14 ms·

Good article, because it's a canary in the coal-mine that warns us against drive-by-wire in personal automobiles. Personally I will never own or use a car that

Good article, because it's a canary in the coal-mine that warns us against drive-by-wire in personal automobiles. Personally I will never own or use a car that is drive-by-wire, especially if it's connected to the internet. I believe strongly there will be (soon?) be an incident where an org or individual will hack a fleet of such cars, cause widespread death, and the public will pull their hair and say "how could this have happened?!"

devb 3y ago
What is your basis for strongly believing that?
- dogman144 3y ago
  Because there’s been a number of solid proof of concepts to hack car -> kill transmission mid-driving, and that was several years ago.
exe34 3y ago
Well the authorities will probably do something sensible like ban keyboards or something. They already banned the flipper zero in Canada because it can be used to unlock insecure cars.
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
To what end? If the hack happens, I think it's much more likely that we see a string of assassinations that look like accidents, or kidnappings that don't look like vehicle-related skulduggery at all. It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once. Not if they short-sell the car-manufacturer stock first! Granted, that might increase their odds of being caught, but attackers don't have to be wise to be dangerous. Depending on what can be hacked, another possibility would be a string of suspiciously-smooth thefts.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I don't want to want to discount the possibility that this would be the ambitious endeavor of an actor with otherwise small-time-crook vibes, but I think it's more likely to be a nation state with bigger plans than getting rich.
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  > It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once. I mean, it depends on the person pulling the trigger, right? A sociopathic 14 year old from Bogota might not care.
- javajosh 3y ago
  >To what end? The US and China go to war, over Taiwan say. This would be part of a general attack on the US, and would include things like the power grid, internet infrastructure, and anything else that can be disabled or turned against us. Terrorists decide that 9/11 wasn't good enough, and they can do 1000x more damage, death and terror from the comfort of their computers. Extortionists decide to leverage this capability to extort money from car companies. More targeted killings would be motivated according to your thought. This is just the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
  - dogman144 3y ago
    I think Taiwan is the most logical short-term thread model that could lead to widespread cyber incidents internally. Other continues be something like NotPetya, localized cyberwar tactic that hits public internet and runs amuck. But to get from that to critical infra in US, let alone personal autos, is hard to picture.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I guess. It just seems like the degree of premeditation involved here would also come to the conclusion, given how over invested we are in our military, that is better to make it seem like the US is perpetually shooting itself in the foot rather than make it seems like the US has been shot. We tend to get all rambunctious when we know it was an attack, better to have us lose the war before we know we're fighting it. When it comes to remote vehicle access I think you could do more damage carefully over the course of a decade than you could do rashly in a day.
    - vkou 3y ago
      All a nation-state needs to do to asymmetrically cripple the US is to buy a few hundred junkers and stall them on busy bridges during rush hour. There's no need for Tom Clancy 46-dimensional chess plots that involve hacking the Gibson. The next time you see your neighbour driving poorly, ask yourself - are they a spy, wrecker, or saboteur? (/s)
      - 3y ago
- lp0_on_fire 3y ago
  > To what end? “Because some people just want to see the world burn”, unfortunately. The idea that someone would actually fly two commercial airliners into downtown manhattan to take out the World Trade Center was also pretty unlikely, circa 2000 and 2001.
  - persolb 3y ago
    I think the last 23 years has shown that, luckily, those people are mostly idiots. I suspect many people in HN could whip up mass violence with drones if they wanted to. Luckily the people who can generally have better things to do.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    The thing about airliners is that they run out of fuel or get shot down. It's not like you can hijack a few and use them repeatedly for decades. They only way they're decent weapons is if you use them immediately.
- mcswell 3y ago
  Turn all stoplights green (not red!) at the same time. This was actually the idea of a scifi story back in the 1960s--it came out first as a short story (probably in Analog), then as a book. (FWIW, I found the short story better.) Like many of the ideas in the book 1984, turning all the stoplights green at the same time in New York City was probably not possible in the 1960s. It is now.
  - mauvehaus 3y ago
    The Italian Job has this as a plot point back in 1969. IIRC, it was even more sophisticated than just turning all the lights green. Retrieving the gold is left as an exercise to the reader. IMHO: if you want an entertaining movie, watch the 2003 movie. If you're planning a bank heist, the 1969 version is probably more informative. N.B.: I've never done a bank job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Italian_Job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Italian_Job
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I don't think it is. When you install a signal controller there's this diode board, one diode for each phase. You use a wirecutter and remove diodes in order to tell the controller which phases ought to be allowed at the same time. What you're describing would only be possible if all signals were installed with all diodes removed. I can't speak for the whole industry, but back when I was part of it, thats how our controllers worked. Admittedly, I don't think New York City was a customer.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    A few decades back, Texas law specified that traffic lights must be wired in relays to not allow 2 perpendicular directions to be green at once. I hope this has not changed.
