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Comment by baakss | Hacker News Reader

>I exercised my judgement and decided to phone the local Highway Patrol office.

That was rash. You called the police within an hour of reading this article? You didn't think it's possible the writer is embellishing or exaggerating the danger he was in here? As of right now, everything they've done has been done in good faith to try to point out the need for extra security.

Also, if they get arrested, even convicted of a crime, then what? You have two extremely angry researchers who know how to hack your car, and what, you're hoping some jail time might help them see the error of their ways and use more caution in the future? You can't see any potential problems if one of them feels vindictive about being jailed over your phone call when they weren't trying to do anything wrong in the first place?

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While you may question the morality of notifying the Highway Patrol, your second paragraph doesn't address that issue at all. In fact, if you think that's how the security researchers think and behave, then I'd argue notifying the Highway Patrol was definitely the right choice.

EDIT: Formatting.

I suggest you view the video[1] that bengali3 linked.

1: http://dp8hsntg6do36.cloudfront.net/55ad80d461646d4db7000005...

The journalist is lying. Carefully look at the tachometer when he says that he can't accelerate, it's running at normal speed.

That doesn't really mean anything. They "cut the transmission", which could mean they forced the vehicle into neutral. The accelerator may be supplying gas to the engine, but if the engine is not supplying power to the wheels, the accelerator will have now bearing on whether you accelerate.

Making factual statements contrary to how a situation was reported by those involved is fraught with pitfalls you can't anticipate, from things you don't know about. Until there's careful investigation, or the people involved recant or make factually impossible statements, you should be careful about making assumptions.

In any case, their reported actions are what people are upset about. If someone makes false statements about illegal activity and it results in the police showing up, they have only themselves to blame.

The part before that showed the tach dropping to zero. The cut away to the journalist talking about how he didn't have control then shows the tach at normal. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell that it's staged.

That's easily explained. If the car is indeed in neutral, taking your foot off the accelerator would result in a zero (well, idling, say 600-900) tach reading. Pressing the accelerator would result in a higher reading. This of course has no affect on the power to the wheels, exactly the same as if you are stopped and put your car into neutral and do the same.

I understand it's tempting to see a single bit of evidence and want to use it to invalidate an entire narrative, but is it so hard to accept that while editing could have made a situation less dangerous seem more dangerous, the inverse could be true as well? We really have no authoritative source of what happened other than the story put forth. The story may indeed be fabricated or subject to hyperbole in parts, but unless you have a source beyond what's here, you are not qualified to make that assessment from the little evidence presented.

"It says 43MPH but I'm not going that fast"does make me wonder if the display remains accurate after the engine is cut.

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