Investigative reporter Michael Hastings murdered?

[Kaitzilla]

Yup, he was murdered. Working on a big story. Being investigated by the Feds. Had to go off the radar. Dead a few hours later in a silly car crash on a straight road with big lanes and no skid marks.

Remotely hacking his 2013 Mercedes to crash him was a great scheme. The LAPD are far too incompetent to even contemplate investigating such a thing.

Which of these million lines of code is the malware? Might have to bring in an expensive outside expert haha na it was probably just drunk driving.



This type of electronic override is already possible by accident:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...n-nightmare-100-mph-wild-ride-for-90-minutes/

A Texas teen who had just come of age to receive his driver’s license was taken on a terrifying ride at more than 100-mile-per-hour speeds after his car’s accelerator became stuck.

The incident, which happened in early December in North Texas, involved a 2011 Hyundai Elantra and 16-year-old Elez Lushaj, who could be heard telling 911 dispatchers in the report aired by WFAA to “please, just do anything” to help him

WFAA News 8 reported dispatchers trying to coach the teen who called them from the road as he was weaving in and out of highway traffic to avoid collisions, unable to slow down. Putting the car into neutral, turning it off, braking — none of it worked.

...flip in the vehicle four times. He broke several bones in the accident but was conscious when Williamson reached him, according to News 8.

Just have to replicate the error on purpose with a computer chip.

If OnStar has the software to remotely disable car engines at will 6 years ago, I'm sure some angry govt. person has the no brakes-stuck accelerator software by now.

Italy can get a toxicology report on that Sopranos guy within a week, but LAPD take way over a month. When they aren't busy shooting people who drive the same car as Chris Dorner.

Mercedes are notorious for bursting into infernos whenever they crash too. Nothing about this warrants an investigation at all by the world's finest police force.


Just a warm-up/proof of concept for assassinating people when Google comes out with their self-driving car sooner or later.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Remotely hacking his 2013 Mercedes to crash him was a great scheme. The LAPD are far too incompetent to even contemplate investigating such a thing.

While it's conceivably possible, the state the vehicle was found in suggests any number of other viable possibilities as well, both accidental and otherwise . Take the simple "plant bomb --> call him out --> boom". You could do that in the 1950's lol. Cars don't USUALLY explode from simple collisions, but it also wouldn't exactly be the first time it's happened.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Here you go. Hackers disabling brakes on a car or taking control of the steering wheel briefly to swerve a vehicle into a head on collision. Or a date with a tree doing 100+ mph if you like.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygre...w-car-attacks-with-me-behind-the-wheel-video/

As I drove their vehicles for more than an hour, Miller and Valasek showed that they’ve reverse-engineered enough of the software of the Escape and the Toyota Prius (both the 2010 model) to demonstrate a range of nasty surprises: everything from annoyances like uncontrollably blasting the horn to serious hazards like slamming on the Prius’ brakes at high speeds. They sent commands from their laptops that killed power steering, spoofed the GPS and made pathological liars out of speedometers and odometers. Finally they directed me out to a country road, where Valasek showed that he could violently jerk the Prius’ steering at any speed, threatening to send us into a cornfield or a head-on collision. “Imagine you’re driving down a highway at 80 ,” Valasek says. “You’re going into the car next to you or into oncoming traffic. That’s going to be bad times.”

A Ford spokesman says the company takes hackers “very seriously,” but Toyota, for its part, says it isn’t impressed by Miller and Valasek’s stunts: Real carhacking, the company’s safety manager John Hanson argues, wouldn’t require physically jacking into the target car. “Our focus, and that of the entire auto industry, is to prevent hacking from a remote wireless device outside of the vehicle,” he writes in an e-mail, adding that Toyota engineers test its vehicles against wireless attacks. “We believe our systems are robust and secure.”

But Miller and Valasek’s work assumed physical access to the cars’ computers for a reason: Gaining wireless access to a car’s network is old news. A team of researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, experimenting on a sedan from an unnamed company in 2010, found that they could wirelessly penetrate the same critical systems Miller and Valasek targeted using the car’s OnStar-like cellular connection, Bluetooth bugs, a rogue Android app that synched with the car’s network from the driver’s smartphone or even a malicious audio file on a CD in the car’s stereo system. “Academics have shown you can get remote code execution,” says Valasek, using hacker jargon for the ability to start running commands on a system. “We showed you can do a lot of crazy things once you’re inside.”

So who's right?
The hackers and academics who say it can be done?
Or the car industry spokesman who assures us it is impossible?

I didn't even know they've made cars that can park themselves or follow the leader.

 

[Kaitzilla]

While it's conceivably possible, the state the vehicle was found in suggests any number of other viable possibilities as well, both accidental and otherwise . Take the simple "plant bomb --> call him out --> boom". You could do that in the 1950's lol. Cars don't USUALLY explode from simple collisions, but it also wouldn't exactly be the first time it's happened.

Well, that would be much simpler and more guaranteed to work of course.
But it'd leave behind more evidence I think.

