Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Burnette. We meet again, Elizabeth Dunton. How you doing good?
Speaker 2: So good to see you.
Speaker 3: Interns told me you're going to be early, and I
Speaker 3: was like, well, I'm going to be late.
Speaker 2: You're looking sharp today in your little stress mariner's shirt.
Speaker 3: I'm like a French mariner over here.
Speaker 2: I love it. It's cute. I'm gonna get you a
Speaker 2: can of sardine. Make your day quick question. Sure you
Speaker 2: know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: Hearkening back to when I was telling you about the
Speaker 3: Buddhist monks, I mentioned about Stevie Wonder going around at
Speaker 3: the Shaolin temple and it's like, oh, he must have
Speaker 3: been enjoying listening to the temple. If you ever heard
Speaker 3: the theory that Stevie Wonder actually can see, I have right,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of celebrities have talked about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I have one here that I think is just
Speaker 3: absolutely not proof positive.
Speaker 2: But there's some interesting video proof.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. Yeah. So Elton John has this evidence that
Speaker 3: Stevie Wonder may be able to see. That I thought
Speaker 3: was very convincing because the two of them happened to
Speaker 3: be Colorado at the same time, and they, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of bumped into each other. That's not the evidence
Speaker 3: they were Basically they did a snowmobile tour. But I'll
Speaker 3: let out and John tell the story. Quote musicians passing
Speaker 3: through Denver or Boulder would drop by to visit. Stevie
Speaker 3: Wonder turned up one day and took out a snowmobile,
Speaker 3: insisting on driving it himself. Now, to preempt your question, no,
Speaker 3: I have no idea how Stevie Wonder successfully piloted a
Speaker 3: snowmobile through the rocky mountains of Colorado without killing himself
Speaker 3: or indeed anyone else in the process. But he did.
Speaker 2: And it's not like it's a Stevie's house, No, he just.
Speaker 3: Like he doesn't know this track. He is not like, oh,
Speaker 3: I've got this worked out. He took. Yeah, he went
Speaker 3: out there and drove a snowmobile. Like, I don't think
Speaker 3: I could do that that well and not run the
Speaker 3: risk of bumping into something apparently flawless Stevie Rascal. So
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, is there's an interesting one can.
Speaker 2: Be like you can be like technically blind.
Speaker 3: Right, you know, I guess varying degrees of Yeah, there's.
Speaker 2: Different levels of blind, so it might not be completely
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so much like UFOs and UAPs. I'm keeping an
Speaker 3: open mind about Stevie wonder whether or not.
Speaker 2: Wow, there you go, very ridiculous, right, that is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: John always got the.
Speaker 2: Tea, always always. Do you want to know what else
Speaker 2: is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 2: Hacking a car? Bro This is Ridiculous Crime, A podcast
Speaker 2: about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons It's always
Speaker 2: ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I know you done heard that.
Speaker 2: I done heard it so many times. Hi, Elizabeth, Hey,
Speaker 2: my name is Werner Brandis my voice? Is my passport?
Speaker 2: Verify me?
Speaker 3: Excuse me?
Speaker 2: Do you know what that's from?
Speaker 3: No, that's right, Zaren.
Speaker 2: You're correct. It's one of my all time favorite movies. Sneakers.
Speaker 2: Oh Hi, my name is Werner Brandis my voice? Is
Speaker 2: my passport? Verify me?
Speaker 3: Is it like a security check?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So if you haven't seen have you seen Sneakers?
Speaker 3: Yeah? But way back in the day, watch it again.
Speaker 2: Because I love it so much. Yeah, it's like a
Speaker 2: voice cod werner brandeis He's like a He's a tech guy,
Speaker 2: uh an executive at this tech company, and so it's
Speaker 2: a voice recognition, and so they needed to make a
Speaker 2: recording of his voice to sneak in without him the
Speaker 2: protagonists in this film, and anyway, they so they record him,
Speaker 2: but they get like a honey trap. This woman has
Speaker 2: to go and like get him to say these words
Speaker 2: so they can piece it together on a blind date.
Speaker 2: And so she's like, oh, you know what word, I love?
Speaker 2: Passport And he's like, passport. So when it gets played back,
Speaker 2: my voice is my passport. Anyway, I love that movie.
Speaker 2: It's the story of some former and like side gig
Speaker 2: hackers who do what's called penetration testing for tech security
Speaker 2: at companies. White hat hackers. They use their powers for good,
Speaker 2: although I believe they'd be gray hat hackers in some sense.
Speaker 3: What's the distinction there?
Speaker 2: A gray hat hacker is someone who engages in hacking
Speaker 2: activities without permission, but their intentions are not always malicious,
Speaker 2: and they may include reporting vulnerabilities you know, that they
Speaker 2: find in these targeted organizations or even like to the public.
Speaker 3: So if they break into to the Department of Defense
Speaker 3: and then leave a note I found exactly and I
Speaker 3: can tell you how I did.
Speaker 2: Precisely, and they can exploit vulnerabilities for like personal gain
Speaker 2: or demonstrate a point, you know, either way. In Sneakers,
Speaker 2: the team which is led by Robert Redford, they go
Speaker 2: up against Redford's old altruist college hacking buddy turned power
Speaker 2: hungry tech villain, and there's some great hack in along
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 3: They hack it up, side it up. Oh, he's so good.
Speaker 2: In that, Yeah, dan Ackroyd, that's right, hacking, hacking, so
Speaker 2: much hacking, River Phoenix Hacking. I was thinking about that movie,
Speaker 2: as I do sometimes when, and it got me thinking
Speaker 2: about white hat hackers, those who used to hack illegally
Speaker 2: for profit and or power, and then they go straight
Speaker 2: and they help the authorities bust back the Yeah. I
Speaker 2: like that idea. One of the most annoying characters on television,
Speaker 2: Penelope on Criminal Minds, was a bad hacker. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then she was recruited by the FBI to hack the
Speaker 2: world in pursuit of horrible violent criminals. And then they
Speaker 2: also needed her to like teeter around the office in
Speaker 2: clown costumes, Yeah, spouting out like stale slang while holding
Speaker 2: something from the Archie McFee cap her. Oh I can't.
Speaker 2: Like she's just running around with a rubber chicken pen
Speaker 2: with a feather puff at the end.
Speaker 3: What a rubber chicken?
Speaker 2: Doesn't that sound like something she'd hash.
Speaker 3: That's some real clan behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. Anyway, I was poking around with the hackers,
Speaker 2: basically hacking my way through Google's lousy search model, and
Speaker 2: I found something. I caught a case there. I caught
Speaker 2: a couple of cases. I think you're gonna like them. Please,
Speaker 2: I should warn you that, just like the last time
Speaker 2: I told you about hacking.
Speaker 3: Crime, you got hacked.
Speaker 2: No, I'm going to use a lot of technical language.
Speaker 2: Much of it is going to go over your pretty
Speaker 2: little head. Probably don't be intimidated, like some of us
Speaker 2: are just more tech savvy and smarter.
