David L. Farquhar, computer security professional, train hobbyist, and landlord
Insurance companies are starting to offer discounts if you plug one of their devices, often called a RightTrack or SnapShot, into your car’s ODB2 port.
One of my college buddies asked me about them when his insurance company offered his family a 5% discount to plug these into their cars, and then make them eligible for up to another 25%. Those are compelling numbers. So what are the potential drawbacks?
According to David Pogue, since hacking a car is “nearly impossible,” we shouldn’t talk about it anymore.
That, my friends, is precisely what’s wrong with security and security awareness today. Flying to the moon is nearly impossible, after all, and you could easily kill yourself trying. David Pogue has never done it. But Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did.
I’ve talked before about the infamous Jeep hack, but there’s more to learn from it than just that cars are vulnerable. The way Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek hacked the Jeep has implications for any computer network.
St. Louis-based security researcher Charlie Miller and his collaborator Chris Valasek got themselves in the news this week by hacking a Jeep driven by Wired journalist Andy Greenberg on I-64.
The reaction was mixed, but one common theme was, why I-64, where lives could have been at risk, rather than an abandoned parking lot?
I don’t know Miller or Valasek, so it goes without saying I don’t speak for either one of them, but I think I have a pretty good idea why they did it that way.