EXACTLY what I was thinking.
Maybe I’ll just keep my ‘98 Maxima for a few more decades...
Occam’s razor would seem to point elsewhere.
“Our focus, and that of the entire auto industry, is to prevent hacking from a remote wireless device outside of the vehicle,” he writes in an e-mail, adding that Toyota engineers test its vehicles against wireless attacks. “We believe our systems are robust and secure.”
A team of researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, experimenting on a sedan from an unnamed company in 2010, found that they could wirelessly penetrate the same critical systems Miller and Valasek targeted using the car’s OnStar-like cellular connection, Bluetooth bugs, a rogue Android app that synched with the car’s network from the driver’s smartphone or even a malicious audio file on a CD in the car’s stereo system. “Academics have shown you can get remote code execution,” says Valasek, using hacker jargon for the ability to start running commands on a system. “We showed you can do a lot of crazy things once you’re inside.”
In the article it mentions wifi and things like OnStar but the car they’re messing with has the computer hooked up to the car via what they say is the diagnostic port but is probably the OBDII port so unless you see a guy in your car with his computer hooked up to it I probably wouldn’t worry about it.
They hackers say that that has already been demonstrated so they’re showing what happens once they are inside but that is a little disingenuous. I want to see them do this on a car going down the road next to me through the wireless connection.
Since my car has none of that they can’t do anything to me but they could do it to a car next to me and take me out.
Isn’t this like the Boeing 787 where the flight control systems and the passenger cabin systems are only separated by a firewall? That bothers me more.
Just wait until you’re required by the state to have a wireless connection so they can check your mileage when they implement a “tax-per-mile” system.
That way, when they don’t like what you say, or what not, they can make the car lock it’s doors and drive you to the police station for processing.
Gonna be fun when millions of driverless cars are on the road and some kid from Romania hits Enter and they all crash.
bttt
Fun and games. We did all these things in test cars when I worked for an automotive supplier in the mid 1980s. Like these guys, we had to use a (much larger, heavier, slower) computer attached to the ECU module. They have it easy because they can just plug into the OBD2 connector and access the CAN bus that ties all the smart modules together. He even admits “we flooded the CAN bus with traffic” which is similar to when the hackers shoot a website down with DOS attacks.
Now if you want to believe any car is vulnerable to this kind of tampering by some nefarious means, that’s fine, you probably believe in global warming too because neither are supported by technical facts. There has to be a connection to the ECU bus, and most cars don’t have it unless you’ve got a diagnostic tool pluged in.
But as you consider your next car, think about how that neat Sync function or equivalent is now adding a wireless ECU to the vehicle, not unlike plugging a wi-fi card did to your old dumb non-networked laptop. Are there potential connective paths between the telematic and entertainment systems and the ECUs that control vehicle functions? Ask your dealer, I’m sure he’ll know ;-)
The only answer I can give is “maybe”. But one thing is for sure, if you don’t have that kind of wireless connectivity in the car, you’re immune, just like you’re not likely to get an internet virus if you don’t have internet connectivity. But what fun is that?
TWB And in this article, Hastings says he is on a ‘big story’.
Considering his recent activities, a ‘big story’ could be pretty big.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/08/three-weeks-later-details-about-reporter-michael-hastings-death-in-fiery-car-crash-remain-a-mystery/
TWB
This is why we pulled your duplicate thread(s).
Never buy a car made after 1980 if you have to buy a newer car, never buy a car made after 2001, or 1997 if you want a Cadillac...
One time is an accident.
Two times is a coincidence.
Three times is a pattern.
Four times is a trend.
?
-PJ