Speaker 3: No, it's very to true.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to use terms like hacking and mainframe
Speaker 2: and motherboard.
Speaker 3: Are these terms like DJ's used like a motherboard? I'm
Speaker 3: on my motherboard?
Speaker 2: The ones and two, database and network? Have you heard
Speaker 2: those before?
Speaker 3: No? None of the all new to me keyboard keyboard?
Speaker 3: Oh like oh yeah, like with the with the piano
Speaker 3: correct correct USB drive?
Speaker 2: Nope, Like I said, I don't want you to be intimidated.
Speaker 2: The truth is that I has but a tenuous grasp
Speaker 2: on all of those concepts and the items myself. So
Speaker 2: we're on this digital journey together.
Speaker 3: You do know, I have a bunch of friends who
Speaker 3: are like hardcore, and then they talk to me about
Speaker 3: stuff and I'm like, I use yellow legal pads. I
Speaker 3: don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just like, you know, I'm like, why isn't
Speaker 2: everything opening? Oh, I'm not connected to the internet. Cars,
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about the Pixar movies there and back up,
Speaker 2: I was like, you're going to I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: things we drive down the street. Cars are full of
Speaker 2: micro chips totally. And wasn't that part of the supply
Speaker 2: chain issue during the early days of COVID, Remember there
Speaker 2: was like the chip shortage for new cars and that's
Speaker 2: like the cost of new cars.
Speaker 3: And then cars they have all the screens.
Speaker 2: Now they got like a forty inch television screen smack
Speaker 2: in the middle of the dash.
Speaker 3: Video games.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't text and drive. That's good, but you
Speaker 2: can have a small TV like in your lap drive.
Speaker 3: You're making.
Speaker 2: In some cars that'll remain nameless. It's on those screens.
Speaker 2: We have to do stuff like adjust the AC or
Speaker 2: like put on the turn signal.
Speaker 3: I've heard about this, Yes, that's the wild one.
Speaker 5: To screen.
Speaker 2: You have to tell the car not to run over kids.
Speaker 2: Run over fewer kids, you know, like we don't. We
Speaker 2: don't have buttons anymore. I love buttons there, I like.
Speaker 3: I even like knobs.
Speaker 2: The best car I ever owned was in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine Ford Bronco. Yes, you're not a chip in sight.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: You could fix it with like a ball, peen hammer,
Speaker 2: a butter knife and some electrical tape. Could It was perfect.
Speaker 2: So now now I have this Subaru, right, I love it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I've heard you talk about.
Speaker 2: It has all sorts of not just chips and electronics,
Speaker 2: but like online stuff. Oh really, I can lock and
Speaker 2: unlock it with an app.
Speaker 3: Do you use any of this? You know?
Speaker 2: If I if I am already gone to bed and
Speaker 2: I can't remember if I lock the car. Sometimes I just.
Speaker 3: Check lock it.
Speaker 2: I could start it remotely if I wanted from an app.
Speaker 2: You can look on the app and see where it is.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh it's in my driveway still, But like
Speaker 2: if someone stole it, I can see where it was
Speaker 2: and turn off the engine on them.
Speaker 3: That's kind of fine like that, and then did would
Speaker 3: they crash the car if you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, what do I care? I'm not in it?
Speaker 3: Curious kind of like a good idea until you realize
Speaker 3: what you've readen No.
Speaker 2: I think it just boo powers down, no help, Okay,
Speaker 2: I stole the wrong flashing lights come on and let's drive.
Speaker 3: Other drivers know exactly.
Speaker 2: It texts me when there's an.
Speaker 3: Issue, used like a snarky tone.
Speaker 2: I ran out of wiper fluid, and it kept reaching
Speaker 2: out to me via text like a democratic fundraiser, totally
Speaker 2: to let me know, like, hey, don't forget about me.
Speaker 3: But is it like the duo lingo. It's kind of snarky,
Speaker 3: like have you forgotten that?
Speaker 2: It's very sincere and I just text back, wow, needy,
Speaker 2: just keep going keyless entry peep peep. There was a
Speaker 2: time recently here in Oakland where ladies were getting carjacked,
Speaker 2: like up and down this very busy street near me,
Speaker 2: and it seems to have calmed down, but it was
Speaker 2: happening almost regularly for a while, like summer carjackings. Others
Speaker 2: like guys would just run up, break the passenger window
Speaker 2: and steal a purse on the seat.
Speaker 3: Us like a spark plug break the window.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so for the carjacking. That's why I keep
Speaker 2: my keys in my pocket when I'm driving instead of
Speaker 2: like in my bag or like the cup holder, because
Speaker 2: if I have my keys on me and they forced
Speaker 2: me out, they aren't going to get very far because
Speaker 2: you has to be close to the car to run, Sarah,
Speaker 2: and you have to stay on the ball, keep your
Speaker 2: head on a swivel. I don't think Subaru foresters are
Speaker 2: like the hot Cardiff steal, but you never know.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 2: And that's another peril of the keiless entry fob is
Speaker 2: that people can buy devices that clone keys to use.
Speaker 3: For stealing the RFD.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they walk by houses at night with a thing
Speaker 2: and they can, you know, the hackens and they pick
Speaker 2: up a signal from the keyfob and then they can
Speaker 2: use that to start the car out.
Speaker 3: They're buddy holding up like a wire and they're like
Speaker 3: trying to get I would have thought it was a.
Speaker 2: Total urban legend, but I've seen home like break camera
Speaker 2: stuff of it, and it happened not a couple of times,
Speaker 2: not too far from me. So you know what I do.
Speaker 2: I put my keys in a Faraday box by the door.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I probably overreacting, but whatever, it's a cute box.
Speaker 3: I'm anyway, Yes, plants on it. You can override a
Speaker 3: garden seed box.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, it's very it's tasteful. It's brown and leathery.
Speaker 2: There anyway. You can override the key with sentry. Other ways.
Speaker 2: One involves a USB stick how so, but not in
Speaker 2: the way you think, Zaren, I'm thinking nothing. It's physical hacking.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've heard of the Kia challenge.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, okay, yes, this was a hacking.
Speaker 2: I know, I totally did. It's a viral trend on TikTok.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two is when it started. So people, okay, teens,
Speaker 2: They learned how to steal certain Kia.
Speaker 5: And Hyundai vehicle using only a.
Speaker 2: USB cable and it started as this form of car theft,
Speaker 2: but it quickly became a social media challenge, and like
Speaker 2: vehicle thefts just surged across the US.
Speaker 3: They just joy ride these cars, they don't write.
Speaker 2: So they targeted Kias and Hyundais made between twenty ten
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: So that's a.
Speaker 2: Pretty broad stretch. That's because they had traditional metal keys
Speaker 2: not pushed to start, and the cars also didn't have immobilizers,
Speaker 2: so those are like basic anti theft devices that keep
Speaker 2: the engine from starting without the correct key. And apparently
Speaker 2: the car alarm wouldn't go off if you broke the
Speaker 2: back window.
