box remotely. His model probably had one.

[DannyTN]

Yeah, but you could always turn off the ignition. In most cars I think that still cuts a physical circuit.

So while I know the car could be tampered with, I'm thinking there would be some physical evidence of that. Unless for some reason Hastings just didn't have the presence of mind to turn off the ignition.

I'm thinking that they got to Hastings with something that would make him panic. Why was he going so fast if no one was following him? I think he was either having some kind of panic attack probably drug induced or he was trying to get out of town or get to someone and thought seconds mattered more than being inconspicuous.

[hoosiermama]

Black box?? Who would have access to it?

[Chickensoup]

can one turn off a cars Bluetooth?

[bgill]

Someone tried to hack my son’s insulin pump, and succeeded

Just wow.