But let me add this, I will be watching 60 minutes tonight to see the whole story. Sometimes the tease segments (ads) don’t accurately tell the story.
These are computers we are putting into cars that are all subject to hacking. It isn’t like everyone who uses them isn’t aware of the potential problems. It’s a matter of security and how much you want to spend to protect the system. We like all the good having a computer in a car does for us. The same with the Internet…you accept the bad with the good then you spend the money to correct the problem. With each little opportunity we take to make life easier for ourselves, we give up a little power and privacy. It’s the nature of the beast, not only with computers but with many other devices and services.
How far away do you think it is before law enforcment can monitor some cars, wait till a criminal element ( unpaid parking tickets ? ) climbs to one; then, with the push of a button, the doors all lock, the car starts and drives him/her to the nearest police station ?
@keith “how come I didn’t get a MIL when it didn’t work”
Because it has nothing to do with emissions
I already saw the same topic on Fox news in the AM, a few months ago.They left Brian drive a car while the hacker followed in another car and hacked his system.
Yosemite
So 60 minutes is so desperate for ratings that they’re rehashing a fox news story and labeling it their own? Next episode gonna be about Bubba Joe and Billy Bob claiming they were abducted by aliens and taken to a secret government base to be experimented on, then claim we all need to start a revolution against pancakes?
I’m with the person who said all news channels are crap. They’re all biased in one way or another. Take 1 story, like the execution of the Jordanian pilot, and watch how the different stations cover it. Basically, it boils down to this:
Fox: It’s the democrats/Obama’s fault
CNN: It’s the republicans/Bush’s fault
MSNBC: It’s the NRA’s/gun owner’s fault
All for the almighty ratings dollars.
I watched it last night and the part about hacking the car was only a small part of the total story. It was interesting.
The thing I really wanted to know was how the car was accessed. You have to either plug something into it or you have to use an antenna. I didn’t see a mile long USB cord so it has to be an antenna, so which antenna.
I doubt that it is the AM/FM antenna because the low frequency in that band would not allow much bandwidth. I also doubt that it would be the bluetooth because bluetooth has a very limited range. I’m suspecting either the sharktooth for satellite that all new cars seem to have, even if you don’t want to subscribe or a hidden wifi antenna somewhere. When I find it, it is getting disconnected.
According you couldn’t hack the car unless it had something like On-Star. But they show that any modern vehicle with a remote entry can be hacked very easily and cheap.
The On-Star plug fix is going to take a while…and a good portion of that software GM outsourced to India and China.
OnStar, and every system like it use cell phone technology to communicate back to home base. The car can phone home as easily as home can phone the car. It all passes through the sharks tooth antenna. OnStar can download new code to fix a warranty problem without returning to a dealer for a hard-wired download as well as send data up to GM. They and as an extension, the police, can monitor everything you say and do as well as where you drive. The GM OnStar car own actually signs a release form that allows GM to collect the data and do with it what GM wants.
And apparently it can be hacked, no surprise there. Well not to us, but Leslie Stahl, sure. I can’t believe they sent Leslie Stahl to cover this!
While this doesn’t directly relate to cars, it does–in some way–relate to a lack of privacy/security with many modern electronic devices.
According to The BBC (which is not dependent on ratings), and as confirmed by Samsung, if you speak in front of one of Samsung’s “smart” TV sets, you should be VERY careful about what you say. For those who remember reading George Orwell’s novel, 1984, it appears that…Big Brother IS watching, or at least he is listening…
Dang. Computers are wonderful…computers are a problem…advanced tech is great…advanced tech is intrusive… think I will keep watching my 30 year old idiot box and assume hopefully no one ever wants to hack my car…gonna check on my lamp oil supply and the ribbon in my old typewriter. 
It has NOTHING with computers or technology…but EVERYTHING to do with corporations not doing their due diligence to add the security needed. Is it because it will cost to much? I hope not because the added cost is usually less then 5% of the total project. Could be just being lazy…or they just didn’t think there would be a problem.
Take a look at all the data breaches we’ve had in the past 5 years. Most if not all were preventable. Companies just didn’t care enough to put the effort in.
Many years ago when I worked for DEC…all our systems were shipped with a standard username and password (Administrator/Password). A random security check found that well over 60% of the companies who bought the systems still had the same username and password - even after a year in service.
Exerts taken from the following article one MSNBC today.
“Simply put, automakers are not keeping up with the threats facing drivers in connection with cars.”
According to the report, automakers’ security measures are “Inconsistent and haphazard.” And may of the automakers reviewed by the senator’s office didn’t even seem to understand questions posed tegarding cyberthreats, according to the report.
Because an intrusion detection system for cars does not yet exist it’s difficult for automakers and consumers to know when a vehicle is under a cyberattack, Williams said.
In fact, the only way a person would know is after it’s too late.
I guess I can just unhook and terminate the sharkstooth antenna then. Just so everyone knows, it the sharkstooth antenna is used for broadcast, then there is a transmitter in the car somewhere and if there is a transmitter, then the cable needs a resistive terminal plugged into the cable. The way everything is integrated today, if the transmitter overloads because of an open termination, it could damage other functions.
Just so everyone knows, it the sharkstooth antenna is used for broadcast, then there is a transmitter in the car somewhere and if there is a transmitter, then the cable needs a resistive terminal plugged into the cable.
I’m not sure it’s that simple. I was told–reading about rigging up CB–that, essentially, “everything is an antenna; some antennas are better than others.” Meaning, you’ll certainly attenuate the range, doing what you suggest–but, do you attenuate range enough? I’d say, it depends.
I mistyped one word there. It was supposed to be “if the sharkstooth antenna is used for broadcast”. The reason I mention this is that some of the news reports, and there have been several on this subject since the 60 minutes segment, suggests that the car transmits location information to someone (???).
If you disconnect the cable from the antenna of a receive only piece of equipment, you won’t do any damage. It would be like disconnecting the antenna from your TV, it wouldn’t work, but it wouldn’t be damaged either. But if you disconnect the antenna from a transmitter, then you will get a large standing wave on the antenna cable that can damage the transmitter. With the integration of the electronics in todays cars, I’d be worried that the damaged transmitter may also lead to damage elsewhere.
To prevent the damage to the transmitter, and to keep the antenna cable from becoming an antenna itself, you need to put a resistor across the conductors at the end that is matched to the characteristic impedance of the cable (Zo). If the cable is coax, the typical Zo is 50 - 75 ohms so you would terminate it with that resistance. They make terminal caps for various coax cables that have the correct resistor built in. You used to be able to get them at Radio Shack.