Speaker 3: Oh okay to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what all that means is that it was possible
Speaker 2: to get into the car without the alarm going off,
Speaker 2: remove the steering column cover, use a USB cable or
Speaker 2: anything shaped like it to turn the ignition switch, and
Speaker 2: then start the car and drive away.
Speaker 3: Oh you didn't have to like drop it down and
Speaker 3: pull the wires out.
Speaker 2: Oh no key. No hacking tools required. A group calling
Speaker 2: themselves the Kia Boys posted videos anytime you put boys
Speaker 2: in it, it's just you just took the wind out
Speaker 2: of yourself. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Kia Boys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that is, but like proud Boys, No,
Speaker 2: that's scary. They posted videos on TikTok and YouTube showing
Speaker 2: how to steal the cars, like tutorials youtubes like keep
Speaker 2: it Up Yeah Kia Boys tutorials. Other people copied them.
Speaker 2: They turned it into this challenge. Some filmed themselves stealing
Speaker 2: the cars and joy writing, and then they posted the
Speaker 2: videos online.
Speaker 3: Not only did they take the evidence that they made
Speaker 3: it publicly avail.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're talking about like, oh, don't write down your
Speaker 2: plans for these guys are like watch it in four.
Speaker 3: Kas and they were in like the shasty mass you
Speaker 3: can't really see who they are.
Speaker 2: Probably, so there was this huge spike in the thefts,
Speaker 2: like I said, Milwaukee, La, Saint Louis Mania, all of them,
Speaker 2: like some of these places that the car thefts increased
Speaker 2: by like more than one hundred percent, and like I said,
Speaker 2: big with the teens, a lot of the thieves were miners.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement and community leaders went into like overdrive trying
Speaker 2: to respond to this. My neighbor a couple of doors up,
Speaker 2: had her Kia stolen three times, what yeah, three times,
Speaker 2: so the cops would recover it in like an industrial
Speaker 2: area uptown and she'd get the ignition repaired to how
Speaker 2: it was before and then we could stolen again.
Speaker 3: So they weren't really wrecking the car enjoy right now.
Speaker 2: No, They're just scooted it around running and got trashed.
Speaker 2: But for the most part they were just like pushing
Speaker 2: it to Yeah, so there was a fix that the
Speaker 2: dealership could do, but there were so many that the
Speaker 2: parts were on back order for ages. Oh wow, So
Speaker 2: then she got a club. But then one night some
Speaker 2: ding dong broke into the car and tried to break
Speaker 2: the club off with a rock. What. Yeah, he wasn't successful,
Speaker 2: but he did get away. A cop came told him
Speaker 2: to freeze, drew his weapon. Yeah, and the guy hopped
Speaker 2: into another car and drove away around the cop.
Speaker 3: What was the cop doing standing there.
Speaker 2: With his weapon on it?
Speaker 3: Like, why didn't pull a weapon fingers?
Speaker 2: I think that the guy realized that the cop was
Speaker 2: he's flying solo. He didn't have a partner with them.
Speaker 2: The CoP's not going to open fire at two in
Speaker 2: the morning with the possibility of hitting the houses behind
Speaker 2: her in the air. I don't know. I watched the
Speaker 2: whole thing from my front window and it was pretty
Speaker 2: That was That's why I was telling you this part.
Speaker 2: It was a ridiculous crime. It was one of the
Speaker 2: most ridiculous things I've ever seen. And yeah, he just
Speaker 2: swerved around and the cop put his hands down and
Speaker 2: was just like the physical representation of dejections, Like he
Speaker 2: just looked like now, he's got to go tell all
Speaker 2: his pals. Yeah, so wow. There were class action lawsuits
Speaker 2: filed against Hyundai and Kia. In twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 2: carmakers offered free software updates to add anti theft features
Speaker 2: like the immobilizer a longer alarm sound. They also gave
Speaker 2: out steering wheel locks through police departments, so I guess
Speaker 2: you could go to the cops and be like, I
Speaker 2: need to club and they eventually settled the lawsuits for
Speaker 2: around two hundred million dollars. Still going on though earlier
Speaker 2: this year. In February of twenty twenty five, members of
Speaker 2: Texas's Laredo Police Department Auto Theft Task Force. They detained
Speaker 2: four boys ranging in age from thirteen to fifteen. There
Speaker 2: was like the string of thefts. Two Kias and three
Speaker 2: Hundays were actually stolen, but there were eleven other cases
Speaker 2: where these fools tried to steal the cars and weren't successful.
Speaker 2: They didn't watch the video all.
Speaker 3: The way through their junior high kids.
Speaker 2: Most of the cars that they hit were already unlocked,
Speaker 2: which like, come on, I don't want a victim blame.
Speaker 2: But they had the steering columns broken, the ignition switch broken, off.
Speaker 2: All four of these boys were involved in all sixteen
Speaker 2: of the cases, both the five successful in the eleven.
Speaker 2: So I mean they caught counts like criminal attempt so
Speaker 2: that's a misdemeanor, but like engaging in organized criminal activity
Speaker 2: that's a felony left the state felonies, so they get
Speaker 2: you know, all of these adam Yeah.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: Criminal conspiracy cases like this can be found all over
Speaker 2: the country, plus Australia and Canada, even the cool places
Speaker 2: like that. The Canada ones are interesting because Canadian law
Speaker 2: requires immobilizers in all new vehicles sold in Canada since
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, so that means that the ones
Speaker 2: that were targeted were imported from the US.
Speaker 3: How did they do I guess they just recognized.
Speaker 2: Listen, let's pause for some ads. Brace yourself for savings.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to boost some more rides,
Speaker 2: but this time was software, not hardware. Saren. I want
Speaker 2: to introduce you to two dudes, two hack attackers, two
Speaker 2: gray hat hackers who technically broke the law in an
Speaker 2: effort to work for the greater good. So the first
Speaker 2: guy is Charles Alfred Miller, Charlie Miller.
Speaker 3: He got a handle a hacker handle, No, Charlie.
Speaker 2: He's an American. He got a bachelor's in mass magna
Speaker 2: cum loud from Northeast Misery State just now Truman State University.
Speaker 2: Got a PhD in math from Notre Dame. He's basically
Speaker 2: and that was in two thousand and he got his PhD.
Speaker 2: He was like early on the learned to code train
Speaker 2: it seems like it. Yeah, So he started his professional
Speaker 2: career at the NSA and he worked as a cryptographer
Speaker 2: slash codebreaker there for five years.
Speaker 3: That's got to be fun and challenging.
Speaker 2: I guess, well, sometimes when I do my cryptogram puzzles,
Speaker 2: I wonder if the NSA is watching me through the
Speaker 2: camera on my iPhone, and then I wonder if they'll
Speaker 2: see how good I am at these puzzles. And then
Speaker 2: my phone will ring. It'll be them asking me to
Speaker 2: join the NSA team to be a hacker.
Speaker 3: We put out the puzzles and we look for some
Speaker 3: of the best.
Speaker 2: We'll tell me about insurance and benefits and is the
Speaker 2: position remote, and then they'll hang up on me because
Speaker 2: they're looking for true patriots who aren't focused on their
Speaker 2: own comfort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: I wonder about this sometimes, I.