dogman144 3y ago
So I agree, but my question next is what cars are you finding that meet this standard? Networks show up in cars quite early, not sure how far back I’d have to go to buy one that is suitably off grid.
- jcgrillo 3y ago
  I own a 1999 Mercedes-Benz E300 turbodiesel and a 1995 Toyota Land Cruiser. Both of these vehicles are modern, computerized machines with electronic engine management, airbags, and computer controlled transmissions. Neither of them have any need for "software updates" nor do they have any way to do so. They both have OBD-II interfaces, and the Benz has a proprietary interface as well. I'll be sticking with these vehicles for as long as it takes for the current complexity fetish to subside. If that means never buying another vehicle that's fine by me :) My plan for the Land Cruiser is to install the engine and transmission from an early 2000s Mitsubishi Fuso. This will entail grafting the ECU and TCU from the Fuso into the Cruiser's wiring harness, and doing some transmission modifications to hook up the tailshaft to the Toyota transfer case. Should just about double fuel economy and improve driveability. I can't think of any reason I'd buy a newer vehicle, the "improvements" they offer just aren't worth the cost.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    > nor do they have any way to do so. They both have OBD-II interfaces, You sure about that, at least if someone has direct access to your car I'm guessing they could very easily clip something on that could control the car under particular conditions.
    - jcgrillo 3y ago
      Sure they could plug a device which sniffs or rewrites CAN frames right into the OBD-II port or the 38 pin port on the Benz. I have done so myself even. I'm not worried about it one bit. Someone would have to specifically want to target me, and if they have access to my car they also have (much easier) access to my house. I am not worried about that either. Look, if you want to really mess up a car all you need is a pair of needle nose pliers. Locate the brake lines where the hard line meets the soft line going to each caliper, and squash each hard line to crack it just enough that fluid starts to slightly weep out. When the driver first steps on the brakes in earnest the fluid will flow out, and eventually (maybe 5-10 braking events later) the brakes will no longer work. Again, my threat model does not include someone targeting me specifically. If someone wants to hurt me or vandalize my property they're not gonna do it by writing some esoteric computer program. If you connect your car to the Internet the threat model needs to expand to include "bulk" attacks, which I suspect are actually much more likely.
toast0 3y ago
Are there recent model vehicles without computer controlled throttles? I know ABS implies computer modulated braking, but I don't think it implies the computer can brake without user input or override user input and not brake. Otoh, automatic emergency braking is standard on some vehicles and optional on many. Computer controlled steering is currently rare, but is part of lane keeping assistance.
- 05 3y ago
  ESC (basically same actuator hardware as ABS) can definitely brake without user input and it's mandatory in all cars sold after 2012. Steering assist is mostly torque limited by design, you should be able to easily overpower it.
  - javajosh 3y ago
    >Steering assist is mostly torque limited by design, you should be able to easily overpower it. Glad you said "mostly". The Cybertruck is an exception, with full drive-by-wire. There may be others. If the 'truck is a hit (and it is) expect its ideas to spread.
    - 05 3y ago
      Yeah, my info was based on George Hotz interviews on Openpilot. He said they are safe because even if the software wants to steer the car off the road, the lane keep assist actuator won’t be able to steer that hard and will disengage. Haven’t personally tested that myself :)
      - M95D 3y ago
        What are you saying? That the car can't do a moose test or avoid a real moose while the system can see the lane markings?
        05 3y ago
        I’m saying the physical actuators that turn the steering wheel when LKA is on are torque limited on purpose, so they won’t be able to make a sharp turn or overpower a human, even if they won’t disengage when a human tries to override it (e.g. due to a bug or sensor failure).
kube-system 3y ago
Do you drive an old car? Drive-by-wire throttles and controller area networks became commonplace in cars a solid 20 years ago. The benefits of these components within a car is completely orthogonal to any sort of external network connectivity.
- mauvehaus 3y ago
  It's gotten so hard to be a shadetree mechanic. I swapped an EJ22 out of a 2001 Subaru Impreza into an '86 BRAT. At least as of 2001, there were still a lot of discrete pairs of wires that a sufficiently savvy person (I.e., not me) could debug with a multimeter. Thank goodness. It was enough fun getting it running without involving CANBUS in the process. I believe our 2005 Civic was largely discrete pairs of analog wires too, even if it was throttle by wire. It gave me very little electrical trouble. Troubleshooting the headlights on my 2010 Suzuki SX-4 involved printing some 30 pages from TFM. The entirety of the wiring diagram for my '76 Triumph TR6 fit on three pages. We own a Willys CJ-2A, and the whole wiring diagram fits on one sheet. The wiring diagram for the circuits that actually make it run probably fits on an index card. When you turn off the headlights in my wife's 2018 Impreza, there's a noticeable delay between turning the switch and the computer deigning to allow you to turn the lights off.
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    It's gonna get worse with 'cybersecurity' requirements making it harder to goof around on CAN.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Analog systems can be difficult to troubleshoot too, depending on the issue. I've spent some time scratching my head on some old turn signal systems on old motorcycles before, and their diagrams looked simple... at first. Digital electronics can be a pleasure to work with if you have the right tools, the right information, and the system wasn't designed poorly. The Suzuki and the Impreza aren't just more complicated for no reason -- they're also most sophisticated vehicles that do more things.

