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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Some awesome analysis. I need to get wireshark for CAN :-)

Its amazing to me to have seen the transformation of cars from things that were primarily mechanically controlled to ones that are primarily software + actuators controlled. A lot more ways to fail. No doubt at some point 'high speed' chases will no longer be possible when the cops send an SMS to your car telling it to pull over.

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It's amazing how much code goes into all of the microcontrollers and processors in a modern car. An IEEE article from a couple years ago cited that a modern luxury car may have 100M+ lines of code controlling it, vs 5.7M for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft (loc is not a great metric, but still...).[1] The jet plane software is no doubt subjected to more security scrutiny, but even if cars had the same code quality it seems like there would be at least a few vulnerabilities in those 100M lines.

Also, if you're curious about interacting with CAN there are a number of hobbyist transceivers out there[2], or to simply listen a logic analyzer would do the job[3].

1. http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/this-car-r...

2. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10039

3. http://www.saleae.com/logic16

A luxury car that has 100M+ lines of code is probably running quite a large Linux installation for Infotainment. You don't get that amount of code just for the control software.

Plus a lot of the controller code will be auto-generated from simulink or similar.

I'm posting this link [1] to the Forbes article (Hackers Reveal Nasty New Car Attacks) the second time today, but it is also relevant here.

[1] - http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/24/hackers...

Thanks for that link, I guess the days of cutting the brake fluid lines are gone, these days a modern wise guy would just connect up a device to tell the brakes to stop working when the conditions were right (high speed, up coming curve/cliff etc.) I expect to see this in the next Bond film.

I find those software contolled cars very dangerous. I posted a question about them being used as murder weapons [1] 9 months ago, but nobody was interested. And today we have this [2] discussion about the strange car crash resulting the death of Michael Hastings.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4709014

[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6162450

As far as a vehicle being used as a weapon goes, your comment may have felt a bit far-fetched at the time. Now that we know how low the bar is set for government action on citizens domestically, your comment has a much stronger context.

For the past few years I've been happily envisioning us all being chauffeured around in robot-driven cars preferably before my 2 year old is 16... imagining they must be safer. And, I still think that generally, auto-automobiles would be safer. Then I thought more about Michael Hastings (whose murder I incidentally nearly witnessed, traveling down Highland about 10 min after the crash, I could see cops, crashed car, and was diverted onto Melrose)... anyway - that, and then the murderous rampage at Venice Beach over the weekend... I thought - oh GOD! People are totally going to remote control cars as murder weapons. OBVIOUSLY. Ugh.

Michael Hastings (whose murder I incidentally nearly witnessed

A rather large assumption on your part, no?

No.

I'm embarrassed to say I know it features in the latest Fast and Furious movie.

Just pull the ABS fuse if you're worried about someone hijacking your brakes.

Or blow up.

I'm sure there's plenty of legitimate reasons to install a backup sparkplug in the gas tank.

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