Speaker 3: Bet you do.
Speaker 2: I do so.
Speaker 3: Do you do these, by the way, on your phone? No?
Speaker 2: I do them on paper. I can't have the government
Speaker 2: seeing how good I am at cryptograms.
Speaker 3: They would draft you in automatically.
Speaker 2: I need my privacy. When he was in the NSA,
Speaker 2: Miller conducted offensive computer security research. Offensive like on the offense,
Speaker 2: not like oh god, gross, yeah, but his specific operations confidential,
Speaker 2: of course, from my eyes only. He left the NSA
Speaker 2: and then he served as a lead analyst at Independent
Speaker 2: Security Evaluators.
Speaker 3: Love those times, those companies and names like that, You're like, okay,
Speaker 3: what yeah?
Speaker 2: And then he later he worked for like he worked
Speaker 2: for Twitter for while contributing to the information security team.
Speaker 3: Like for like the NSA. Background. Who knows he's like
Speaker 3: my former age.
Speaker 2: Listen to this. He's a four time winner of the
Speaker 2: pone to Own security competition. It's p wn numeral two.
Speaker 6: O w N.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I had to do?
Speaker 5: You know what I had to do?
Speaker 2: I went on Google. I hacked in to the Google
Speaker 2: mainframe and I typed in, how do you pronounce p wn?
Speaker 2: I was like, I want to say it right.
Speaker 3: I appreciate your.
Speaker 2: Thorough phone to own. Okay, that's known as hacking super Bowl.
Speaker 2: So for that, he hacked a MacBook Air in under
Speaker 2: two minutes. In two thousand and eight, he was the
Speaker 2: first to remotely exploit an iPhone and that's like break
Speaker 2: in hacking style, not like exploit it, like publish pictures
Speaker 2: of it that should be published via malicious SMS message
Speaker 2: in two thousand and.
Speaker 3: Seven, so he sent a text message to the phone
Speaker 3: and then gave him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was the first to hack an Android device
Speaker 2: on its launch day, and he exped He exploited the
Speaker 2: vulnerabilities there via web kit.
Speaker 5: What that is?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that they use often things like oh,
Speaker 3: we'll use your calendar or like this phone is like
Speaker 3: you don't think about right.
Speaker 2: That's and that's basically what he does. So he has
Speaker 2: published the iOS Hackers Handbook, the Mac Hackers Handbook, Fuzzing
Speaker 2: for Software Security Testing and Quality Assurance. Like basically is there.
Speaker 2: This guy's a real pan.
Speaker 3: He wrote the books on these things.
Speaker 2: He literally wrote the books. Foreign Policy described him as
Speaker 2: quote one of the most technically proficient hackers on Earth.
Speaker 3: Foreign Policy given him.
Speaker 5: The Star Buddy.
Speaker 2: Okay, so then we have Chris.
Speaker 3: Thallasek Okay, so not like the pile.
Speaker 2: It's Vallisek. That's another one.
Speaker 5: He was born in eighty.
Speaker 2: Two in Pennsylvania. He got a BS in computer science
Speaker 2: from University of Pittsburgh coding.
Speaker 3: So another early com era guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He built his reputation through research into Microsoft Windows.
Speaker 2: Heap exploitation.
Speaker 3: Sure sounds such a simple term.
Speaker 2: And I know you know what I'm talking about Windows.
Speaker 2: I got a window in my room. Heap exploitation. Hap.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: Think of a heap as a chunk of memory your
Speaker 2: computer uses to keep track of things a program creates
Speaker 2: while it's running. Okay, Like when a program goes like,
Speaker 2: hey man, I need more memory to store this new
Speaker 2: the heap. The heap gives it space. The heap is
Speaker 2: not alive. The heap cannot hurt you. The heap absorbs.
Speaker 2: The heap enjoys a good cheese steak. The heap vacations
Speaker 2: in Daytona beach. All right. So, heap exploitation is when
Speaker 2: a hacker takes advantage of mistakes in how memory is
Speaker 2: managed in it. So they do that in order to
Speaker 2: corrupt data, crash program take control of a computer. Do
Speaker 2: you understand what I just said?
Speaker 3: Some of it, like taking control of a computer.
Speaker 2: Man, Do I understand what I just said? Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I had a friend who used to you be on
Speaker 3: your computer, and he would get on your computer from
Speaker 3: his computer like at his house, start moving the cursor around. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like, I hate this, I hate all of this.
Speaker 2: I guys do that and it's like, what do I
Speaker 2: have open right now?
Speaker 3: Exactly? And he was like, oh, I got in through
Speaker 3: this exploit. And I'm like, I swear to God, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna come over to your house and beat you up.
Speaker 2: They're like, you're really good at spider solitary.
Speaker 3: Can you hack my fists? How about that?
Speaker 2: So Valasek he became an expert in both the exploitation
Speaker 2: of heaps and the protection of heaps. And remember, the
Speaker 2: heap cannot hurt you.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to tear It.
Speaker 2: Can hear your thoughts, and it knows your darkest intentions,
Speaker 2: but it cannot hurt you.
Speaker 3: Saren, Okay, I have to trust the heap.
Speaker 2: So this guy, he had a two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: Black Hat presentation titled Practical Windows XP two thousand and
Speaker 2: three Heap Exploitation, and then he did a paper in
Speaker 2: twenty ten on Windows low fragmentation heap, good stuff. I
Speaker 2: find myself going back to my well worn copies and
Speaker 2: just like reading them over and over.
Speaker 3: There low frag heap. I love that.
Speaker 2: Each time I read them, I discover something new.
Speaker 3: I bet you do, a little, Colonel, you'd overlooked before.
Speaker 6: Huh.
Speaker 2: Basically, Vallisek is like a super hacker.
Speaker 3: He sounds like sound chair right.
Speaker 2: He shared Summer Con.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: This is one of the US's longest running hacker conferences,
Speaker 2: and he's been their chairman Emeritis since two thousand and three.
Speaker 3: Do you think they have good music at the Summer Con? Oh?
Speaker 2: You know it like hot jams. They hack into all
Speaker 2: the music mainframes and the motherboard, Sarah. When you look
Speaker 2: online for videos about him so you can get a
Speaker 2: sense of how to pronounce his name, you'll find yourself
Speaker 2: waist deep in Ted talks, like this guy is like
Speaker 2: sixty percent Ted talk. His body is six and in
Speaker 2: all the videos he doesn't introduce himself, I imagine because
Speaker 2: someone has already done it before.
Speaker 3: The recording starts.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: So I watched a lot of clips of him walking
Speaker 2: onto a stage like polite applause and one of those
Speaker 2: nude colored mics attached to his face, like lifts up
Speaker 2: a clicker to introduce the first slide of a PowerPoint.
Speaker 3: And you're hoping he says his name, and he doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yep, And I'm gonna tell you I noped out of
Speaker 2: those so fast. I just can't. I love myself too
Speaker 2: much to do that to myself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't pone yourself like that.