I'll forget the whole thing if the toxicology report comes back and he was very drunk after all.

 

[Formaldehyde]

So who's right?
The hackers and academics who say it can be done?
Or the car industry spokesman who assures us it is impossible?

I don't think anybody has claimed that if you remove the dashboard and hack the ECUs that you cannot do much to possibly cause an accident. Have they?


Link to video.

I didn't even know they've made cars that can park themselves or follow the leader.

Cars have been able to park themselves for a number of years now.


Link to video.

And you aren't familiar with the Google car that can drive itself?


Link to video.

 

[Kaitzilla]

35 year old hacker Barnaby Jack found dead in California Thursday. Though not in a fiery car crash.

He was due to give a presentation at Black Hat next week on how pacemakers could be hacked and used to kill their wearer.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/barnaby-jack-dead_n_3660157.html

Two years ago, while working at McAfee, he engineered methods for attacking insulin pumps that prompted medical device maker Medtronic Inc to bring in outside security firms and revamp the way it designs its products.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/26/us-medtronic-idUSTRE79P52620111026

In August, Medtronic acknowledged that security flaws in its implanted insulin pumps could allow hackers to remotely take control of the devices.

He followed that up with work on heart devices that he was due to present at Black Hat next week in his first presentation at the annual convention since 2010.

Jack told Reuters in an interview last week that he had devised a way to attack heart patients by hacking into a wireless communications system that links implanted pacemakers and defibrillators with bedside monitors that gather information about their operations.

"I'm sure there could be lethal consequences," he said.

RIP buddy.

Lethal dose of insulin from 300 feet away.
Lethal shock from pacemaker if you are in the same building.

At least they patched the insulin pumps after his warning. Hopefully someone continues his work before the 3 million people with pacemakers find out about the security flaw the hard way.

Why do humans keep constructing important things like implanted medical devices and cars to be wirelessly accessible ?



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23467411

Jack also showed concern about hospital’s out-of-date software, which aren’t kept up with the latest security protection. Malware could easily infect hospitals’ heart monitors, causing them to stop functioning and leading to patients’ deaths. As well as medical devices, Jack also worked on protecting cars from malware infections. He recognized a particularly malicious virus could exploit a car, leading to consequences that range from something as light as ruining the lighting to cutting the brakes.

There's that supposedly impossible car hacking again.
Tight security always seems to be an afterthought after spending all that energy to create a product that works.

 

[Lord Baal]

35 year old hacker Barnaby Jack found dead in California Thursday. Though not in a fiery car crash.

He was due to give a presentation at Black Hat next week on how pacemakers could be hacked and used to kill their wearer.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/barnaby-jack-dead_n_3660157.html



RIP buddy.

Lethal dose of insulin from 300 feet away.
Lethal shock from pacemaker if you are in the same building.

At least they patched the insulin pumps after his warning. Hopefully someone continues his work before the 3 million people with pacemakers find out about the security flaw the hard way.

Why do humans keep constructing important things like implanted medical devices and cars to be wirelessly accessible ?



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23467411


There's that supposedly impossible car hacking again.
Tight security always seems to be an afterthought after spending all that energy to create a product that works.

I hacked my electric shaver with my girlfriend's father's Raspberry Pi today following instructions on YouTube. I am not, and never will be, a hacker. So yeah, it's disturbing how many things these days are wirelessly accessible. It's not like people need to download movies to their pacemaker.

 

[dutchfire]

Can you program it to only produce Hitler moustaches from now on? That'd be a fun thing to do with someone's shaver.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Uh oh!

Some big news on this one.


Apparently Hastings was investigating the head of the CIA John Brennan.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...nnan-before-he-was-killed-in-fiery-car-crash/

The guy who was responsible for "the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources"


http://www.sandiego6.com/story/cia-...eporter-michael-hastings-next-target-20130812

A University professor told San Diego 6 News that calculating the speed of Hastings car follows a simple mathematic equation. By using the video and the distance traveled (195 feet) as well as the seconds that lapsed prior to the explosion – the car was traveling roughly 35 mph.

That revelation is important because Jose, an employee of ALSCO a nearby business, and a witness to the accident told KTLA/Loud Labs (Scott Lane) the car was traveling at a high rate of speed and he saw sparks coming from the car and saw it explode BEFORE hitting the tree.

The pre-explosion could possibly explain the flash of light on the video that preceded the appearance of the car in the video. The pre-explosion and slower speed could also explain the minimal damage to the palm tree and the facts the rear tires rested against the curb. It also provides an explanation for the location of the engine and drive train at more than 100 feet from the tree impact area.

Does the CIA still kill people outside the law?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rific-evidence-bloody-video-game-sorties.html

And do they target journalists?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-admin-spied-fox-news-reporter-james-rosen-134204299.html

Looks like only for unconstitutional spying. Wonder why Hastings was so scared before he died.



Will just have to see if Hastings was drunk in a few month/years/however long the LAPD decides was told it needs to take to run the tests.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Mother Jones completely tore apart her "reporting" over this incident.

