In a conversation over the weekend we were discussing possible causes of the recent Toyota issue where cars are reportedly accelerating w/out any input from the driver. One of the plausible causes would be to remotely deliver a virus to the cars computers. Meaning, like GM’s on-star system, it’s very easy for certain folks to access a car’s computer using satellites and/or cell service and install a virus that essentially executes the throttle/fuel injectors, etc when certain variables are met(engine speed, gear, a/c settings…yada yada yada) or even set it to execute at certain date/time.
We then started discussing whether or not high security situations (like the POTUS motorcade) are computer controlled at all. In other words, if you have an exclusive auto-mechanic staff who probably rival most NASCAR pit crews as far as knowledge goes wouldn’t it make sense to have no computer’s at all and everything controlled mechanically? A mechanic can rebuild a carb, distributor cap, etc every day and have confidence in their ability to function and a computer can go at any time with no warnings whatsoever. Even if the limo’s remote access system is disabled it wouldn’t prevent an already installed virus from executing or prevent the computer from crashing altogether.
So is it possible that presidential limousines are stripped of all computer controlled equipment and replaced with old-school technology instead?
Thanks,
Van
Moving this thread to General Questions from Great Debates because there may be a factual answer to the question about the electronics in presidential vehicles.
I doubt a computer virus is to blame for Toyota’s problems. Right now it’s starting to look like there wasn’t a problem in the first place.
According to an AP news story, “Investigators with Toyota Motor Corp. and the federal government could not replicate the runaway speeding reported by a Prius owner who said his car’s accelerator stuck as he drove on a California freeway, according to a memo for a congressional panel.”
When they made the 747 Air Force One planes they had trouble fitting everything into the plane because they had to make sure everything was shielded so that nothing electronic would leak out of the plane. They might have done the same thing to the limos.
More information is coming in on the demographics of the Toyota acceleration victims, and they skew extremely old. The average age of them appears to be about 60 - way more than the average age of Toyota owners in general.
Sudden acceleration issues in the past have often been caused by older drivers who in a crisis mistake the gas pedal for the brake.
Do you have any cites where anyone has managed to download a virus to an automobile? It’s an interesting question, but I’m a bit dubious about your “very easy” contention.
I don’t find this argument very convincing, since while old people might be more likely to mistake the gas for the break, they’re also less likely to be able to bring the car to a stop if the car was actually accelerating due to a malfunction, for similar reasons. So if Toyota’s were malfunctioning, and the malfunction happened to the old and young with equal frequency, I’d still expect fatalities to be heavily skewed toward the older folks.
So I guess the question is, what proportion of reported uncontrolled accelerations happened to seniors that didn’t result in fatalities? If that number also showed the phenomenon skewed towards the elderly, then I’d find it a convincing arguement that the current spate of crashes was due to old folks panicking instead of anything being wrong with the cars they were driving.
Old-skool technology is equally vulnerable to sabotage as fancy electronic equipment is. That said, the type of embedded computer platforms used in automobiles are not a known vector for computer viruses. That’s not to say they can’t be tampered with – you could certainly design a one-purpose firmware hack to cause a catastrophic failure, but if you have access to that presidential limo fleet anyway, you might as well put a small time-bomb on the brake lines.
No, I dont have any sites and am unsure if it’s ever happened. The ‘very easy’ statement was stemming from information I know about GM’s onstar program. Figuring that presently an On-Star employee can send signals to a specific automobile to flash the hazards and even disable the car itself. I figure if that’s possible then people who develop the software programs could theoretically download a virus to one of these cars to make it behave erratically. I did not mean ‘very easy’ in that any teenager with knack for computers could hack into the system and wreak havoc.
That’s a really bad assumption.
Just because OnStar can send a signal to the computer to tell it to flash the lights, that doesn’t mean that they can re-flash the computer’s memory wirelessly. I certainly wouldn’t design it that way.
I would expect most car computers are hard coded and couldn’t be altered with a virus even though they have storage space to hold error codes and driving data. The few cars I tinkered with for performance reprogramming required an additional chip.
No but it does mean it is able to send a signal to cut off the fuel supply or otherwise turn off the car. They can also unlock the doors and track the car’s location, so they have a pretty hefty amount of control over the car’s systems.
Replicating the problem is not an adequate test for if the problem is sudden acceleration. Sudden acceleration cases have always skewed towards the possible answer that it is old people mistaking the accelerator for the brake, and that undoubtedly happens. But are all the cases that way? Was the San Diego guy faking? Are there multiple causes? Do floor mats really cause this problem? Could the electronics cause the problem in failures? Has it happened more than one time in one car?
I do think it is very odd that the San Diego incident, where the brakes actually were applied (because they were worn down to almost nothing) did not stop the car. Brakes are designed to stop a car under full throttle.
Now it is possible that the driver was not standing on the brakes, being misinformed that it was not a good idea, much like he claims to have thought trying to put it in neutral was a bad idea.
I am open to the San Diego thing being just a publicity stunt, but I’m hardly ruling out that it was a car out of control. We just don’t know.
I disagree. You can update your cell phone’s software, gps unit, golf caddy’s etc. Why does it seem it would be any different for a cars computer. I’m not an expert by any means but I would think any computer that can be accessed remotely could potentially be vulnerable.