Speaker 2: I will give George Santos sixty bucks to entertain listeners,
Speaker 2: but I won't subject myself to ted talks, especially when
Speaker 2: they're not even six minutes, especially when they're about computers.
Speaker 2: So Valasek, He's on video a lot. He's a recognized
Speaker 2: speaker at all these INFOSEC conferences, Black at USA, def Con,
Speaker 2: def Comedy.
Speaker 3: Jam, I'm just about ask Warp Tour.
Speaker 2: He's also widely cited in media coverage for like all
Speaker 2: these pioneering contributions that he has to automotive cybersecurity research.
Speaker 2: Here's a quote. Quote please, when I secure cars, now,
Speaker 2: the first thing I look at is things that communicate
Speaker 2: with the outside world.
Speaker 3: So he said, I just buy old cars so people
Speaker 3: can't do any of this stuff exactly. Pretty soon, I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna be riding around on a penny farthing wearing clothing.
Speaker 2: So like cars, you say, Chris and Charlie they pioneered
Speaker 2: research together into vehicle cybersecurity. So they first demonstrated that
Speaker 2: they got physical access to both a Ford Escape and
Speaker 2: at Toyota Prius and were able to control their systems.
Speaker 2: So like, once they got in physically, they could get
Speaker 2: in through the can bus c an bus, which is
Speaker 2: the controller area network bus. Sure, but not like a
Speaker 2: real bus, like wheels on the bus go round and round.
Speaker 3: Take the thing that like routes traffic for the computer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an internal communication network that lets all the
Speaker 2: systems talk to each other. Do you have any idea
Speaker 2: how long it took me to like condense it down
Speaker 2: into that sentence, because I would start reading things like
Speaker 2: I think I'm having a stroke.
Speaker 3: Look on face gives me a hint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can bus, which then I'm just like, now I
Speaker 2: sound crazy.
Speaker 3: Can bus, the bus, cannabus, canna bus.
Speaker 2: By twenty fifteen automakers, they're just like putting more and
Speaker 2: more stuff with internet connectivity and like what they call
Speaker 2: infotainment systems. Oh yes, into the car. Yeah, they want
Speaker 2: to improve the user convenience, but then it also just
Speaker 2: opens it up to attack.
Speaker 3: Plenty of exploits, so many.
Speaker 2: Weak spots for the hackers and all the hackens.
Speaker 3: It's like a smog was just Swiss cheese belly. It's
Speaker 3: just all these spots. You just one spot. Now he's
Speaker 3: got tough.
Speaker 2: All the Pokey's Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, it was one of
Speaker 2: a bunch of manufacturers integrating you Connect, which was a
Speaker 2: proprietary infotainment system into the cars. It had like navigation,
Speaker 2: a Wi Fi hotspot, remote start, voice command capabilities. I
Speaker 2: think that's basically what I got down.
Speaker 3: That's what sounds like.
Speaker 2: Some models also had Sprint cellular connectivity that would allow
Speaker 2: remote access and updates.
Speaker 3: So you like play from your phone whatever your yeah
Speaker 3: to actually connected with the OX.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Super futuristic and great, but also making the car
Speaker 2: super vulnerable. It's not properly secured totally. So Miller and
Speaker 2: vallisec right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I had a quick question, do they make essentially like
Speaker 3: a Faraday skin for a car? They got into that level.
Speaker 2: That's a really good idea. Guy's got a lead line carduse,
Speaker 2: you know, like when they do the ad wraps on
Speaker 2: the car. But it's just like with like a with
Speaker 2: a guy making a mean face, like don't you dare
Speaker 2: waving his face, buddy.
Speaker 3: The graph the crime dog on the hood of your car.
Speaker 2: So our guys. They made it their goal to find
Speaker 2: a remote attack vector that wouldn't require physical access to
Speaker 2: the vehicle like they need to before. So over the
Speaker 2: course of twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen, they set the
Speaker 2: sites on Fiat Chrysler's U Connect system, particularly the twenty
Speaker 2: fourteen Jeep Cherokee. So they figured, like, okay, we can
Speaker 2: get into you connect through that Sprint cellular connection. So
Speaker 2: they reverse engineered the firmware, discovered open ports on the
Speaker 2: vehicle's Internet facing IP address, and found a way to
Speaker 2: rewrite firmware on the infotainment chip like sarahen, I sound
Speaker 2: like I work for geek Squad.
Speaker 3: I know you're over here. I'm like, can you fix
Speaker 3: my laptop?
Speaker 2: Right? And like totally, I just step on it. Are done.
Speaker 2: Using a showdowan, which is a search engine for Internet
Speaker 2: connected devices, Sure whatever, buddy, they identified thousands of vehicles
Speaker 2: that could be exposed through their cellular modems and they
Speaker 2: found this chain of exploits they I mean, they could
Speaker 2: get into all these crazy things critical vehicle systems, and
Speaker 2: they were eventually able to bridge the gap between the
Speaker 2: infotainment system and the.
Speaker 3: Can bus boom.
Speaker 2: They got in, like I want in on that can.
Speaker 2: This means that once they were inside, they can send
Speaker 2: commands to like key vehicle functions like the gas, pedal,
Speaker 2: air conditioning, and radio. They could put fake images on
Speaker 2: a dashboard. They can control the windshield wipers, they could disable.
Speaker 3: The brakes, disable the brakes.
Speaker 2: The steering, misnipulate steering. And they set out to do
Speaker 2: a very dangerous and most likely illegal demonstration of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would imagine.
Speaker 2: Zerin close your eyes. I want you to picture it.
Speaker 2: It's July of twenty fifteen. You are sitting in a
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen jeep Cherokee driving down the highway in Saint Louis.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 2: You are cruising along. It's seventy miles an hour. Then
Speaker 2: suddenly the air conditioner roars to life, blasting the car
Speaker 2: with arctic air. Haven't touched a thing. Immediately after that,
Speaker 2: the radio comes on. What had been a silent ride
Speaker 2: is now one with booming hip hop at top volume.
Speaker 2: The speakers in the back rumble. You turn the volume
Speaker 2: knob to silence the stereo system, but nothing happens. The
Speaker 2: song is still blaring the knob. She needs nothing. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: the windshield wipers come on. You didn't touch those either.
Speaker 2: Wiper fluid sprays.
Speaker 5: The windshield while you speed down the highway. You can't
Speaker 5: get them to stop.
Speaker 2: Just then, an image appears on the car's digital display.
Speaker 2: It's a photo of two guys in matching tracksuits. You
Speaker 2: take a deep breath and try to stay calm. The
Speaker 2: radio cuts out. That's relief, but then so does the accelerator.
Speaker 2: The transmission is dead. You pump on the gas pedal,
Speaker 2: but nothing. The jeep quickly loses speed, moving slower and slower.
Speaker 2: You'd pull over onto the shoulder, but you can't because
Speaker 2: you just got to an overpass. There's no shoulder, and
Speaker 2: you're starting to go uphill. The cars behind you slam
Speaker 2: on their brakes and lean on the lawrence is a
Speaker 2: swerve around you. You look in the rear view mirror
Speaker 2: and you see a semi truck approaching. The radio comes.
