FBI Warns That Connected Cars Can Be Hacked

The FBI and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are voicing their concerns about the potential risk of cars being hacked. 

In an advisory note, they urge the public to be aware of cyber-security threats revolving around connected vehicles. 

From the advisory, "Modern motor vehicles often include new connected vehicle technologies that aim to provide benefits such as added safety features, improved fuel economy, and greater overall convenience. 

Aftermarket devices are also providing consumers with new features to monitor the status of their vehicles.

 However, with this increased connectivity, it is important that consumers and manufacturers maintain awareness of potential cyber security threats.

They are also advising drivers and manufacturers to ensure the vehicle software is up-to-date, and keeping an eye out for recalls.

Your software and your motherboard could be hacked by them... 

Within 6 Years, Most Vehicles Will Allow Over The Air Software Updates 

 By 2022, using a thumb drive or taking your vehicle to the location you bought it for a software update will seem as strange as it would be for a smartphone or laptop today. 

By 2022, there will be 203 million vehicles on the road that can receive software over-the-air (SOTA) upgrades; among those vehicles, at least 22 million will also be able to get firmware upgrades, according to a new report by ABI Research. Today, there are about 253 million cars and trucks on the road, according to IHS Automotive. 

The main reasons automakers are moving quickly to enable OTA upgrades:

 recall costs, autonomous driving and security risks based on software complexities, according to Susan Beardslee, a senior analyst at ABI Research. 

"It is a welcome transformation, as OTA is the only way to accomplish secure management of all of a connected car's software in a seamless, comprehensive, and fully integrated manner," Beardslee said.

US Government Pushed Many Tech Firms To Hand Over

Source Code

 Apple isn't the only company that has been asked to hand over the source code of its operating system.

 In an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations, the U.S. government has made numerous attempts to obtain the source code from other tech companies.

 From the ZDNet report, "The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. 

The Justice Department wanted to draw outrage, painting Apple as the criminal. With these hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time.'"

 

 Apple employees are already discussing what they will do if ordered to help law enforcement authorities. 

Some say they may balk at the work, while others may even quit their high-paying jobs rather than undermine the security of the software they have already created, according to more than a half-dozen current and former Apple employees.

 The employees' concerns also provide insight into a company culture that despite the trappings of Silicon Valley wealth still views the world through the decades-old, anti-establishment prism of its co-founders Steven P. Jobs and Steve Wozniak. 

 The fear of losing a paycheck may not have much of an impact on security engineers whose skills are in high demand. 

Indeed, hiring them could be a badge of honor among other tech companies that share Apple's skepticism of the government's intentions.

"The bigger Government becomes the smaller the citizen becomes."

Gov't Accidentally Publishes Target of Lavabit Probe: It's Snowden

 In the summer of 2013, secure e-mail service Lavabit was ordered by a federal judge to provide real-time e-mail monitoring of one of its users. 

Rather than comply with the order, Levison shut down his entire company.

 He said what the government was seeking would have endangered the privacy of all of his 410,000 users. 

Now, what was widely assumed has been confirmed. 

 In documents posted to the federal PACER database this month, the government accidentally left his e-mail, 'Ed_snowden@lavabit.com,' unredacted for all to see.

'Chilling Effect' of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent Online, Study Says

 Research suggests that widespread awareness of mass surveillance could undermine democracy by making citizens fearful of voicing dissenting opinions in public.

  A paper published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, the flagship peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), found that "the government's online surveillance programs may threaten the disclosure of minority views and contribute to the reinforcement of majority opinion."

 The NSA's "ability to surreptitiously monitor the online activities of U.S. citizens may make online opinion climates especially chilly" and "can contribute to the silencing of minority views that provide the bedrock of democratic discourse," the researcher found.

"The bigger Government becomes the smaller the citizen becomes."

The Law Is Clear: the FBI Cannot Make Apple Rewrite Its OS

From her column at Backchannel, "Barack Obama has a fine legal mind.

 But he may not have been using it when he talked about encryption last week. 

The problem for the president is that when it comes to the specific battle going on right now between Apple and the FBI, the law is clear: 

twenty years ago, Congress passed a statute, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) that does not allow the government to tell manufacturers how to design or configure a phone or software used by that phone -- including security software used by that phone.