Hackaday Newsletter 0x6B

If a car is a network, can you open the doors through the lightbulb? [HACKADAY]( Analog Anoraks: The Op Amp Contest Starts Now! [Read Article Now»]( Sufficiently Advanced Tech: Has Bugs By [Elliot Williams]( Arthur C. Clarke said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. He was a sci-fi writer, though, and not a security guy. Maybe it should read “Any sufficiently advanced tech has security flaws”. Because this is the story of breaking into a car through its headlight. In [a marvelous writeup]( half-story, half CAN-bus masterclass, [Ken Tindell] details how car thieves pried off the front headlight of a friend’s Toyota, and managed to steal it just by saying the right things into the network. Since the headlight is on the same network as the door locks, pulling out the bulb and sending the “open the door” message repeatedly, along with a lot of other commands to essentially jam some other security features, can pull it off. Half of you are asking what this has to do with Arthur C. Clarke, and the other half are probably asking what a lightbulb is doing on a car’s data network. In principle, it’s a great idea to have all of the electronics in a car be smart electronics, reporting their status back to the central computer. It’s how we know when our lights are out, or what our tire pressure is, from the driver’s seat. But adding features adds attack surfaces. What seems like magic to the driver looks like a gold mine to the attacker, or to car thieves. With automotive CAN, security was kind of a second thought, and I don’t mean this uncharitably. The first goal was making sure that the system worked across all auto manufacturers and parts suppliers, and that’s tricky enough. Security would have to come second. And more modern cars have their CAN networks encrypted now, adding layers of magic on top of magic. But I’m nearly certain that, when deciding to replace the simple current-sensing test of whether a bulb was burnt out, the engineers probably didn’t have the full cost of moving the bulb onto the CAN bus in mind. They certainly had dreams of simplifying the wiring harness, and of bringing the lowly headlight into the modern age, but I’d bet they had no idea that folks were going to use the headlight port to open the doors. Sufficiently advanced tech. From the Blog --------------------------------------------------------------- [Vintage Computer Festival East Returns This Weekend]( By [Tom Nardi]( If you are on the east coast, you need to hit up VCF East. [Read more »]( [Supercon 2022: Aedan Cullen is Creating an AR System to Beat the Big Boys]( By [Maya Posch]( The incredible story of developing AR glasses as a one-man shop. [Read more »]( [Tech in Plain Sight: Field Guide to Power Plugs]( By [Al Williams]( How many power plug designs are there in the world? It's more than you think! [Read more »]( [Hackaday Podcast]( [Hackaday Podcast 214: Jet Engine Hair Dryer, Comic Sans Type Balls, and Belief in Graphene]( By [Hackaday Editors]( What happened last week on Hackaday? The Podcast will get you up to speed. [Read more »]( If You Missed It --------------------------------------------------------------- [Tree Supports Are Pretty, So Why Not Make Them Part of the Print?]( [IBM Selectric Typewriters Finally Get DIY Typeballs]( [Disabling Intel’s Backdoors On Modern Laptops]( [What Can You Do With Discarded Fish Aggregation Devices]( [Congratulations Low-Power Winners]( [Automated Shusher Keeps Conference Loudmouths in Line]( [Hackaday]( NEVER MISS A HACK [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Terms of Use]( [Privacy Policy]( [Hackaday.io]( [Hackaday.com]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update preferences]( Hackaday.com · 61 S Fair Oaks Ave Ste 200 · Pasadena, CA 91105-2270 · USA