Speaker 5: Alive again with more hip hop.
Speaker 2: Please please please let me survive this.
Speaker 5: You think you fubble for your phone and you make
Speaker 5: a call.
Speaker 2: You aren't calling the highway patrol or the cops, or
Speaker 2: state troopers or even Triple A. You are calling Charlie
Speaker 2: Miller and Chris Vallasek. See you are Andy Greenberg, award
Speaker 2: winning journalist and writer for Wired magazine, and you've agreed
Speaker 2: to be their guinea pigs. They set out to prove
Speaker 2: just how easy it is to do bad with cars
Speaker 2: in this current system. You beg them to stop, to
Speaker 2: give you back control of the car. You manage to
Speaker 2: roll the jeep to an exit ramp, turn the car
Speaker 2: off and then on again, basically rebooting it, and then
Speaker 2: you get to an empty lot where your experiment can continue.
Speaker 3: Now, why did they get on the road. Why didn't
Speaker 3: he to go to like a Walmart parking lot to
Speaker 3: do this?
Speaker 2: No, I got so nervous, and they told him before
Speaker 2: he got the like, don't whatever happens, don't panic. Now
Speaker 2: here's the thing, So Greenberg he gets the jeep to
Speaker 2: safety and they all continue their work. The guys were
Speaker 2: at Miller's house ten miles away, so they don't have
Speaker 2: eyes on him. From Greenberg's Wired article quote Miller and
Speaker 2: Vallisex full arsenal includes functions that at lower speeds fully
Speaker 2: kill the engine, abruptly engage the brakes, or disable them altogether.
Speaker 2: The most disturbing maneuver came when they cut the jeep's brakes,
Speaker 2: leaving me frantically pumping the pedal as the two ton
Speaker 2: suv slid uncontrollably into a ditch. The researchers say they're
Speaker 2: working on perfecting their steering control. For now, they can
Speaker 2: only hijack the wheel when the jeep is in reverse.
Speaker 2: Their hack enables surveillance too. They can track a targeted
Speaker 2: jeep's GPS coordinates, measure its speed, and even drop pins
Speaker 2: on a map to trace its route. Unbelievable, So, of course,
Speaker 2: the whole thing was done with Greenberg's consent, sure as
Speaker 2: a way to publicize the danger of you connect and
Speaker 2: get the Endo street to respond, let's take a break.
Speaker 2: When we get back from this ad venture, I'll tell
Speaker 2: you just how they responded.
Speaker 3: Zarin, Oh, Elizabeth, we're back.
Speaker 2: We're back in the twenty fourteen cheap.
Speaker 3: I had to shake that one off.
Speaker 2: I know that was a nightmare, as a total daymare.
Speaker 3: I thought it was bad and if someone took over
Speaker 3: my computer but being in the car they're taking over
Speaker 3: and then like I gotta trust them. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't worry. I'll art it all back.
Speaker 2: Very maximum overdrive. And I don't like it one bit.
Speaker 3: And there's not enough of Meia the West of US
Speaker 3: in that for me I feel safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there needs a whole lot more so. After that
Speaker 2: Wired article, Fiat Chrysler, they took swift action. July twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, they issued a voluntary safety recall for one
Speaker 2: point four million vehicles in the US in order to
Speaker 2: fix those software vulnerabilities. And so that was models from
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen to twenty fifteen that had eight point four
Speaker 2: inch touchscreen. So twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen Jeep, Cherokee, twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen Dodge Challenger, which like, I don't want one of
Speaker 2: those self possessed rubbing down the road, twenty fifteen, Chrysler
Speaker 2: two hundred and others. Chrysler dodged Jeep and Ram lines.
Speaker 2: Fiat Chrysler sent out a USB drive by mail to
Speaker 2: affected owners with the patch like diy, I guess steal
Speaker 2: a Kia drive that around instead the owners They could
Speaker 2: also go to a dealership for installation if they weren't hackers,
Speaker 2: you know. In addition, Sprint closed the open cellular ports
Speaker 2: that the hackers had used, which like, why didn't you
Speaker 2: do that originally?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Did they cost a penny to do?
Speaker 2: Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration they opened an
Speaker 2: investigation and then they find Fiat Chrysler one hundred and
Speaker 2: five million dollars.
Speaker 3: Why did they find them for just being.
Speaker 2: A production They're flying too close to the sun, Like
Speaker 2: you thought you were so special, arrogance. Well, it wasn't
Speaker 2: just for the Jeep vulnerability, but there were like a
Speaker 2: series of recalls that were kind of mishandled leading up
Speaker 2: to me. So like, you guys are bungling everything one
Speaker 2: hundred and five million, but the Jeep incident was like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so the hack that had lasting implications far beyond Fiat Chrysler.
Speaker 2: Senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
Speaker 2: they introduced the Security and Privacy in Your Car Act,
Speaker 2: the Spy.
Speaker 3: Car Act right.
Speaker 2: The bill would require cybersecurity standards for vehicles, isolation of
Speaker 2: critical software systems, real time hacking detection systems, and then
Speaker 2: transparency on how car companies collect and share driver data.
Speaker 2: It's a great bill.
Speaker 3: Sounds like didn't pass, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: Of course, not my feeling. I'm thinking the sticking point
Speaker 2: was the transparency on how car companies collect and share
Speaker 2: driver data, probably because that's like, you know, that's a
Speaker 2: commodity and.
Speaker 3: They generally avoid that for either that's our data.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the customer like spending and travel, and then also
Speaker 2: like how you connect to like insurance companies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that they didn't want like a trade secrets, like
Speaker 3: we're selling everything.
Speaker 2: Was just like this driver like yeah, they speed all
Speaker 2: the time, increase their rates. Oh, they wouldn't know otherwise.
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's my guess.
Speaker 3: I was thinking that they were already doing that. They're
Speaker 3: killing the insurance company for a price.
Speaker 2: They already do. But I'm just saying like that was
Speaker 2: that's I think that, like this is something that car
Speaker 2: companies would kill because it's going to cost him money
Speaker 2: beyond just like changing the tech.
Speaker 3: It's something valuable to them. Yeah, data that is.
Speaker 2: That's just me guessing.
Speaker 3: I'm speculating to the BUIL didn't.
Speaker 2: Pass, but it like spurred all these discussions about automotive
Speaker 2: cybersecurity standards. In twenty sixteen, the Automotive Information Sharing an
Speaker 2: Analysis Center, they released their best practices for cybersecurity, and
Speaker 2: you know, most of the major manufacturers of automobiles they
Speaker 2: picked that up. The gpack made it super clear infotainment
Speaker 2: systems have to be segregated out from like the critical
Speaker 2: vehicle control stuff. You can't have it all just riding
Speaker 2: us together, exactly, And so Miller and Vallisek they later
Speaker 2: got hired by Uber's Advanced Technology Center to work on
Speaker 2: their self driving car security, and then they both worked
Speaker 2: as principal autonomous vehicle security architects at Cruse Automation, which
Speaker 2: was GM's self driving cars. The latest and more visible
Speaker 2: victim of hackings is, of course Tesla.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I should note that Tesla has a bug bounty program.