devb 3y ago

What is your basis for strongly believing that?

dogman144 3y ago
Because there’s been a number of solid proof of concepts to hack car -> kill transmission mid-driving, and that was several years ago.

exe34 3y ago

Well the authorities will probably do something sensible like ban keyboards or something. They already banned the flipper zero in Canada because it can be used to unlock insecure cars.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

To what end? If the hack happens, I think it's much more likely that we see a string of assassinations that look like accidents, or kidnappings that don't look like vehicle-related skulduggery at all. It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once.

Terr_ 3y ago
> It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once. Not if they short-sell the car-manufacturer stock first! Granted, that might increase their odds of being caught, but attackers don't have to be wise to be dangerous. Depending on what can be hacked, another possibility would be a string of suspiciously-smooth thefts.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  I don't want to want to discount the possibility that this would be the ambitious endeavor of an actor with otherwise small-time-crook vibes, but I think it's more likely to be a nation state with bigger plans than getting rich.
pavel_lishin 3y ago
> It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once. I mean, it depends on the person pulling the trigger, right? A sociopathic 14 year old from Bogota might not care.
javajosh 3y ago
>To what end? The US and China go to war, over Taiwan say. This would be part of a general attack on the US, and would include things like the power grid, internet infrastructure, and anything else that can be disabled or turned against us. Terrorists decide that 9/11 wasn't good enough, and they can do 1000x more damage, death and terror from the comfort of their computers. Extortionists decide to leverage this capability to extort money from car companies. More targeted killings would be motivated according to your thought. This is just the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
- dogman144 3y ago
  I think Taiwan is the most logical short-term thread model that could lead to widespread cyber incidents internally. Other continues be something like NotPetya, localized cyberwar tactic that hits public internet and runs amuck. But to get from that to critical infra in US, let alone personal autos, is hard to picture.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  I guess. It just seems like the degree of premeditation involved here would also come to the conclusion, given how over invested we are in our military, that is better to make it seem like the US is perpetually shooting itself in the foot rather than make it seems like the US has been shot. We tend to get all rambunctious when we know it was an attack, better to have us lose the war before we know we're fighting it. When it comes to remote vehicle access I think you could do more damage carefully over the course of a decade than you could do rashly in a day.
  - vkou 3y ago
    All a nation-state needs to do to asymmetrically cripple the US is to buy a few hundred junkers and stall them on busy bridges during rush hour. There's no need for Tom Clancy 46-dimensional chess plots that involve hacking the Gibson. The next time you see your neighbour driving poorly, ask yourself - are they a spy, wrecker, or saboteur? (/s)
    - 3y ago
lp0_on_fire 3y ago
> To what end? “Because some people just want to see the world burn”, unfortunately. The idea that someone would actually fly two commercial airliners into downtown manhattan to take out the World Trade Center was also pretty unlikely, circa 2000 and 2001.
- persolb 3y ago
  I think the last 23 years has shown that, luckily, those people are mostly idiots. I suspect many people in HN could whip up mass violence with drones if they wanted to. Luckily the people who can generally have better things to do.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  The thing about airliners is that they run out of fuel or get shot down. It's not like you can hijack a few and use them repeatedly for decades. They only way they're decent weapons is if you use them immediately.
mcswell 3y ago
