Topic: Car hacking

[Quemaqua]

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/

Pretty interesting stuff. I haven't been "following" this per se, but I'm definitely one of those people that just wants my car to remain a fucking car. Drive forward, stop when I say so. That's all I need it to do. I already have a smartphone. I don't need GPS or internet or anything else and never have, but this kind of thing makes me want it even less.

[Cools!]

I'm waiting for the hacking tool that will move everyone out of my way and turn all the lights green.

But yeah, I'm the same Que, I don't need all the tech. Though I would say GPS has come in handy a few times.

[PyroMenace]

Anything that's remote controlled is going to have this issue and it can be pretty scary. I read another article about medical equipment, specifically intravenous pumps that were remote controlled which can lead a patient's death if it's network was hacked. It seems there's a ways to go for anything like this to be sure fire and put into everything, but yea, keep that away from my vehicle please.

[Quemaqua]

It was pretty eye-opening taking computer science courses and talking with my professor, who was the department head at the largest campus of my college, when I still thought that was going to be my major. He did a lot of stuff related to the so-called Internet of Things and home control and stuff, and taught several of those classes, and we had some very revealing and frankly pretty fucking scary conversations about security and such. I mean I get why people think it's neat, but nope. I don't want anything to do with any of it.

[Cobra951]

http://www.edmunds.com/car-technology/how-to-buy-a-low-tech-car.html   

[gpw11]

I half think this is by design and half think it's just been a cost saving measure up until this point.  As much as I don't care, people like having their (always shitty in these implementations) aGPS as part of their infotainment units, as well as the various readouts.  Cutting those features is mainstream market suicide. 

That said, (note, I know very little about information systems), were I to be in charge of designing a car I think I'd have the foresight to see this possibility as being inevitable and would lean towards a closed system for safety critical systems (drive train!) and a connected infotainment system - with no actual physical connection between the two.  Of course, you're going to need the infotainment system to have access to some of the safety critical systems for monitoring (because that's where you'd control HVAC) but I'd imagine that you could have redundant connections for these purposes rather than unrestricted access. It would cost more to design such a system and implement it, but it would limit your liability dramatically.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALKING ABOUT.

[Cobra951]

I half think this is by design and half think it's just been a cost saving measure up until this point.  As much as I don't care, people like having their (always shitty in these implementations) aGPS as part of their infotainment units, as well as the various readouts.  Cutting those features is mainstream market suicide.  

That said, (note, I know very little about information systems), were I to be in charge of designing a car I think I'd have the foresight to see this possibility as being inevitable and would lean towards a closed system for safety critical systems (drive train!) and a connected infotainment system - with no actual physical connection between the two.  Of course, you're going to need the infotainment system to have access to some of the safety critical systems for monitoring (because that's where you'd control HVAC) but I'd imagine that you could have redundant connections for these purposes rather than unrestricted access. It would cost more to design such a system and implement it, but it would limit your liability dramatically.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALKING ABOUT.

On the nose.  Totally separate systems would cost more, so they won't do them without some headline-grabbing tragedies.  There is no reason for the ignition, drivetrain, safety and stability systems to be together with comfort electronics.  Nothing should be able to manipulate your engine or brakes systems remotely--ever.  I wouldn't even want the capability to query them for data readouts remotely, because you know, someone always seems to figure out buffer overruns or ways to crash systems.

This all reminds me of the movie Transcendence, where the military ended up resorting to old vehicles with absolutely no electronics, to combat the sentient AI

(click to show/hide)

which invaded all systems everywhere

.