First, from 2013 - Michael Hastings:
The lunch never happened. At 4:20 a.m. on Tuesday, June 18, Hastings’s silver Mercedes C250 coupe, speeding south on Highland Avenue, crossed Melrose, jumped the median, hit a palm tree, and exploded. The charred body of the driver was identified by the Los Angeles coroner as John Doe 117 until fingerprints confirmed that the deceased was Michael Hastings.
. . . at the time of his death, Hastings was working on a profile of CIA director John Brennan for Rolling Stone.
Second, more recently - Anne Heche:
Except now we know that Anne Heche, who had vowed to expose an elite Hollywood pedophile ring in the days before her bizarre death, was not high on drugs on the day of the fatal car crash.
According to the results of her autopsy which have been obtained by Page Six, the mainstream media was lying about Heche’s state of mind, attempting to smear and discredit her.
. . . First of all, let’s take a look at the video the played by mainstream outlets on the day of the crash.
The media announced Heche was brain dead, but inconvenient facts started leaking out. First of all, Heche was fighting for her life, attempting to get out of the body bag.
Secondly, Anne Heche was talking to firefighters while she was being rescued. It hardly needs spelling out, but brain dead people don’t talk.
And judging by the way the firefighters were acting, many people don’t believe they were firefighters at all. Pay attention to this video. Anne Heche was covered up completely as if dead. She was carried out by firefighters to one of their vehicles, not by paramedics to an ambulance.
. . . and perhaps many others.
In the case below, it was probably an actual, no-malice glitch -- and no one was hurt or killed.
IDK what we can do to protect ourselves from this sort of thing, short of selling our modern cars and driving pre-computerized junkers, but we should at least keep in mind that remote take-over of vehicles IS something that can be done.
Honda said it has been left baffled by an unbelievable near-miss in Minnesota last month when the in-drive computer of a Minnesota teenager's vehicle took over and accelerated him through streets at speeds of up to 113mph.
Sam Dutcher, 18, said he thought he was 'going to die' during the terrifying episode in West Fargo on September 17, which only ended when heroic deputies let him crash into them.
(more)
Any car that has telematics (SOS button usually near the rear view on the room) and be hacked and taken over.
There is long and short way to explain but the short way is as follows. All control modules in a modern car are all linked via a computer network called CAN. Basically a local network for all the components in your car.
The throttle pedals went throttle by wire (meaning they are not physically attached to anything) decades ago. The brake systems are also going this way but, even on the cars without brake by wire, the ABS system can still lockout the brake pedal if needed. Steering went electrical years ago too and, just like the brakes, even with a mechanical connection it can still over power you.
Where does this lead you ask? Each of these modules puts their data on the CAN bus during operation. All a hacker has to do is hijack one or more inputs and they can command modules to do whatever they want. With the click of a button they can push full throttle, lock out the mechanical brakes and take control of steering. Add push button start to the mix and now you have no way of turning the car off either.
It's downright scary how easy it is manipulate these systems.
Can you pull out the key to "kill it"?
If it has a real key, sure. Problem is most cars for the last 5-8 years are push button start which can be locked out by the hacker.
I'm good then :D
The problem with taking the key right out is that you can no longer steer because the steering lock will be applied.
I can’t stand these new digital shifters pretty much all new cars are including. At least old ones you should be able to shift to neutral and press the parking brake to slow yourself down to a stop. Now they are just buttons that surely can be overridden, including the parking brake.
My Toyota has this.
Was rear ended at high speed a few years back, I was sitting there quietly taking it all in and a voice started talking to me “Are you ok Sir, do you need emergency services?”. It was the SOS thing that kicks in due to an “event”.
I still don’t know how she knew I was a “sir”.
All new models have them as a basic safety “feature”. They definitely need to have a kill switch mandate.