Speaker 2: So if you can hack them and then show them how,
Speaker 2: they'll give you cars or money or something. Of the
Speaker 2: cyber trucks. It doesn't they can't sell you know, here
Speaker 2: have one, you have five? Yeah, and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: I hacked you guys. They're like, you no need to
Speaker 2: have proof. Take a cyber's your problem now. Some of
Speaker 2: that bacon from the diner. The whole thing, though, the
Speaker 2: Tesla is like one big computer and the cars are
Speaker 2: all about like connectivity and such and like you know,
Speaker 2: things like watching YouTube while you pretend to drive while
Speaker 2: autopilot's on and you're facetiming your buddy.
Speaker 3: Sure important thing, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, researchers from Keen Security Lab they found
Speaker 2: multiple vulnerabilities in the Tesla model S that allowed remote
Speaker 2: control of the car from up to twelve miles away
Speaker 2: via the Wi Fi or cellular connection. So that's okay,
Speaker 2: one year after this jeep thing, you know, someone's on
Speaker 2: like an Atari sixty four driving your Tesla around. So
Speaker 2: they found vulnerabilities in the infotainment system once again that
Speaker 2: darned can bus access to the browser autopilot braking functions,
Speaker 2: so they were able to like open the sun roof,
Speaker 2: move the seats, control side mirrors, turn on the turn signal,
Speaker 2: and then like slam on the brakes remotely while the
Speaker 2: car was.
Speaker 3: In so still operating like the car itself, not just the.
Speaker 2: Features, yeah, but then like oh and the break ps
Speaker 2: the brakes. Tesla saw this and then pushed an over
Speaker 2: the air software update within ten days of the disclosure,
Speaker 2: and then they also improved isolation between the systems like
Speaker 2: we you know, infotatement and critical components.
Speaker 3: Separated firewall that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, talk, I love that, that's firewall.
Speaker 3: That's good, thank you.
Speaker 2: I just learned that one myself. In twenty twenty, fluoro
Speaker 2: Acetate struck.
Speaker 3: That's a hacker.
Speaker 2: It's a well known security research team. So they share
Speaker 2: a call sign Richard Zoo and amacamma. They were at
Speaker 2: pone to own once again Vancouver hacking. Remember, yeah, the
Speaker 2: super Bowl hack exactly, And that's where they exploited a
Speaker 2: vulnerability in the Tesla Model threes infotainment system using a
Speaker 2: JavaScript jit just in time jure in the WebKit engine.
Speaker 2: We're back with webkits. The exploit allowed them to gain
Speaker 2: control of the system when the driver visited a specially
Speaker 2: crafted web page, so like if you're browsing around, you
Speaker 2: have to put the web page into the giant screen
Speaker 2: inside the car. And it gave them access to display messages.
Speaker 2: They could control infotainment features like I'm going to put
Speaker 2: on a different channel, interact with subsystems connected via the can,
Speaker 2: but they couldn't directly control the driving, so.
Speaker 3: They can make you watch criminal minds against your will.
Speaker 2: Hundred percent, and so that was like purely infotainment. They
Speaker 2: couldn't direct the actual car. But this was part of
Speaker 2: a challenge at the competition, not a rogue mission to
Speaker 2: embarrass Tesla. So Tesla awarded the hackers a Tesla Model
Speaker 2: three and forty thousand dollars in prize money.
Speaker 3: So it was like a sponsored hackophone.
Speaker 2: Sponsored hackaphone. And then they patched that.
Speaker 3: Vulnerability quickly they should.
Speaker 2: You know, be via a software update.
Speaker 3: So this is like their version of beta testing, is like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're going to put the car out, then you find
Speaker 3: the flaws and we'll fix those exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of like self check out. Suddenly I
Speaker 2: work for the supermarket. Yeah, suddenly you work for Tesla.
Speaker 2: So like, hold on, do you have Bluetooth in your
Speaker 2: carp Yeah? See I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't kidding about I buy older cars.
Speaker 2: One time I let someone, someone who's a co host
Speaker 2: of a murder free true crime podcast, connect his bluetooth
Speaker 2: in my car. Yes, and now I know this fellow connected.
Speaker 2: If I'm near you and your phone, you connect to
Speaker 2: my car. So like you'll be in the parking lot
Speaker 2: at headquarters on a phone call. I'm parked near you.
Speaker 2: I go to start my car and suddenly your call
Speaker 2: is in.
Speaker 3: My bluetoth You're talking to my mother.
Speaker 2: And I've got someone saying hello, Hello, or I'm suddenly
Speaker 2: listening to the serious XM Radio Classics episode that you've
Speaker 2: got playing on the radio Classic.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you like Jack Benny. I hope you do.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is that I think my car likes
Speaker 2: you better, which doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 3: So your your phone doesn't connect to the bluetooth, it.
Speaker 2: Gets kicked off by yours. Like you've basically hacked me.
Speaker 2: You're a hacker, now hack Yeah, anyway, This dude, Leonard
Speaker 2: Wooters is a security research at ku Leuvin University in Belgium.
Speaker 2: June twenty twenty two, he exploited vulnerabilities in Tesla's Bluetooth
Speaker 2: low energy keyless entry system. So we've gone through all
Speaker 2: these other ways in now we got Bluetooth. So he
Speaker 2: had like what's called a relay attack. He could unlock
Speaker 2: and start a Tesla both model three and Model y
Speaker 2: by relaying signals from the owner's phone or key card.
Speaker 2: And he could do this even if it was inside
Speaker 2: a nearby building. Obviously not in a fair date box.
Speaker 2: So the bl systems there intercepted using cheap off the
Speaker 2: shelf hard where like the Oakland car thieves use. And
Speaker 2: it's basically the same thing. You get there, you pick
Speaker 2: up the signal, you clone it. So he's unlocking doors,
Speaker 2: you start in the car driving away. Tesla, though, didn't
Speaker 2: consider it a flaw in its system, because the ble
Speaker 2: relay attacks are a known risk with passive entry systems.
Speaker 2: They're like, it's not just us all through the Oakland Hills.
Speaker 2: So he was like, this guy, this hacker recommended that
Speaker 2: people turn off passive entry or use in a Tesla
Speaker 2: pin to drive like a personal identification number, requiring a
Speaker 2: code to be able to drive.
Speaker 3: I need like two factor authentication to get into my car.
Speaker 2: Is such a hassle to get in the car. Nobody
Speaker 2: listened to this guy. Everyone's like, whatever, I.
Speaker 3: Will leave websites if I have to get on my iPad.
Speaker 3: I'm like, Daily Beast, why are you making me go
Speaker 3: to my iPad?
Speaker 2: No, big, nope, how about do.
Speaker 3: I want to read this story to own? They're back
Speaker 3: the super Bowl of hacks.
