The administration is considering banning Chinese auto software on “national security” ground.
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Usually, I am one to call this sort of stuff a bunch of tinfoil hat nonsense but the ability/possibility of a foreign hostile government being able to “brick” vehicles is no joke.
I don’t know if this is factual but if Tesla can do it, then certainly China can (and if it isn’t factual, then I still won’t put it past China to do it):
The Chechen warlord who showed off a Cybertruck decked out with what appeared to be a machine gun is raging against Elon Musk, saying Tesla remotely bricked his modified pickup.
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Musk strongly denied donating the Cybertruck to Kadyrov after the Russian-backed leader posted a video in August of the apparently militarized electric vehicle on Telegram.
I believe Musk when he stated that he did not make such a donation. I also believe the fact that he didn’t deny having the vehicle remotely disabled likely means that it was.
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Any “connected” car can be bricked. Have you seen the video of the guys who hacked a Jeep Cherokee? They could turn most systems in the car off and on at will. I’m sure the Chinese, or Russians, could do the same to any make of car they want to.
This is, primarily, a means to prevent the Chinese coming into the US market, with either EVs or ICEs, and competing on price to establish themselves. This is Shiny-land. Job #1 is to protect the “JCs”.
Steve
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I’m not talking about a hacker or about police assistance with a stolen vehicle. I am talking about a foreign government maliciously shutting down every vehicle on the road as a method of warfare.
I am not concerned about that risk on an individual micro level.
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I think the other major concern is surveillance. Cars with advanced ADAS systems gather a lot of information. Obviously, they usually know where the car is. But they’re filled with cameras and radar, and can gather a lot of data about their environment as well. And if you intentionally program them to capture a little more data about their surroundings - like, say, scanning for faces on a sidewalk or license plates while driving around Washington DC - you can get some very useful data indeed.
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As the demonstration video shows, any hostile entity can shut down any, or all, connected cars. The cars don’t need to be Chinese, to be hacked. The guys who hacked the Jeep did not build in a back door in the car’s software to do it. Recall, automakers are increasing remote system access, so they can extract “subscription fees” from car owners, or else the company disables features in the car remotely. Did you see the “news” a week or so ago about Ford’s new patented for remotely pushing advertising into the car’s display screen? The automakers, in their never ending search for more ways to extract money from drivers, are providing the access points any hostile actor could exploit.
The ban on Chinese software is only to keep Chinese cars off the US market, to protect big three profits…demonstrating that big three “protected free speech” has a lot more leverage than it did years ago, when VW, Toyota, Datsun, Honda, and Hyundai were not prevented from entering the US market.
Steve
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All? There is no proof of that. If it was that easy, some hacker would have already shut down ALL the cars. You appear to be conflating any for all. Hacking a network to send out a “brick all” command is far different than hacking an individual car with such. Again, I am not concerned about the micro.
The fact that all Chevys in the US, for instance, have not been bricked, is there is no incentive strong enough for someone to do it, yet. China is the universal bogyman right now, so that is being leveraged to protect the big three.
If you have someone evading the law bricking the car is a must. It saves lives in high speed chases.
Of course if we went to war with China or a key ally of China’s much of our nation will be bricked if we are fool enough to allow it.
Look at what Israel just did to Hezbollah. Scrambled the enemy.
Laws around software and hardware need to go down this avenue. Privacy laws also needs major overhaul in the US. Healthcare laws in these areas as well.
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Here’s a piece on the capability Ford Motor just patented, to drop advertising onto the screen in your car. The guy in this piece says, if he sees advertising coming up on the screen of a new car, he will smash the screen. Thing is, the way car electronics are integrated now, if you smash the screen, you not only lose the radio. You lose navigation. You lose your HVAC system. You lose the ability to control an armload of operating parameters of your car.
Perhaps these maleficents won’t brick the cars?
7 days ago. The car drove through a fence, and damaged the gas valve.
Much of our infrastructure is “bare” and ready for action.
ralph
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