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Brakes in most modern cars are under computer control. They are in mine. I know that because I can disable that control if I want to drive more aggressively.

Before you say something's impossible, you might want to do some research.

http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf

Cars can be controlled via their onboard computers.

> I think you're overestimating the importance of Mr. Hastings.

Wikipedia:

"His Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the Afghanistan war, documented the widespread contempt of him and his staff for civilian officials in the US government and resulted in the general's resignation."

On the journalistic threat scale of 1-10 I'd say Hastings was an 11.



If you re-read my comment carefully, you will see I say it's probably easier to sabotage something else than try to do something overly technical.

I'm pretty certain the Class C hasn't got the features you are talking about and it's a legal requirement that any mechanical action overrides any kind of computer control.

The brakes control you are talking about is probably the emergency brake control that makes the car brake more if it detects you attempt to make an emergency stop.

It can also be an ABS that prevents the wheels from blocking should you break too hard.

I'm confident that the computer will NOT brake while you are driving unless you do an action. It will also not steer unless you ask it to. There are many safeguards to prevent that (otherwise your car will not be allowed to drive).

However, I admit that even if the car cannot be remote controlled by default, one can imagine that with today's technology it's possible to turn any car into a remote controlled one.

I nevertheless think it's overkill and there are probably much simpler and straightforward ways to provoke an accident.

Last but not least, I don't think reporting that a General is highly critical of the Whitehouse would make him an "enemy" of the government, quite the opposite.

Don't fantasize about what's going on, I realize reality is trivial and uninteresting but that's not a reason.


That's a wild paper :)

"maliciously bridging between our car’s two internal subnets"

"we demonstrate the ability to adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input"

"We also present composite attacks that leverage individual weaknesses, including an attack that embeds malicious code in a car’s telematics unit and that will completely erase any evidence of its presence after a crash."


I'm under the impression that computer controlled brakes, like power steering, default to mechanical control. So if the engine starts revving without his consent the driver should still be able to apply the brakes enough to disable or slow down the car.


Take a look at the paper I referenced above. Their tests show the ability to disable braking while manual override isn't possible.

While that doesn't address this specific car, it shows that it's possible on at least one type of car.


I don't think that's always entirely true- look at the deaths that occurred with the Toyotas where the accelerator became stuck depressed, obviously shifting into neutral would have been a better choice, but they were clearly unable to provide adequate breaking to stop.




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