>> The company added that hacking its vehicles was a "criminal action".
> I don't think that's the case, but I still commend them for doing a recall this quick.
It is illegal under existing laws. Basically, it falls under the same set of laws as cutting someone break line. You are, at a minimum, in the "Reckless endangerment" category.
It doesn't take new laws, the old ones have seen enough people doing stupid things to other people's cars.
It's not illegal to hack your own belongings. It may be illegal if you trespass on someone else's network to do so, or if you manage to provably put the public in danger, but merely discovering a security vulnerability and exploiting it in something you own outright is not illegal. Chrysler's statement is overly broad IMO.
I think the statement is more for the general public.
"if you manage to provably put the public in danger"
Watching the video, they did it on a public highway with other cars. They killed his engine when he was on the highway. He is damn lucky he wasn't rear-ended and killed someone. Yes, that is illegal and definitely endangerment.
The extra risk is slowing or stopping when people don't expect it. Unexpected things cause collisions. There's also extra risk in creating an obstruction, which creates risk for other drivers.
There's no doubt that driving is inherently a terribly risky activity. But I also don't think that pretending that taking your foot off the gas on a highway is a risk-free activity is particularly helpful.
its extra risk because the jeep's engine was turned off by someone accessing the car's computer on a public highway in traffic with the vehicle in the right lane
What's the baseline risk? Did this triple anyone's risk, or increase it by 0.01%?
Then combine that with the recall it spurs. The value of a live highway hack is very high. It got all the media to pay attention and got a commitment to a fix. You're freaked out about one car slowing down in traffic. Imagine many of the 500,000 vulnerable cars simultaneously accelerating wildly all across the nation if this was actually exploited.
What's the risk of doing nothing? Or of wasting years more with ignorable private disclosure?
"You're freaked out about one car slowing down in traffic."
No, I'm pointing out an idiot reporter endangered his fellow citizens to create hype instead of doing the reporting in a safe environment. Your the one who seems to be trying to justify endangering people to report someone else is endangering people.
The demonstration could have been done safely and effectively on a rented race track. It happens all the time when you want to test something around motor vehicles. Instead he went for cheap and sensational.
> I don't think that's the case, but I still commend them for doing a recall this quick.
It is illegal under existing laws. Basically, it falls under the same set of laws as cutting someone break line. You are, at a minimum, in the "Reckless endangerment" category.
It doesn't take new laws, the old ones have seen enough people doing stupid things to other people's cars.