Researchers at UCSD and the University of Washington discovered that certain late-model cars with wireless connectivity can be hacked.  The researchers were able to remotely disable the brakes, stop the engine or make other adjustments to cars’ operations.  (New York Times, 5/13/10)

Nissan, believing that there will be great value in marketing cars based on the information they can remotely deliver to drivers, is building a “secret” data center from which it will connect to all of its future cars. Is there a potential for such a network to be maliciously attacked? There may be franchise risk not only in the increase of computerized car components but also in their Internet connectivity.

Michael Hines

Seriously? SERIOUSLY!? With the accelerating rise in cyber warfare over the past three years, much of it conducted not necessarily by central governments but by rogue citizens who feel antipathy toward a foreign state, how could the Pentagon assume such a high level of naiveté about the trained and organized Iraqi insurgency?  It appears the U.S.military command still needs to reassess some of its assumptions about military tactics in the asymmetrical warfare increasingly common today.

Michael Hines