4 ms·

Does it matter? All these cars are still vulnerable, and state actors can probably kill you right now with a byte sequence -- investigators will find that you w

Does it matter? All these cars are still vulnerable, and state actors can probably kill you right now with a byte sequence -- investigators will find that you weren't using Autopilot properly. It's a sad state of things with no foreseeable solution.

klmadfejno 5y ago
State actors can kill you with a variety of common household items if they so desire.
- nullifidian 5y ago
  killing with a byte sequence is as effortless as it gets. And it's one of the more plausibly deniable ways to do it. Why create additional ways for state actors to kill people? They could at least add "Power off all modems" option to all cars, and stop relying on over the air updates.
  - klmadfejno 5y ago
    > Why create additional ways for state actors to kill people? State actors can destroy buildings, so I guess we shouldn't make buildings /s. Or less sarcastically, state actors can compromise laptops, so I guess we should stop allowing "over the air" security patches to laptops? Should we just stop using computers? The reality is that state actors murdering people is an incredibly low risk threat. If state actor really want to kill someone, that is, assassinate someone, they can do it with a gun or a poison or whatever. If state actors casually want to kill one person, finding novel exploits is a pretty expensive way of doing it. If state actors want to kill a lot of people, you're basically at war, so we can use actual weapons.
    - nullifidian 5y ago
      >Should we just stop using computers? Laptops and buildings are a necessity, while cars with wireless modems and always on internet connections are not. All the usecases are solvable with Apple/Android/Car with infotainment serving as a dumb terminal, without any connection to anything important in a car. Since we already always have government surveillance devices on us (mobile phones) why add additional ones, which have the ability to crush us into oncoming traffic? Cars also had perfectly functional navigation with SD cards. >"over the air" security patches to laptops? Yes. Over the air security patches are a very very bad thing. The fact that this issue still hasn't been solved is a disgrace, with all the formal verification advances. Still laptops are a necessity, and can't kill us directly. >State actors can destroy buildings, That's not very plausibly deniable method. Buildings don't collapse or blow up by themselves. It leaves lots of material evidence of foul play. >with a gun or a poison or whatever. Not if they want to avoid suspicions and make it look like it was something natural, which is almost all the time. >murdering people is an incredibly low risk threat. Not if you are an activist and are up against an authoritarian regime, which can even follow you abroad. There is also surveillance you can't turn off like you can with a phone -- i.e. you can't talk with people in a car about anything important.
      - EricE 5y ago
        “Laptops and buildings are a necessity, while cars with wireless modems and always on internet connections are not.” Hear hear and well worth repeating. I’m waiting for the (probably not too distant) day when insurance companies demand access to car telemetry in order to obtain reasonable insurance rates. Tick Tock…
- jsight 5y ago
  Exactly... if you are so valuable that they'd risk burning an exploit for an imperfect chance, there are more effective ways.
  - nullifidian 5y ago
    What more effective ways? Send goons with chemical warfare agents? Nothing would happen with the exploit if it's done with a fake base station or through other low-range wireless thing.
    - klmadfejno 5y ago
      > Send goons with chemical warfare agents? Literally yes.
      - nullifidian 5y ago
        That's not more effective, and much much more risky, and this method leaves evidence, while powered off or zeroed and rebooted dram contents don't.
        klmadfejno 5y ago
        There's a low upper bound on efficacy. You can only kill someone once. Realistically both methods leave evidence. To do a code exploit you need to find something, sit on it hoping its upatched, and then hope nobody can figure out that you did it when they do their extensive analysis of why a car suddenly did something extremely rare and dangerous, else you lose the exploit.
        nullifidian 5y ago
        >car suddenly did something extremely rare and dang In absence of anything else, and cleaned up dram + fake logs is really an absence, it's always ascribed to driver oversight, distraction, loss of control. >Realistically both methods leave evidence. Yes, computing leaves "evidence" in form of heat(entropy).

klmadfejno 5y ago

State actors can kill you with a variety of common household items if they so desire.

nullifidian 5y ago
killing with a byte sequence is as effortless as it gets. And it's one of the more plausibly deniable ways to do it. Why create additional ways for state actors to kill people? They could at least add "Power off all modems" option to all cars, and stop relying on over the air updates.
- klmadfejno 5y ago
  > Why create additional ways for state actors to kill people? State actors can destroy buildings, so I guess we shouldn't make buildings /s. Or less sarcastically, state actors can compromise laptops, so I guess we should stop allowing "over the air" security patches to laptops? Should we just stop using computers? The reality is that state actors murdering people is an incredibly low risk threat. If state actor really want to kill someone, that is, assassinate someone, they can do it with a gun or a poison or whatever. If state actors casually want to kill one person, finding novel exploits is a pretty expensive way of doing it. If state actors want to kill a lot of people, you're basically at war, so we can use actual weapons.
  - nullifidian 5y ago
    >Should we just stop using computers? Laptops and buildings are a necessity, while cars with wireless modems and always on internet connections are not. All the usecases are solvable with Apple/Android/Car with infotainment serving as a dumb terminal, without any connection to anything important in a car. Since we already always have government surveillance devices on us (mobile phones) why add additional ones, which have the ability to crush us into oncoming traffic? Cars also had perfectly functional navigation with SD cards. >"over the air" security patches to laptops? Yes. Over the air security patches are a very very bad thing. The fact that this issue still hasn't been solved is a disgrace, with all the formal verification advances. Still laptops are a necessity, and can't kill us directly. >State actors can destroy buildings, That's not very plausibly deniable method. Buildings don't collapse or blow up by themselves. It leaves lots of material evidence of foul play. >with a gun or a poison or whatever. Not if they want to avoid suspicions and make it look like it was something natural, which is almost all the time. >murdering people is an incredibly low risk threat. Not if you are an activist and are up against an authoritarian regime, which can even follow you abroad. There is also surveillance you can't turn off like you can with a phone -- i.e. you can't talk with people in a car about anything important.
    - EricE 5y ago
      “Laptops and buildings are a necessity, while cars with wireless modems and always on internet connections are not.” Hear hear and well worth repeating. I’m waiting for the (probably not too distant) day when insurance companies demand access to car telemetry in order to obtain reasonable insurance rates. Tick Tock…
jsight 5y ago
Exactly... if you are so valuable that they'd risk burning an exploit for an imperfect chance, there are more effective ways.
- nullifidian 5y ago
  What more effective ways? Send goons with chemical warfare agents? Nothing would happen with the exploit if it's done with a fake base station or through other low-range wireless thing.
  - klmadfejno 5y ago
    > Send goons with chemical warfare agents? Literally yes.
    - nullifidian 5y ago
      That's not more effective, and much much more risky, and this method leaves evidence, while powered off or zeroed and rebooted dram contents don't.
      - klmadfejno 5y ago
        There's a low upper bound on efficacy. You can only kill someone once. Realistically both methods leave evidence. To do a code exploit you need to find something, sit on it hoping its upatched, and then hope nobody can figure out that you did it when they do their extensive analysis of why a car suddenly did something extremely rare and dangerous, else you lose the exploit.
        nullifidian 5y ago
        >car suddenly did something extremely rare and dang In absence of anything else, and cleaned up dram + fake logs is really an absence, it's always ascribed to driver oversight, distraction, loss of control. >Realistically both methods leave evidence. Yes, computing leaves "evidence" in form of heat(entropy).