Dvorak, whom the station touts as an "investigative journalist," is a "National Homeland Security Correspondent" for Examiner.com, a blog network owned by Republican billionaire Philip Anschutz that has minimal editorial oversight. Since Hastings' death, San Diego 6 has repeatedly given Dvorak airtime to float conspiracy theories—that the crash was not consistent with a car accident, that Hastings was cremated to cover up foul play, that federal officials may have ordered him killed. None of these theories, which often come from unnamed sources, are backed up by convincing evidence, but reputable media outlets keep falling for Dvorak's reporting anyway.

Last month, for example, the Independent, a major British newspaper, picked up Dvorak's report claiming that Hastings' body "was cremated and it wasn't the request of the family…in fact, the family wanted Michael's body to go home." But on Tuesday, veteran journalist Russ Baker dispelled the myth on his news site WhoWhatWhy by talking to a family member who confirmed that the cremation was done at the family's request. Dvorak later removed the passage saying Hastings' family wanted his body to "go home," but her story still hints at a cover-up, calling the cremation a "macabre twist."

Dvorak's other theories are just as questionable. She claimed on air that the engine of Hastings' Mercedes C250 coupe had been found behind the crash site, which would have been impossible with the forward velocity of an ordinary accident. The engine was found in front of the crash site. Her suggestion that a grainy video of the crash showed evidence of a "pre-explosion" sabotage has been dismissed by car experts. She has also reported that the intensity of the resulting fire might suggest the use of thermite accelerants—a popular theory among 9/11 truthers who believe thermite was used to melt the World Trade Center towers' steel columns. She's written credulously about the theory that President Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States. And Dvorak has repeated speculation by Richard Clarke, the former Bush- and Clinton-era counterterrorism czar, that Hastings' car's computer system may have been remotely hacked—something that's technically possible but highly unlikely.

"Whether it turns out to be true or not, that's a whole other issue," says Kim Dvorak.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Death by car hack just got a major validation!
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/

Hacker Remotely Kill a Jeep On The Highway - With Me In It

I was driving 70 mph on the edge of downtown St. Louis when the exploit began to take hold.

Though I hadn’t touched the dashboard, the vents in the Jeep Cherokee started blasting cold air at the maximum setting, chilling the sweat on my back through the in-seat climate control system. Next the radio switched to the local hip hop station and began blaring Skee-lo at full volume. I spun the control knob left and hit the power button, to no avail. Then the windshield wipers turned on, and wiper fluid blurred the glass.

As I tried to cope with all this, a picture of the two hackers performing these stunts appeared on the car’s digital display: Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, wearing their trademark track suits. A nice touch, I thought.

The Jeep’s strange behavior wasn’t entirely unexpected. I’d come to St. Louis to be Miller and Valasek’s digital crash-test dummy, a willing subject on whom they could test the car-hacking research they’d been doing over the past year. The result of their work was a hacking technique—what the security industry calls a zero-day exploit—that can target Jeep Cherokees and give the attacker wireless control, via the Internet, to any of thousands of vehicles. Their code is an automaker’s nightmare: software that lets hackers send commands through the Jeep’s entertainment system to its dashboard functions, steering, brakes, and transmission, all from a laptop that may be across the country.

Where is your God now?!

Immediately my accelerator stopped working. As I frantically pressed the pedal and watched the RPMs climb, the Jeep lost half its speed, then slowed to a crawl. This occurred just as I reached a long overpass, with no shoulder to offer an escape. The experiment had ceased to be fun.

At that point, the interstate began to slope upward, so the Jeep lost more momentum and barely crept forward. Cars lined up behind my bumper before passing me, honking. I could see an 18-wheeler approaching in my rearview mirror. I hoped its driver saw me, too, and could tell I was paralyzed on the highway.

“You’re doomed!” Valasek shouted, but I couldn’t make out his heckling over the blast of the radio, now pumping Kanye West. The semi loomed in the mirror, bearing down on my immobilized Jeep.

There is a move in chess like this, but I forget what it's called.
The car going 50mph faster than you changes lanes just in time to avoid slamming you.
The semi right behind him though, well...

The most disturbing maneuver came when they cut the Jeep’s brakes, leaving me frantically pumping the pedal as the 2-ton SUV slid uncontrollably into a ditch.

It's funnier when the hackers do it at 70mph instead of 10mph!

 

[Vectors]

Death by car hack just got a major validation!
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/



Where is your God now?!




There is a move in chess like this, but I forget what it's called.
The car going 50mph faster than you changes lanes just in time to avoid slamming you.
The semi right behind him though, well...




It's funnier when the hackers do it at 70mph instead of 10mph!

Dick Clarke pointed out to Boeing that their design of the Dreamliner left it susceptible to remote hijacking due to them interfacing the entertainment and the avionic systems.

 

[Hygro]

Prettttttty suspicious.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Only the car in the OP wasn't brake-by-wire.