What do you guys think about this report:
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"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."
The scope of the article and the implications are more broad than just explaining one particular issue. They are trying to bring attention of the car manufacturers to a (rather obvious you would think) issue of software security that may lead to very serious incidents in the real life. Loss of life and serious injuries seem like probable consequences.
But I thought that the symptoms they are describing are close to that of the
2010 reports about Toyota's runaway vehicles. Rubber floor mats took the blame at the time, which sounded very lame (pardon the pun). I always thought firmware issues were a more likely culprit.The article is pretty "entertaining" and ends with a warning:
?If the only thing keeping you from crashing your car is that no one is talking about this,? says Miller, ?then you?re not safe anyway.?