4 ms·

i don't like "you must have the knowledge of how.." based arguments. how expensive is this knowledge? bored undergrads at good to decent schools learn enough to

by munin 15y ago

i don't like "you must have the knowledge of how.." based arguments. how expensive is this knowledge? bored undergrads at good to decent schools learn enough to pull this kind of thing off given a few K in bootstrap money. organized crime has both the will and the funds to do something like this. so could an independent person... you're talking $50-$75k and 6 months of a persons time to figure out how to delete someone without anyone even thinking it was murder? the advantage of "hacking" the ECU is that by making changes in software you can make changes that can't be detected by a mechanic or by a vigilant pre-drive screen of your car. after i read the autosec.org paper my first thought was "this is dumb, it requires physical access to the car to pull off, i already have that, i can perform hundreds of other types of physical sabotage to make the car crash. nothing new here." a few weeks later i realized "wait a minute, if i make a change in software, it can theoretically remain undetected forever before i activate it. also, nothing the operator does to find it could work. also, if i die in a wreck on the freeway that looks like i just lost control of my car, will the state police rip apart the wreckage, find the ECU, and verify that it hasn't been tampered with? will they know how to? will they even think to do that? and even then it wouldn't matter because the software could erase itself from permanent storage just-in-time..." there are a lot of advantages and i think the barrier to entry is a lot lower than you say it is.

trebor 15y ago
Perhaps the barrier is lower. But understand my position: I am not an advocate of automated cars, or even highly computerized cars. The more computerized the car becomes the more points of failure it gets, whether that be a dropped internet/GPS connection, a hardware glitch, or "cosmic rays" (which got the blame for the Prius brake issues). It takes significant developmental effort to hack the ECU. And if you don't want the changes to be detectable by mechanics or a prescreen drive test, you need to be especially cautious in your changes. You must disassemble and analyze the ENTIRE codebase of the ECU to determine where you want your changes to reside, then pack it back in. A simple countermeasure is to let the mechanics look at the ECU version checksum. Standardize the checksum across the model, with subsequent patches being listed as a different version number. Then the mechanic checks with the official manufacturer's guide and you know if there's a problem. You are sounding paranoid. Physical security is always the first, and most effective barrier. If the interface were better secured digitally, it wouldn't take a genius to access the ECU's circuitry and wire an extension. But again, it takes significant investment. If the ECU is modified to accelerate at maximum speed at some random moment, the only thing necessary to defeat it is switching into neutral and pulling off the road! The range of destructiveness the ECU can cause is limited, though it can rack up your repair bills. Crime syndicates usually buy shares in the local police force. If you meet a mysterious end in a car accident the investigation would be tampered with regardless of the method used to kill you. Theory is wildly different from reality.

by munin 15y ago

trebor 15y ago

Perhaps the barrier is lower. But understand my position: I am not an advocate of automated cars, or even highly computerized cars. The more computerized the car becomes the more points of failure it gets, whether that be a dropped internet/GPS connection, a hardware glitch, or "cosmic rays" (which got the blame for the Prius brake issues). It takes significant developmental effort to hack the ECU. And if you don't want the changes to be detectable by mechanics or a prescreen drive test, you need to be especially cautious in your changes. You must disassemble and analyze the ENTIRE codebase of the ECU to determine where you want your changes to reside, then pack it back in. A simple countermeasure is to let the mechanics look at the ECU version checksum. Standardize the checksum across the model, with subsequent patches being listed as a different version number. Then the mechanic checks with the official manufacturer's guide and you know if there's a problem. You are sounding paranoid. Physical security is always the first, and most effective barrier. If the interface were better secured digitally, it wouldn't take a genius to access the ECU's circuitry and wire an extension. But again, it takes significant investment. If the ECU is modified to accelerate at maximum speed at some random moment, the only thing necessary to defeat it is switching into neutral and pulling off the road! The range of destructiveness the ECU can cause is limited, though it can rack up your repair bills. Crime syndicates usually buy shares in the local police force. If you meet a mysterious end in a car accident the investigation would be tampered with regardless of the method used to kill you. Theory is wildly different from reality.