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Car-Jacking 2016-Style: Can Your Car Be Hacked?
Fact number one: more and more components of modern cars are controlled by electronics and computer systems. Fact number two: cars are one of the most significant items in the Internet Of Things, where things that aren’t computers and mobile phones go online and send info from A to B or receive information. Tons of new cars of the more connected type have the ability to run a diagnostic test, send the info to the maintenance people and send you a report (e.g. Ford’s SYNC Vehicle Health Report). You can also get apps to help you find where you parked your car if you are one of those who have a tendency to get forgetful in car parking buildings. Many cars are so connected that they’re probably the most mobile of mobile devices.
Fact number three: hackers exist. Scary stuff. You’ve got a car with all these electronically controlled safety devices (including steering correction and brake deployment), your car is connected to the internet and there are evil-minded folk out there who like to create a bit of havoc.
Scientific American magazine in February 2016 ran an article that explained that hackers can’t take over your car. However, Norton – the internet security experts who put out some of the best online protection software (thanks, guys; it works on my computers) – warn that some features of cars can and have been hacked. Not that there have been cases of cars being suddenly taken over by Evil Dr Loony-Boffin, whisking the hapless driver and passenger away to a secret underground lab where sinister experiments are conducted (cheesy thriller film, anyone?). However, Norton reports that there have been cases where disgruntled employees have immobilized engines remotely, or where researchers have managed to trigger tyre pressure warning signals or even disable the brakes.
The most high-profile story about car hacking comes from the US, where a pair of cyber security experts hacked a Jeep Cherokee in the name of research, and managed to take out the brakes (and do other stuff) while someone else was driving it. Wired magazine filmed it:
For those of you who drive or are interested in this variety of Jeep Cherokee, this hacking attack was part of a security test and the offending weakness has been fixed with a patch (I haven’t done any coding since the old BASIC days in the 1980s when the home computer came out, so don’t ask me how this works).
The second reason why you shouldn’t panic just yet is that these hackers weren’t malicious but were doing a heavy-duty security test of the sort that MacGyver used to carry out: break into a “secure” system to discover its weaknesses. It also took them quite a long time to do it. Most brainy teenagers out to cause mayhem don’t have quite that level of dedication. The fact that there are inventive, creative and intelligent people trying to hack all these connected cars means that the weaknesses will be fixed. We saw the same thing happen with emails and computer viruses, and we’ve all got antivirus software and spam filters these days. Thanks to these guys, who have what must be one of the more fun jobs in the world, we’ll get cars that are connected and safe.
The third reason why you shouldn’t panic about your car being hacked is that the hackers in the Jeep video had to plug their laptops into the car first. That’s right: the hackers had to have physical access to the car first. If you follow all the usual rules about physical car security and use reliable, reputable mechanics, you should be OK. You should also be careful about what you plug into your car, especially those fleet monitoring devices or similar.
Fourthly, many of the attacks that were demonstrated in the video weren’t life threatening. In another test that wasn’t on the video, including one where the remote hackers took over the cruise control, a lot of the attacks could also be over-ridden by an alert driver. The hackers also said that if a driver has both hands on the wheel the way we were all taught to, the steering hack could be over-ridden. Handbrakes also exist if the brakes are cut remotely.
Fifthly, according to Norton, there isn’t much point in cyberattacks on cars, even for terrorists. It would take a lot of technical work to hack just a few cars, and what would be the point of that when we all know they can wreak a lot more havoc with truck bombs? Having tyre pressure monitoring lights and weird pictures coming up on the dashboard are merely annoying rather than being real threats.
Last but not least, not every car has this level of connectivity, even the newest models. If they’re not connected, they can’t be hacked. Those of you with older vehicles can now look smug. Even if you have a tendency to lose your car in parking buildings.
That New Car Smell
The poet and writer Rudyard Kipling once said that “Smells are surer than sounds or sights to make your heartstrings crack,” and “”The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” (the one who wrote the Jungle Books and tons of poetry that is rather neglected today, possibly because some of it’s too much fun for an English class). He would probably have sympathised with those who find the smell of a brand new car intoxicating.
