Boston Brakes - real or rumor?

[Chronos]

Sure, it’d be possible if the attacker had physical access to the car long enough to install new hardware. But if you’ve got that, then there are already plenty of ways available to you to kill the dude. If you want to keep it simple, just put explosives in the car, timed to go off while they’re on their accustomed commute. Or, heck, if you can get into their garage, you can probably get into their house, too. Smother them in their sleep with a pillow.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@Joey_P

I know some cars have drive by wire (that is, the gas pedal is connected to the engine via electronics), but the last I heard, and it was years ago, brake by wire wasn’t legal. It still had to have a physical connection. Has that changed? Are there cars where there’s no physical connection between the brake pedal and the master cylinder? I know there are cars where the computer can control/apply the brakes, but that’s different then brake by wire.

2003 Mercedes E-class had a system devolved from the earlier S-class that was essential electronic/by-wire braking. The backup was a physical linkage that came into play if you pressed hard enough.

As the '03 E-class was extremely beautiful and had no fewer than three undercooked controllers that controlled absolutely everything in the car, and required reprogramming once a week, I’m just as glad we got rid of it. It got ridiculous to have to go in for reprogramming because the exterior lights wouldn’t come on (or go off), and the sound system randomized channel selection, and the engine quit, and… let’s not talk about the brakes. OTOH, I got to drive some damned cool loaners, including a couple of AMGs.

[timtak]

It has been claimed that Albert Camus’ car crash was caused by some sort of Boston Tyre that caused the tyres to burst at speed, back in 1966.

[Senegoid]

So. This thread comes alive again.

Way back on 07/09/2013 in Post #23 above, I prophesized this:

@Senegoid

This “Boston Brakes” scenario, however, sounds less plausible than dolphins evolving opposable thumbs.

For now.

What’s more plausible is that cars may evolve this way in the foreseeable future. Here’s one plausible in-road: Cars now maintain on-board diagnostic monitoring information and pollution control data, which is available for after-the-fact read-out at a diagnostic center. Those smog-check machines are wired up, and your smog checks are done on-line with the Department of Motor Vehicles. They know the results of your smog check before you do!

What’s to stop the regulations from evolving to where you car’s diagnostic data is continuously up-loaded, or anytime on demand from Control Central? Hey, we already have wireless gas and electric meters in our houses, whereby the Power Company can track our energy usage day-to-day. (This is not just a CT. I can go on-line, and have gone on-line to PG&E and viewed graphs of my usage.) And there’s the “voluntary” (for now anyway) scheme where PG&E will not only monitor, but actually manipulate our in-home heating and cooling for maximal efficiency (and for maximal comfort, as defined by them).

One of the generic fears about bureaucratic regulations is that regulators know no bounds. What’s to stop DMV from regulating, eventually, that all cars be wirelessly on-line to the Department? The technology is certainly not very far-fetched today. Will there evolve some sort of Car Control Central?

Fast forward to mixdenny recent Post Office Conspiracy thread where, on 12/18/2019 I wrote:

@Senegoid

mixdenny, you’re Post Office Conspiracy only scratches the surface!!! (But you all knew that already, right?)

@bob_2

Get used to it… We live in a surveillance society and it will get more so in the coming years. Cameras on street corners, HMA’s recording all cars in their areas, cameras in shops and offices. As we all use cards more and more, so we leave a trail of data about what we buy and where.

No shit, Sherlock!

Geoffrey A. Fowler, Technology Columnist at Washington Post, and some others, have been writing a series of columns under the general heading “The Secret Life of Your Data”, the most recent being published just today (Dec. 17, 2019):

What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out.
At the bottom of the above article (or somewhere on the page) are links to a whole bunch of other articles in the series, with titles such as:
[ul][li] Alexa has been eavesdropping on you this whole time[/li][li] It’s the middle of the night. Do you know who your iPhone is talking to?[/li][li] The spy in your wallet: Credit cards have a privacy problem[/li][li] Goodbye, Chrome: Google’s Web browser has become spy software[/li][li] I found your data. It’s for sale.[/li][li] You watch TV. Your TV watches back.[/li][li] Think you’re anonymous online? A third of popular websites are ‘fingerprinting’ you.[/ul][/li]
An earlier article on the same topic (about your car spying on you):

Big Brother on wheels: Why your car company may know more about you than your spouse. by Peter Holley, from January 15, 2018.
The one about your iPhone is especially interesting:

It’s the middle of the night. Do you know who your iPhone is talking to?, from May 28, 2019.

Did I call it right? WELL, DID I? Your car is watching you. And Big Brother is watching you, or will be any time now. Your always-on-line autonomous car will decide when you go and when you stop and where.

And yes, car control systems are being hacked through the on-board entertainment system, which is apparently is not all that isolated from the control system. This isn’t even all that recent:
Hackers can now hitch a ride on car computers, Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times, Sep. 13, 2015.

As transportation evolves from mechanical to digital, hackers are following the computers into cars.

Just about any new car can be hacked — some even driven by remote control — as automakers depend more on software and wireless connections. Vehicle vulnerability may only grow as cars become their own wireless hot spots with the advent of automated braking and steering systems, experts warn.

It’s already happening. This year, two cybersecurity researchers remotely put a Jeep Cherokee into a ditch by hacking the crossover’s UConnect radio. Jeep recalled 1.4 million vehicles in July to install a patch that plugged the digital security hole.

Other cybersecurity experts took control of a Tesla Model S by hacking the car’s entertainment system. Tesla developed a fix, which it transmitted to all Model S cars through an over-the-air software update.

(My bolding added.)