Turn all stoplights green (not red!) at the same time. This was actually the idea of a scifi story back in the 1960s--it came out first as a short story (probably in Analog), then as a book. (FWIW, I found the short story better.) Like many of the ideas in the book 1984, turning all the stoplights green at the same time in New York City was probably not possible in the 1960s. It is now.
- mauvehaus 3y ago
  The Italian Job has this as a plot point back in 1969. IIRC, it was even more sophisticated than just turning all the lights green. Retrieving the gold is left as an exercise to the reader. IMHO: if you want an entertaining movie, watch the 2003 movie. If you're planning a bank heist, the 1969 version is probably more informative. N.B.: I've never done a bank job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Italian_Job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Italian_Job
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  I don't think it is. When you install a signal controller there's this diode board, one diode for each phase. You use a wirecutter and remove diodes in order to tell the controller which phases ought to be allowed at the same time. What you're describing would only be possible if all signals were installed with all diodes removed. I can't speak for the whole industry, but back when I was part of it, thats how our controllers worked. Admittedly, I don't think New York City was a customer.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  A few decades back, Texas law specified that traffic lights must be wired in relays to not allow 2 perpendicular directions to be green at once. I hope this has not changed.

dogman144 3y ago

So I agree, but my question next is what cars are you finding that meet this standard? Networks show up in cars quite early, not sure how far back I’d have to go to buy one that is suitably off grid.

jcgrillo 3y ago
I own a 1999 Mercedes-Benz E300 turbodiesel and a 1995 Toyota Land Cruiser. Both of these vehicles are modern, computerized machines with electronic engine management, airbags, and computer controlled transmissions. Neither of them have any need for "software updates" nor do they have any way to do so. They both have OBD-II interfaces, and the Benz has a proprietary interface as well. I'll be sticking with these vehicles for as long as it takes for the current complexity fetish to subside. If that means never buying another vehicle that's fine by me :) My plan for the Land Cruiser is to install the engine and transmission from an early 2000s Mitsubishi Fuso. This will entail grafting the ECU and TCU from the Fuso into the Cruiser's wiring harness, and doing some transmission modifications to hook up the tailshaft to the Toyota transfer case. Should just about double fuel economy and improve driveability. I can't think of any reason I'd buy a newer vehicle, the "improvements" they offer just aren't worth the cost.
- pixl97 3y ago
  > nor do they have any way to do so. They both have OBD-II interfaces, You sure about that, at least if someone has direct access to your car I'm guessing they could very easily clip something on that could control the car under particular conditions.
  - jcgrillo 3y ago
    Sure they could plug a device which sniffs or rewrites CAN frames right into the OBD-II port or the 38 pin port on the Benz. I have done so myself even. I'm not worried about it one bit. Someone would have to specifically want to target me, and if they have access to my car they also have (much easier) access to my house. I am not worried about that either. Look, if you want to really mess up a car all you need is a pair of needle nose pliers. Locate the brake lines where the hard line meets the soft line going to each caliper, and squash each hard line to crack it just enough that fluid starts to slightly weep out. When the driver first steps on the brakes in earnest the fluid will flow out, and eventually (maybe 5-10 braking events later) the brakes will no longer work. Again, my threat model does not include someone targeting me specifically. If someone wants to hurt me or vandalize my property they're not gonna do it by writing some esoteric computer program. If you connect your car to the Internet the threat model needs to expand to include "bulk" attacks, which I suspect are actually much more likely.