Just what is that new car smell? Why does it press our buttons so much? And is it possible to bottle it so we can spray it in our old faithful Toyota Corollas so they smell like new machines? If we can, should we?
For a start, some of the pleasure that we get from smelling a new car is partly down to pure primitive psychology and associations. The place in our brain where we process smells is right next-door to the memory department, so the two are pretty closely linked. The first time most of us smelt a new car would either have been when we were buying something brand new or when we were drooling around the car yards, admiring the machines we love. In the first case, the smell of a new car would probably thus be linked with the feelings of excitement, success and the joys of ownership. In the second case, the smell of a new car would be linked with the machines we dreamed of but could never afford. With such strong links between that smell and those strong feelings (aspiration and longing or else success), it’s no wonder that we love new car smell.
There’s a chance that we would love the new car smell even if it was awful, the same way that some people like the smell of tobacco because it reminds them of a beloved grandparent. The relationship between smell and emotion is a very complicated one, like emotions themselves. Scents that might put a smile on one person’s face might break the heart of another and vice versa. If you were abruptly and rudely dumped in the middle of a fragrant rose garden by the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, the scent of roses would probably conjure up the feelings of bitterness for some time to come. Similarly, if you met the love of your life out on a fishing boat that stank of diesel and fish guts, the smell of diesel and fish guts would make your heart sing with the memory.
So what’s the case with new car smell? Is it something that we’d find delicious if we smelled it in isolation from the car itself, rather like roses or cinnamon, or is it a fish-guts-and-diesel thing that we find pleasant because of the associations?
Just what is new car smell made up from? Skipping the complex chemical names, most of what you can smell inside a new car comes from off-gassing from the materials inside the vehicle – the leather, the plastics, the vinyl, the glues, the rubber, the seat material and the paint. In a new car, all the volatile chemicals will still be off-gassing; in an older one, they’ve all been used up. OK, to be fair, some of these notes are likely to be found in actual perfumes: Chanel No. 5 uses a lot of aldehyde notes and heaps of old-school aftershaves use leather notes. So it could be that new car smell is indeed intrinsically nice and it’s not just the associations.
However, there’s a sinister force at work. Back in 2000, research published by Australia’s very own CSIRO (Brown and Cheng 2000 ) found that all those volatile organic compounds that make up new car smell are pretty bad for you. All the gases and compounds ending in –ene, -yl and –ane with random Ns in the middle of things you can’t spell that get blamed for “sick building syndrome” are found in brand new cars… and there you are, sitting inside that new car, breathing in that famous smell with the windows closed. If you feel a little light-headed and intoxicated, it’s not just because you’re excited. You’re not just getting a high from the thrill of purchasing a brand new vehicle – you’re also getting a chemical high like a common or garden glue sniffer, possibly from the same sort of glue. Those headaches you get after driving around for a week or so in the new set of wheels aren’t some sort of buyer’s remorse or a result of worrying about putting a dent in the shiny new paint – it’s the new car smell making you feel a bit woozy and out of sorts.This puts a rather sinister twist on the technique of salespeople that involves getting you to sit in the car and breathe in the new car smell as a way of convincing you to buy a particular vehicle. If the smell is getting you a little bit high, your sales resistance and some of your common sense may dissolve…
So what is to be done? You need to buy a brand new car, so what now? Now, I’m no killjoy. I like the scent of a new car myself, and I also like Chanel No. 5 and all those aldehyde-note perfumes that are probably also bad for you. I’m also aware that some of that research is well over 10 years old and car manufacturers may very well have changed their ways in this department, same as they’ve done better in the fuel efficiency department. Buy that new car if it’s what you’ve planned on doing. Take a sniff of the new car smell and enjoy it. However, after that, open the windows as much as possible to let all those headache-causing glue gases out; in a new convertible, get that top open! After six months, the nasties will have got down to safe levels and you’ll still have a great car!
