And for the special equipment, that's not always the case -- my car's engine controller can be reprogrammed by tapping into a few wires on the CD changer harness in my trunk, and that's likely to go unnoticed by me, my mechanic, the police, you name it.
But again (see my other response to a similar statement), theory is wildly different from reality.
The ECU controls things like fuel-oxygen ratios, how much the throttle is open, etc. Steering, braking, and the transmission are almost strictly physical/mechanical interfaces.
Unless you drive a Prius, or like system where the brakes are digital, you can counter a sudden, massive acceleration with your steering, brakes, and by turning the car off—no matter what the ECU wants.
The applicability of this kind of sabotage for murder/assassination is limited.
>The applicability of this kind of sabotage for murder/assassination is limited.
Possibly. But I'm not sure I'd react all that well if, while driving in the middle of the night, my lights suddenly went out, my stereo started playing music at full volume, and my throttle went wide open.
And that's all a possibility on my 2003 car -- newer cars are moving towards doing much more with software. And where there's software, there will always be viruses.
http://pikkupossu.1g.fi/tomi/projects/projects.html
And for the special equipment, that's not always the case -- my car's engine controller can be reprogrammed by tapping into a few wires on the CD changer harness in my trunk, and that's likely to go unnoticed by me, my mechanic, the police, you name it.