The CaffiNation Podcast » Archive for car

Posts Tagged “car”

18 03 2010

Remotely Managed Cars

Posted by Paul Muller in backchannel, tech

Wired recently reported that a Hacker Disabled More Than 100 Cars Remotely. The “Hacker”, not to be confused with Angelina Jolie in the movie of the same name, obtained a password and managed to abuse a no start function in the cars. This time the system in question is canned Webtech Plus, a way for car branches to repo vehicles that haven’t been paid for by making them unusable.

Take this as a warning people. Any machine once connected to a network is inherently vulnerable. You can code tight as you can, run every type of security measure you want in front of and behind the connection. But as so many sci fi writers have written, Information Wants to be free. I would never want a no start feature in my car. You can sell as many OnStar vehicular recovery features that you want but if it means someone can either maliciously or mistakenly cause my car to do things i don’t command it to then i’m against it. This was just the first publicized example of the system being abused.

Have to say the Pay Technologies little black box under the hood is quite reminiscent of a loan shark coming around to rough you up a bit and “remind you” to pay I wonder how you check to see if this system is installed, or if the car buyers are made aware of it when they purchase?

Tags: abuse, car, connection, hacker, onstar, tech, vehicle recovery, webtech plus

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22 12 2009

CaffiNation 393: Snowed In

Posted by Paul Muller in Podcast

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Massive Hundred Year Blizzard! But not really that bad

You wouldn’t think two feet of snow would affect a show taped, recorded and researched entirely in my basement would you? Well if you spend a good deal of the morning shoveling and the rest of the day drinking coco you might end up a might bit tired. Sitting down to research the show I soon fell fast asleep. A couple of hours later the wife woke me up, so I made lunches and went to bed.

This episode has all that content but without the yawning and bleary eyes that would otherwise have followed. I’m toying with the idea of going on Hyadis after show 394 until after the new year, so you’ll need to wait until then to find out. I’d like to take the break to start ramping up for the 4oo in 4 event. The CaffiNation Podcast will turn 4 years old on January 9th, and celebrate our 400th show shortly thereafter

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