As for those sprays you can buy to make your beloved old car smell like a new one, they (a) don’t work and (b) are probably best avoided. Grab a bottle of essential oil and make your own customised spray that’s actually good for you.
Preparing Your Teenager For Their Learner Licence Test
A lot of parents look forward to the day when their teenager can finally drive him/herself. However, before you can enjoy the relative freedom of the P-plate days, you have to do through the L-plate stage – and the stage before the L-plates. You may already have a few ideas up your sleeve about whether you’re going to be the one to teach your teenager how do drive, whether you’re going to sign him/her up for professional driving lessons or whether you’re going to go for a combination of the two.
But what about the stage before that? How are you going to help your teenager prepare for that? They certainly do need your help preparing for this, as you’re the expert driver that they see driving on a daily basis (and don’t you just know it!). What’s more, this is usually a time of life for them when the homework from school increases like nothing else (Talk about stressful for them! I wouldn’t want to go back to my teen years).
Here’s a couple of things that will help your teen get ready for that first test.
- Help him/her become familiar with a car and its controls. Although your teenager can’t drive legally on the road, he or she can still crawl up and down the driveway. Getting your teenager to start the car, back it out of the garage, drive it up the driveway and the like is a good way to introduce them gradually to the basics of clutch, brake, gear stick, steering wheel and accelerator. After all, once they’ve got that learner’s permit, you want to make the most of your time on the road. Those of you who have access to farm paddocks and other places that are legally considered to be off the road can give your teens more opportunity to practice before they hit the road. If you don’t have much of a driveway and don’t have access to a nice big field, then letting your teen sit in the driver’s seat and learn where all the controls are and what they are called is a good start. If you want your teen to learn in a manual car – which is a very good idea – let him/her practice doing gear changes in a stationary car with the engine switched off.
- Buy him or her a copy of the road rules. Quiz him or her on it as well as encouraging your teen to do online tests or mobile phone testing apps. If you are brave, get him or her to test your knowledge. You may get caught out!
- Discuss car-related topics. Talk to him or her about what sort of car they would like to have, car shows and the like. Talk about safety issues, driver aids and whether they’re a good idea or not. Read car reviews and blogs (like this one!) and discuss them.
- Teach him or her basic maintenance skills. This is something that isn’t covered in the licencing programme but is still very important for your teens to know. After all, you don’t want your P-plater to get stranded with a flat tyre and no clue as to how to change the tyre. Let them know the basics about what’s under the hood. Get him or her helping you to change the oil, change the air filters, fill up with fuel, etc.
- Limit or ban those computer games that feature driving. I may be alone here, but I have a theory that these programmes, while fun, desensitise teens to the consequences of bad driving. In one of these programmes, bushes, road signs and the like go down like they’re made of polystyrene if your computer car hits them. In reality, a road sign will put a serious dent in the front end and is likely to take out the front windscreen as well. As for cars that crash at 200+ km/h and go end over end a couple of times through the air but still drive away at the end of it with the damage meter going up just a little bit… The reality is that you and the car would be totally unrecognisable and very, very dead. I’ve seen the other half’s driving quality drop and silly risks get taken after an evening of playing driving games (and the other half is a grownup). If you can’t ban these games completely, then at least limit them or discuss what would really happen if you drove like that in the real world.
- Talk about road safety and driving safety when you’re on the road. This is important for building awareness. However, it’s important to balance this with discussions about the fun of driving. If you always talk about the potential hazards non-stop and stress the importance of anticipating danger to a teen who is already a bit on the nervous side, you could end up making him/her paranoid and almost too frightened to get behind the wheel. Driving safely is important but you don’t want to give the impression that every other driver is a potential drunken idiot who is out to Get You. Scared inexperienced drivers make just as many mistakes, if not more mistakes, than overconfident, cocky know-it-alls.