toast0 3y ago

Are there recent model vehicles without computer controlled throttles? I know ABS implies computer modulated braking, but I don't think it implies the computer can brake without user input or override user input and not brake. Otoh, automatic emergency braking is standard on some vehicles and optional on many. Computer controlled steering is currently rare, but is part of lane keeping assistance.

05 3y ago
ESC (basically same actuator hardware as ABS) can definitely brake without user input and it's mandatory in all cars sold after 2012. Steering assist is mostly torque limited by design, you should be able to easily overpower it.
- javajosh 3y ago
  >Steering assist is mostly torque limited by design, you should be able to easily overpower it. Glad you said "mostly". The Cybertruck is an exception, with full drive-by-wire. There may be others. If the 'truck is a hit (and it is) expect its ideas to spread.
  - 05 3y ago
    Yeah, my info was based on George Hotz interviews on Openpilot. He said they are safe because even if the software wants to steer the car off the road, the lane keep assist actuator won’t be able to steer that hard and will disengage. Haven’t personally tested that myself :)
    - M95D 3y ago
      What are you saying? That the car can't do a moose test or avoid a real moose while the system can see the lane markings?
      - 05 3y ago
        I’m saying the physical actuators that turn the steering wheel when LKA is on are torque limited on purpose, so they won’t be able to make a sharp turn or overpower a human, even if they won’t disengage when a human tries to override it (e.g. due to a bug or sensor failure).

kube-system 3y ago

Do you drive an old car? Drive-by-wire throttles and controller area networks became commonplace in cars a solid 20 years ago. The benefits of these components within a car is completely orthogonal to any sort of external network connectivity.

mauvehaus 3y ago
It's gotten so hard to be a shadetree mechanic. I swapped an EJ22 out of a 2001 Subaru Impreza into an '86 BRAT. At least as of 2001, there were still a lot of discrete pairs of wires that a sufficiently savvy person (I.e., not me) could debug with a multimeter. Thank goodness. It was enough fun getting it running without involving CANBUS in the process. I believe our 2005 Civic was largely discrete pairs of analog wires too, even if it was throttle by wire. It gave me very little electrical trouble. Troubleshooting the headlights on my 2010 Suzuki SX-4 involved printing some 30 pages from TFM. The entirety of the wiring diagram for my '76 Triumph TR6 fit on three pages. We own a Willys CJ-2A, and the whole wiring diagram fits on one sheet. The wiring diagram for the circuits that actually make it run probably fits on an index card. When you turn off the headlights in my wife's 2018 Impreza, there's a noticeable delay between turning the switch and the computer deigning to allow you to turn the lights off.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  It's gonna get worse with 'cybersecurity' requirements making it harder to goof around on CAN.
- kube-system 3y ago
  Analog systems can be difficult to troubleshoot too, depending on the issue. I've spent some time scratching my head on some old turn signal systems on old motorcycles before, and their diagrams looked simple... at first. Digital electronics can be a pleasure to work with if you have the right tools, the right information, and the system wasn't designed poorly. The Suzuki and the Impreza aren't just more complicated for no reason -- they're also most sophisticated vehicles that do more things.