By Jo Nova
Imagine giving an enemy the ability to track your VIPs movements and listen to their conversations in the car? Adversaries could learn national secrets, play mayhem on the markets with insider tips or just figure out who was having an affair with a view to blackmail and extortion. Worse, what if your adversaries could electronically upload software to your vehicles and shut down even 1 car in 100 on the major national highways — bringing the road network to a grinding halt?
Where is James Bond when you need him? This would have been a great script.
Thanks to NetZeroWatch:
China To Crash EV Market and Paralyse Motorists in UK
Michael Curzon, European Conservative
A new report warns of a major impending security risk in handing Beijing the power to immobilise thousands of cars owned by Britons—and many others across Europe. Professor Jim Saker of the Institute of the Motor Industry, quoted in The Times, said “the threat of connected electric vehicles flooding the country could be the most effective Trojan horse that the Chinese establishment has.” There would, he added, be no way to prevent Chinese state-owned manufacturers from including technology in cars set to be exported which could bring them all to a halt.
This comes just months after reports of a Chinese tracking device being found in a UK government vehicle.
Even better, to make the national suicide voluntary and complete, the CCP probably wouldn’t even need to do anything so brazen as paralyzing the car fleet. China has just taken the top spot as global car exporter. Cars shipped grew by, wow, 76% for the year. One quarter of those cars are EV’s and they are €10,000 (£8,600) cheaper than the cars made in Europe, Japan and America.
As long as the West forces EV’s on its own population, and then taxes them to subsidize all the charging stations and extra generation required, the put-upon and suffering customers will choose the cheapest car they can find.
And without cheap electricity from coal or slave labor in the factories, how could the Western car industry ever compete?
The CCP plugged in $100 billion in subsidies to get the EV industry up and running. They “pressured foreign firms into forming joint ventures with Chinese counterparts ” and learnt their trade secrets.
Of course, that’s a big punt for China. If the West decided to let the free market rule instead of forcing EV’s on everyone, then China will have cornered a market in nothing much. President Xi, presumably will be keen for Westerners to stay in the thrall of pagan weather-control via lithium batteries.
The alarming reality of cheap Chinese cars on British roads
The Telegraph
Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said these trials – which revealed “gaping holes” in security – were carried out at the request of sceptical car manufacturers who refused to believe such hacks were possible until they were demonstrated in front of them.
It’s just a software update…
Modern cars are increasingly dependent on “over the air” software updates, which they receive through a mobile phone-style SIM card that is built into the vehicle.
If a malicious actor gained access to these update systems, through servers known as “the backend”, they could beam out software that allows them to spy on vehicles and their driver remotely.
It’s already here:
This is the case for all new cars, wherever they are made in China, Europe or the US. A SIM card allows the car to receive updates, new features and security patches, just like a smartphone. In a crash a car will phone the emergency services. To do this, it needs a microphone and a link to the outside world. Cameras inside make sure you are not nodding off at the wheel.
All of this can be used to spy on you if security is lax, says Ken Munro, a security expert and ethical hacker at Pen Test Partners, a company that tests for security holes.
“We did a bunch of work on aftermarket car alarms. And we discovered that in many of them, you could actually remotely enable the microphones and listen to people in the cars.”
The Telegraph has a long feature on this, read it here.
Chinese Statue Photo by Serg Balak