Speaker 2: They went after Tesla again in twenty twenty five. The
Speaker 2: Sinactive team, that's Thomas Imbert, Vincent Dehores, David Barrard. They
Speaker 2: targeted Tesla's vehicle control system Electronic controller VC secure. It's
Speaker 2: a critical module in the Tesla Model three that's responsible
Speaker 2: for security functions like immobilization, door locking and then handling
Speaker 2: data from the tire pressure monitoring system.
Speaker 3: So they turned the security specialist into the vulnerability. Yes, interesting, And.
Speaker 2: They did that at pone to Own Automotive twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five in Tokyo.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: This is recent, this is earlier this year. So just
Speaker 2: like in the other cases, they used Bluetooth, they got
Speaker 2: into the can.
Speaker 3: But got that can bus.
Speaker 2: Get all on the bus. Maybe if they'd had some
Speaker 2: heap exploitation going on, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2: If you can access the ratchet router with the VPN
Speaker 2: card and so on, case closed. So now there was
Speaker 2: also a time that Tesla itself, not the cars, got ACKed.
Speaker 2: Two former Tesla employees who were unnamed in public filings.
Speaker 2: They leaked over one hundred gigabytes of internal data to
Speaker 2: a German media outlet, and that all came to light
Speaker 2: in August of twenty twenty three, but the breach had
Speaker 2: occurred earlier that year.
Speaker 3: Did they use a car to hack Tesla?
Speaker 2: They hacked Tesla with a Tesla?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: No, I don't know. Anyway, they got into the Tesla servers.
Speaker 2: They leaked autopilot system secrets. Oh, good for them, customer secrets,
Speaker 2: customer personally identifiable information. That's bad, employee records that's not good.
Speaker 2: And then some of the leaked documents allegedly detailed quote
Speaker 2: Tesla crash reports, I'm happier with that internal discussions on
Speaker 2: auto pilot related accident. No, the internal discussions about them.
Speaker 2: So they're like whatever, They could look like a loser anyway,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like I'm guessing. I don't know.
Speaker 2: So Tesla immediately took legal action. They four the ex
Speaker 2: employees to surrender devices and data, and they notified affected
Speaker 2: individuals of the breach. I mean, this isn't like a
Speaker 2: traditional software hack, but it exposed highly sensitive vehicle systems
Speaker 2: and customer data, major insider cybersecurity threat Sounds like it's
Speaker 2: like our cars are now rolling cybersecurity threats, Like we
Speaker 2: basically drive around in big computers.
Speaker 3: Yours are. Yeah, I'm over here in a seventy eight
Speaker 3: catalyg I know.
Speaker 2: It's You're so lucky. It's not just the physical actions
Speaker 2: of the car that's vulnerable. Like we have all this
Speaker 2: personal information. Look at me, I'm getting text messages.
Speaker 3: Text with your car.
Speaker 2: I think that's wild to me. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 2: where the Democratic Party keeps getting my information to text
Speaker 2: mealy anytime anything happens. So cars they collect GPS, location history,
Speaker 2: call logs, contacts. You know, you can load your contacts
Speaker 2: from your phone into your car, so your car can
Speaker 2: call I guess voice recordings.
Speaker 5: They can log your behavior and give.
Speaker 2: It to insurance companies.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: The biggest thread of this, I think is having your
Speaker 2: information sold to marketers and corporations.
Speaker 3: Sure, that too.
Speaker 2: Ripe for criminal tinkering, of course, but it could go
Speaker 2: beyond street crime because think about it, like nation state
Speaker 2: actors could target infrastructure like fleet vehicles.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I're also like the partner of somebody who
Speaker 3: works for the government, and then they can just be
Speaker 3: in the car talking on their phone making safe and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, other cars.
Speaker 2: Listening to Oh yeah, terrorists could hijack cars for sabotage.
Speaker 2: What I'm trying to say is that we need to
Speaker 2: go back to an agrarian society and all ride bikes.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: Make it stop, everyone on a bike. I don't want
Speaker 2: to do this anymore. That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2: And with that, I'm going to go get into my car,
Speaker 2: listen to satellite radio, call my mom via bluetooth on
Speaker 2: the stereosystem unless you hijacket, and then I'm going to
Speaker 2: use my GPS to go do crimes in the woods.
Speaker 2: So just take the edge off, Zarin. What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: You know, as I've complained about it often exact to
Speaker 3: deal with them. Both of my parents are Luddites, right.
Speaker 3: They neither one has an iPhone or any Android. They
Speaker 3: both have flip phones. They won't do email. My mother
Speaker 3: still has an Aol account, like you know, their total
Speaker 3: bloods with the fact that they have computers is like
Speaker 3: a major step and unfortunately I think they're right well
Speaker 3: kills me right. Yeah, she pays like whatever, fifty dollars
Speaker 3: a month to do like four things or whatever. I'm like,
Speaker 3: what is wrong with you? What is your ridiculous take away? Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: Where did this takeaway? Is that computers bad that I
Speaker 2: need them. We all do, so, Dave, can I please
Speaker 2: have a talk back?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh.
Speaker 4: My god, I love get.
Speaker 6: Hi Elizabeth Saron and producer d This is Ali from
Speaker 6: South Carolina. I have loved the show for years now
Speaker 6: and I just listened to the wig jacking episode and
Speaker 6: then about a day later, happy to come across an
Speaker 6: image of the painting a Sundae on lagrange jat or
Speaker 6: however you pronounce it. Who knows who cares? And as
Speaker 6: I'm sure you know, in the bottom corner of that painting,
Speaker 6: there is a little monkey on a leash and a
Speaker 6: small dog staring out. And all I could think about
Speaker 6: from that little monkey and little dog is that they
Speaker 6: were scoping out the scene looking for their next heist
Speaker 6: because they'd had to move on from.
Speaker 2: Their wig work.
Speaker 6: So maybe they were on hat stealing or just there
Speaker 6: to cause general ruckus. I don't know, but I support
Speaker 6: them either way. Anyways, Love you guys, love your show.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for all you do, and see you
Speaker 6: again next crime.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: This is this is what the power of good art
Speaker 2: right that tells you this story And I love this.
Speaker 2: I love your your so perceptive picking up all the
Speaker 2: little bits and bobs and the sool. That's it for today.
Speaker 2: You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 5: This just in.
Speaker 2: The website won the Hollywood Foreign Press Hackproof Award. They
Speaker 2: have declared our website hackproof. Nice I know, good job team.
Speaker 2: We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky Instagram.
Speaker 2: We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. You can email
Speaker 2: us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave a
Speaker 2: talkback on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is
Speaker 2: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited
Speaker 2: by HackMaster Dave Cousten, starring Analys Rutger. This Judith research
Speaker 2: is by aftermarket Penny Farthing Bluetooth installer Marissa Brown. The
Speaker 2: theme song is by hacking duo The Bongo Boys aka
Speaker 2: Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by
Speaker 2: Botany five hundred guest here and makeup by Sparkleshot and
Speaker 2: Mister Audrey. Executive producers are Exhausted Tesla Legal Team, Ben Bowen.
Speaker 4: That's Old Brad, Ridicous Crime, Say it one more Timequeous Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.