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Everything can be hacked. Everything can be broken. It's a shame we are entering into an age where our lives are no longer in our control while we think we control a car.
With the already existent systems in vehicles, bad guys can disable brakes, disable door lock buttons from functioning after they lock the doors, and simultaneously hit the accelerator to WOT.
Meanwhile, the active handling in vehicles can be utilized to force a car to turn, without actually controlling the steering wheel (but the steering is fly by wire on many newer cars, so it can be controlled by the hacker as well).
Imagine you are coming up to a train track, and that train track goes above your road, and is thus on an overpass above your road.
Both sides of the train track bridge are solid concrete.
You are on a road where the speed limit is 45mph.
In the blink of an eye, your car goes to full throttle and your doors are locked. You hit your brakes, nothing happens. You are now up to 75mph by the time you pull your car out of gear and put it in neutral or hit the ignition off, if the hacker has not disabled the "ignition off" switch, which he will likely be able to on these newer vehicles.
You are at 75mph and all you can do is steer your car straight down the road.
But then, the hacker manually inputs hard values into the wheel speed sensor readings. Instead of all 4 wheels showing the same speed, the 2 on the right side show to be spinning faster. The hacker had a program preloaded that he could hit at the push of a button, as your car approaches 2 concrete walls.
The car assumes it is in a drift, its already existing programming locks up the brakes on the right side of the car to try to get it to straighten out.
Your only problem... the car was already straight, and instead, it takes a hard right. Perhaps you counter steer to avoid the concrete wall on the right.
Perhaps the hacker lets you have your way and the car then swerves to the left. Either way, odds of you hitting a wall on one side of the road or the other are very great.
What you did not know is that your car also has additional small plastic canisters attached to the underside, filled with jet fuel. Upon hitting the wall, everything becomes ablaze and everything is melted.
Afterward, it is ruled a suicide and a normal wreck. Do you think onstar or GM or global-can-bus etc etc... are going to pipe up and say that their system was hacked even if they notice it was?
Of course not.
Instead, a suicide occurred. Or a person was driving recklessly and went out of control. The public accepts the story, and that is that.
It will be interesting the folks who wish to opt out of this level of control of their vehicles, the paranoid people.... how vehicle manufacturers will respond.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the customer pulls the onstar/global B can system etc antenna/chip out of the car, how the car will respond. Does the manufacturer program it to never start again? Does it void the vehicle warranty? Is it ruled and written into law that it is a crime to disable? Etc.
Currently, on the c7z06 and below, this antenna and chip can be removed, and the car still functions.
It will be interesting when the next generation vehicles do not function when the antenna is removed, or worse yet, an alert goes out, and you are in violation of the law for disabling it, and authorities come looking for you and your car... the battles that will ensue between the public and the manufacturers will be interesting to say the least.
The manufacturers are using the EPA angle. A bigger deal is being made out of co2 (which vegetation feeds on and reverses) vs the plastic in the ocean (nothing in nature reverses the plastic).
The manufacturers are lobbying hard behind the scenes in Washington as we speak to make the EPA the authority to say that the vehicle antennas which communicate back and forth to the manufacturers, they are lobbying to make it so that these antennas are NOT legally allowed to be disabled or tampered with by the consumer, nor is the vehicle's stock tune allowed to be altered...
And if a person wants to tune their car to make an extra 100hp or pull the communication antenna, the manufacturers want to have the right to notify the EPA and the DMV that you have introduced parts/modifications onto your car which are classified as "off-road use only upgrades" or you have disabled the antenna, which they can argue eliminates their ability to monitor if you are modifying your vehicle's emissions....
and thus, your vehicle state registration and license plates are then revoked since you have indicated via your actions that your vehicle is for "off-road use only"...
and the manufacturers and the USA federal and state governments cancel your plates and say "have fun at the track and only the track"
The point is, they can and they are trying to force owners to keep their cars linked to into the manufacturer's communication portal at all times.
And while the manufacturer may not have a single flaw with their programming in any way shape or form, a bad guy can use all of this power to conduct perfect murders. The best hitmen on the planet are going to be vehicle hackers.
Last edited by bbbvettes.com; 05-21-2019 at 09:35 AM.
Theres a fact check for you straight from the official source if you don’t believe me
and if your car can’t accelerate from a stop light at an intersection how does a F350 magically rear end it so bad it puts your entire family in the hospital just because it’s an electric car......so gas engines have never died when they come to a stop? I can name a couple cars where that’s happened to me for various reasons
Having commanded a police traffic safety unit... there are no such things as accidents. They are crashes. They are caused by human error or impairment, equipment failure, or engineering defects in either the roadway or the vehicle(s) involved. I believe autonomous vehicles are subject to all three.
This is why self driving cars are not the panacea some people and manufacturers think they are. Computers can be hacked and technology errors are always possible. I appreciate technology, like the blind side sensors, and I do use my cruise control for improved mileage on long trips, and my rear camera to supplement looking over my shoulder, but I want to control the car, because unlike the computers, and the other drivers/vehicles around me, i know my driving capabilities and limitations.
Sounds like GM is catching up with Tesla. That is great. I love the wireless scheduled updates my Model 3 gets. Features are added from time to time. I believe that is the future of customer service. It will become standard for all vehicles to receive updates for x number of years.
As for the power of the system. If it is similar to Tesla’s dual system (one system for self driving and another for everything else) then it will support any software update GM could have in the future. I wonder if the Corvette will have all the sensor the Tesla has.
The security of the systems is very important as vehicles can be hacked/controlled. Don’t fool your self. Anything can be hacked. It is an arms race. We hack our current computer for performance gains. The advantage our current systems have is that they are air gapped. These new systems will not be. Someone may hack our future computers from a remote location for other reasons.
I wonder how far we are from cars that are equipped to trigger an emailed speeding ticket with the accompanying “selfie” of whos driving and notice of credit card charge.
I like the idea of over the air updates as long as they don't follow the Apple philosophy. I have two relatives that had their old iPads brick on them because of an Apple update. Apple's answer was basically to buy a new iPad. As long as they can guarantee that an older car won't become non-functional or start having enough problems to force you to sell it when updated then it should be fine.
05-20-2019, 10:14 PM
BS - Sorry, but Teslas are not operation during updates. Lets stick to facts.
