In a marvelous writeup, half-story, half CAN-bus masterclass, [Ken Tindell] details how car thieves pried off the front headlight of a friend’s Toyota, and managed to steal it just by saying the right things into the network.... Since the headlight is on the same network as the door locks, pulling out the bulb and sending the “open the door” message repeatedly, along with a lot of other commands to essentially jam some other security features, can pull it off. Half of you are asking what this has to do with Arthur C. Clarke, and the other half are probably asking what a lightbulb is doing on a car’s data network. In principle, it’s a great idea to have all of the electronics in a car be smart electronics, reporting their status back to the central computer. It’s how we know when our lights are out, or what our tire pressure is, from the driver’s seat. But adding features adds attack surfaces. What seems like magic to the driver looks like a gold mine to the attacker, or to car thieves. https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/sufficiently-advanced-tech-has-bugs/
FYI - the Arthur C. Clarke reference is explained in the first paragraph of the article that was not included in the quote. I mention this because ACC is one of my favorite authors and that is what caused me to click on the article... Thanks for the link, now I know why headlights have been getting harder to replace. Fortunately, LEDs last a long time, so the extra difficulty in replacing them is a good thing!
You reminded me of another era: And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's Where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after Committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly Looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father Rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And They was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the Bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest Father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'N' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me And said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." "Stealing a Prius." And they all moved away from me on the bench There, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I Said, "And creating a nuisance." "And taking the catalytic converter." And they all came back, shook my hand, And we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, Father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the Bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of Things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it Up and said. A few minor edits to make it current for this thread. Bob Wilson
