Hope they port McAffee to vehicle computers.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/08/01/viruses.cars.reut/index.html

I'm sure we'll disagree but keep car electronics and computers hard coded, proprietary, and completely inaccessible by joe smoe and there won't be a problem. Shouldn't be talking on a cell, fiddling with all your "gadgets" etc while driving a 3500lb piece of machinery.

I don't agree with that.

Do agree with that. We're not that far apart.

Can't wait to see the mods for tricking DMV emissions into thinking everything is ok and working since they only use the OBDII connection and trust the on-board diagnostics.

Hackers will find a way and it will be as it is with everything, some good, mostly bad.

Well, I think that cars are vulnerable. Look at my friend's $80k BMW 545i...it's running Windows as the operating system. Uh..last I checked, Windows has got to be one of the most vulnerable operating systems around.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Blue-screen-of-Death"! Uh, My OS crashed and caused an accident.

Right, there are always hackers. 40 years ago you would be a mechanical "hacker". you would get an aftermarket ignition system, camshaft, carb, headers, etc. to change the way your vehicle worked. Now in the 21st century, you still have that aspect of course, but you have a new dimension, you have a computer that senses many aspects of the vehicles status. It runs a program. It communicates with your vehicle over a CAN network. It has a database with known engine operating parameters, and executes a real-time loop to control the engine operation and overtake control of certain aspects via the VDC. People will learn how to re-program those parameters to their own liking. What's the difference between that and hardware changes to the engine. It all achieves the same thing, only in different ways. Can you screw up the vehicle re-programming a computer - sure can. Just like if you installed an internal engine part wrong. