The tire pressure monitors built into modern cars have been shown to be insecure by researchers from Rutgers University and the University of South Carolina. The wireless sensors, compulsory in new automobiles in the US since 2008, can be used to track vehicles or feed bad data to the electronic control units (ECU), causing them to malfunction.
The researchers didn’t find a wide-open door so much as the security employed by a 1920s speakeasy: once they learned the secret knock, the unidentified test car’s controls let them in no questions asked. The team sent fake warning messages from 40 meters away, and in another experiment, got the test car to flash a warning that a tire had lost all pressure while beaming the signal from another car as both drove 68 mph.
Yeah it’s not a threat right now, but who knows… :eekdance:
Actually it seems more and more like Toyota’s problems were not electronic after all:
It appears that the Wall Street Journal was correct when it reported that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration had found that the majority of Toyota unintended acceleration claims was due to simple human error. Investigators with NHTSA have reviewed 58 cases of runaway Toyotas and found that in 35 instances, no brake was applied. That means in all likelihood, the driver may have stepped on the throttle instead. In the remainder of the cases, investigators attributed the company’s problem to throttles that were either trapped by floor mats or became stuck mechanically.
What does all of that mean? So far, the NHTSA has found no indication that unintended acceleration is caused by anything other than mechanical issues. Critics and victims of the runaway vehicles had posited that there might be some sort of software flaw that caused the cars to take off. The news vindicates Toyota’s findings on the matter, though NHTSA is quick to point out that the issue is still under investigation and that this is only a preliminary report.
If the CEO of Toyota had of come out and simply stated: “look, this is all because you people don’t know how to drive… it’s got nothing to do with our cars”
I would trade in my Kia for a Toyota later that day.,
ive worked for toyota and have yet to hear of any problems going through our dealership (largest in our area), imo its all the news and government trying to make gm come out on top… which they wont