How To Stop Driving Becoming A Pain In The Neck, Butt and Back
Spending too long in the driver’s seat (or, for that matter, the passenger seat) can be hard on your back. One very good friend of mine suffered from mysterious back pain during a time that his job involved very long driving hours… and this “mystery” pain cleared up as quickly as leftovers discovered by seagulls when the driving hours reduced to just a few hours per day. Driving is fun, but do too much of it and it becomes a literal pain in the neck. Or backside. Or back. Or hips…
Yes, car seats are very comfortable, at least in more modern models (we’ll ignore the vinyl-covered horrors of the 1980s and 1970s, classics though they may be). Many have lumbar support and nice, supportive headrests, and allow you to adjust them this way and that. However, if you don’t have all the fancy features in your particular set of wheels or if you don’t take the time to adjust the seat to fit your body, apart from making sure that you can reach the pedals and steering wheel comfortably, you can be putting yourself at risk of back pain.
If you do just a wee bit of driving on a daily basis – a regular commute that adds up to maybe three hours a day maximum, you won’t put yourself at much risk of backache. Go for longer drives of four or five hours plus, especially if you do it regularly, and you can end up with aches and twinges that may get you worrying about early onset arthritis and lumbago.
So what do you do if you have to drive for longer periods but you don’t want it to be a literal pain? After all, if you’re uncomfortable and pain in your lower back is nagging away at you just about constantly, then this will take some of your attention from your driving… to say nothing of reducing your pleasure.
OK, here’s some handy hints:
Sit properly. This is an absolute basic and we ought to do it even on short journeys. The right way to sit is with your feet firmly planted on the floor (at least when they’re not working the pedals) with your knees slightly higher than your hips (now you know why some seats have tilt adjustment). Your back should be pressed against the back of the seat – no slouching or hunching over. If your car seats don’t have lumbar support or if they don’t have enough lumbar support, you can play around with cushions to make sure that your back is properly supported. Pay particular attention to your “lumbar lordosis”, which is doctor-speak for that curve in your lower back just above your bottom.
Make sure that you can reach the steering wheel without much stretching – if it’s too much of a stretch, this will encourage you to hunch over to reach it properly. OK, you don’t want the steering wheel to be prodding you in the tummy or bumping you if you lean forward to adjust the mirror or adjust the air con. But don’t have it so far away that you have to adopt the cartoon zombie position (arms stretched out straight at shoulder height).
Make sure that your shocks and suspension are in good order, and get the tyre pressure right. Bouncing about puts a lot of pressure on your spine (and the spines of your passengers). You can do what you can to avoid potholes and charging at speed bumps full bore, of course.
Keep your back muscles warm. This is why heated seats were invented by Saab and why they’re so popular in most modern cars. Warmth helps stop the muscles cramping and stiffening up, so your back won’t get as sore. Plus the comfort of heated seats also encourages you to sit with your back pressed against the seat where it should be.
Get out and move! Holding any position for a long time is going to put stress on your muscles. It won’t do your heart or your waistline any good, either. This means that you need to go for a little walk every so often when you’re driving. This has the added bonus of freshening you up (and I don’t just mean because you need to head to the loo) and reducing driver fatigue. If you are driving for a holiday, this means that you have an excuse to stop and take photos of the scenery or check out that park or whatever takes your fancy. You could do some of those exercises to prevent lower back pain but these aren’t particularly practical on the forecourt of the petrol station…
Clear out your pockets. Having a big lumpy wallet (lucky you!) in your back pocket makes it hard to sit comfortably. The same goes for cellphones and your house keys. Lumps and hard objects in your trousers (get your mind out of the gutter right now!) encourage you to sit at a less than ideal position. There’s a reason why cars have a multitude of storage compartments around the cabin, so empty out your pockets. Right now, all the women with handbags are feeling a bit smug…
While researching this article, I came across one suggestion from a back specialist that you should only drive passenger cars rather than utes or SUVs. This is somewhat extreme in our opinion but if you have bad back problems, it might be worth considering. However, it’s not really practical if you need something big to tow the trailer or the caravan for miles on end!
Level 2, 9 Help Street