Car Hacking Report Refuels Concerns About
Michael Hastings Crash
February 20, 2015 by Mary Papenfuss
Categories: Deep Politics, Fresh politics, Surveillance State
Those still wondering what really
happened in gonzo journalist Michael Hastings’ fiery demise likely sat up straight
during 60 Minutes’ recent piece on
how hackers can hijack the controls of a car.
After Hastings died in a bizarre
one-car crash along a straight Los Angeles street, former counterterrorism
adviser Richard Clarke noted the accident was “consistent
with a car cyber attack” and that it was easy to hack cars. It seems he was
right, as 60 Minutes demonstrated
in a chilling fashion.
In the segment, a nervous Lesley Stahl
smashed into safety cones on a driving course after two men using a laptop
computer remotely commandeered her brakes. Former video game developer Dan
Kaufman, who’s now working for the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, set up the demonstration.
In trying to figure out what kinds of
attacks enemies might be plotting on American soil, government agencies are
learning the same techniques. To wrest the controls from Stahl, a hacker dialed
in through the vehicle’s OnStar system to first busy up the computer, then
planted code that allowed it to reprogram the control systems. Kaufman stood by
giving driving orders to the hackers.
The demonstration underscored what
Clarke, counterterrorism chief under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said
after Hastings’ crash. “You can do some really highly destructive things now,
through hacking a car, and it’s not that hard,” he said. “So if there were a
cyber attack on the car—and I’m not saying there was—I think whoever did it
would probably get away with it.” Clarke added that the LAPD was unlikely to
have the tools necessary to detect such an attack, particularly after a fire.
No
Crowbar Needed, Just an iPad
One thing is clear: Drivers are at
risk.
In a stinging
report released this week, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Markey
slammed car companies for their failure to protect car owners from
hackers and intrusive data collectors who might seize control of increasingly
computerized vehicles. “Automakers haven’t done their part to protect us from
cyber-attacks or privacy invasions,” he said.
Much of the report focuses on how car
computers can be used to collect driving history, from where a car is parked to
where it traveled. But it also reveals hackers’ ability to remotely turn, stop
and accelerate cars. Markey’s report notes that car companies can now disable
vehicles if owners fall behind on their payments. Burglars can exploit the same
vulnerabilities.
But Markey doesn’t believe there have
been other types of incidents in which hackers
seize control of cars—yet.
Nonetheless, the 60 Minutes story and Markey’s investigation likely made drivers
squirm the next time they climbed behind the wheel.
The report has also reignited suspicions
that arose nearly two years ago after Hastings’ crash.
***
Hastings’ work as a thorn in the side
of government and the 33-year-old journalist’s death in an unusual crash in
June 2013 immediately triggered speculation. A witness reported seeing Hastings’
new silver Mercedes C250 coupe speeding down a Hollywood street before dawn
when it bounced, slammed into a tree and burst
into flames.
Shortly before Hastings’ death, he sent
what was described as a “panicky”
email to friends expressing concern that associates were being interviewed
by “the Feds.” He also wrote that he was onto
a big story and needed to “get off the radar for a bit.” His 2010 story for
Rolling Stone in which Stanley
McChrystal skewered the White House and its strategy in Afghanistan led to
the general’s resignation.
The FBI denied Hastings was the target
of any investigation, yet a Freedom of Information Act request later unearthed an
FBI file on Hastings. Hastings also told a neighbor he
thought someone had been tampering with his car. At the time of his death
he was working on an article about CIA
director John Brennan.
The Los Angeles Police Department
concluded that the crash was an accident and did not involve foul play. The coroner’s
report also declared Hastings’ death, ascribed to “massive blunt force
trauma,” as accidental, and revealed that there were trace amounts of marijuana
and amphetamine in his system, though neither was considered a factor in the
crash. The report noted that Hastings’ family had been trying to convince him
to go into detox.
Just
an Accident?
Hastings’ widow, who hired
a private investigator to examine all the evidence, at least publicly
labeled the crash an accident. “You know, my gut here, was that it was just a
really tragic accident,” Elise
Jordan said in an interview two months after Hastings’ death.
Hastings’ brother Jonathan said that he
feared his sibling was experiencing a “manic
episode” before his death, which he suspected was linked to drugs. He had
flown to LA to try to convince his brother to enter rehab; Hastings died the
next day. “The government is out of control in a lot of ways, so I sympathize
with people who want to turn Mike’s death into some kind of symbol,” he said.
“I just think that his death happens to be a bad foundation to build that case
on.”
But not everyone agrees. “I’m
definitely suspicious about the crash,” Montana state Rep. Daniel Zolnikov told
WhoWhatWhy. The Republican legislator
has introduced a bill, which he says was inspired in part by Hastings’ work, to
bar state government agencies from accessing servers to get reporters’ notes.
Like Markey, Zolnikov is also concerned
about risks posed by increasingly high-tech cars, which he described as
“computers without protections.”
If that’s the case, then the
information superhighway and highways have merged dangerously.
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