Hackers have been able to compromise cars for at least a couple of decades, and while car manufacturers are getting better at securing their products, they are all pushing hard for further connectivity. This means apps and subscriptions for your car, new protocols that lets cars exchange information, and a huge reliance on cloud.
Source: first hand sources working in well known automotive corporations.
Its generally the same industry wide.
I have the lowest spec, cheapest car Ford had available and it still has the cellular antenna. I checked, and at leadt on an ecosport the cell antenna is very easy to remove and doesn't impact functionality of the car. That being said, I did reconnect the cellular antenna since app-enabled remote start is a genuinely useful feature. I can warm the car up from my desk without having to walk within range of the keyfob, so I am accepting that bit of privacy loss.
[0] https://www.ford.com/support/category/fordpass/fordpass-conn...
I can't help but chuckle at the use of the word "just" here. Sure, if we are now into reverse engineering hardware module interfaces and potentially desolder jobs on a (at a minimum) ~$20k vehicle, of which many features will stop working once you remove the module as well as triggering how many warning and service lights...
Source: my car.
The idea of a vehicle repossessing itself does bother me. In the early 2000s I bought a vehicle from Mitsubishi, financed through them. At the time, setting up an automatic payment through them cost a monthly fee, so I set it up through my bank instead.
About 3 years later I got a call from them threatening repossession because I was three months behind on payments. I checked and every payment had been sent.
It turned out that Mitsubishi Motors East had transferred my loan to Mitsubishi Motors West, or something like that, and I had missed that. It was probably in one of the statements I never bothered opening.
The repo man can just use the 5G connection to locate the car, drive to it, unlock the car start the ignition and drive it away.
This would work today just using the APIs all modern Fords already have.
There are rumours this already happens for some car models:
> https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotel...
Also yeah, the Toyota 86 family is still too expensive to be a project car for most.
This is the world we're going to see soon.
Thats not the problem - the problem is you are / will not be the owner, you can never become the owner because the firmware is not for sale.
You are just a peasant that pays for the hardware and tne repair bill and is allowed to drive it unless you break one of the clauses in 900 page EULA
Eventually some hacker will decide crashing cars is fun, and I don't expect real security to happen before that. The same goes for medical equipment.
$5 says the hacker will be a nation state, and the "fun" will be an assassination that's hard to prove wasn't a glitch.
As for security, while the automotive manufacturers are aware of dangers, and standards like ISO21434 https://www.iso.org/standard/70918.html are driving them towards better security engineering practices, there is a huge gulf between process/compliance/governance, and truly secure engineering practices as a core part of engineering culture.
Many/most of the people working on the on-board systems come from an embedded development background that doesn't include pervasive connectivity. That's a problem. They might check the boxes to appear secure, but they aren't necessarily invested in the process.
My prediction; there _is_ going to be a severe and widespread automotive security event which cannot be ignored, before that culture shifts.
Yeah that's a big Definitely.
I wish developers and consumers alike exercised a higher standard for software quality and weren't becoming increasingly tolerant of crap.
This exists and just serves to charge customers more money while blowing smoke up their asses, people want to believe they're better drivers than the rest.
I'm so happy with it that I will never own one that is internet connected, unless I can disable the internet connection in some way.
I did end up hooking it back up to re-enable remote start since I'm in a cold climate, but I couldn't help myself but test this. Something mobile like a car can't assume connectivity, although I have heard reports of people stranded when using rental services that rely on cell connection.
Forum confirmation here: https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/disabling-fordpass...
Almost everyone will get within range of internet at least once every two months, so few Wil notice or care that the car requires constant contact with the mother ship.
This is a whole nother level of control loss. Not only do you not completely own the hardware but in the worst case scenario, the hardware can remotely be used to restrict freedom of movement or kill you and others.
I personally wouldn't recommend buying an electric vehicle unless it's extremely dumb or is capable of running an open-source and customizable operating system.
The problem is that EVs and traditional ICE vehicles are built very differently. In order to fit enough batteries, the batteries are usually built under the vehicle in what's called a "skateboard". You can't do that easily when retrofitting an ICE vehicle, so you end up sacrificing trunk space. Modern EVs are also much more lightweight and aerodynamic than ICE vehicles, and they can do regen braking. Without all of the modern EV innovations, you just don't get nearly the same range.
So yeah. You should probably get a modern EV and just crack the firmware to jailbreak it instead, which is likely to happen in short order. A challenge there though is that when it comes to autonomous vehicles, you're likely going to need updates to the map data on a semi-regular basis. You could also become liable if someone gets hurt and it's found that you tinkered around with your autonomous car's software.
[0] https://www.thedrive.com/news/42974/fords-281-hp-electric-cr...
It's probably worth noting, just in case anyone is accidentally misled here, EVs are vastly heavier than ICE equivalents, but most of the delta is the battery, and the frame and supporting structures are often lighter.
> One day, shortly before Christmas, an insect becomes jammed in a teleprinter, which misprints a copy of an arrest warrant it was receiving. This leads to the arrest and death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle instead of renegade heating engineer and suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle.
A literal bug!
At some point you have to trust your kids to not be stupid. If you can't do that, you done messed up in raising them.
I'm pretty happy with the old, non-Internet-connected car that I drive. My phone already has all the smarts that my car needs for navigation and playing media and stuff. And from backup cameras to safer lane changing to full self driving, I can't think of a feature that I'd want to be built into the car and Internet-connected except for remote start (not sure I'd use it) or full-on "tell my car to drive somewhere without me."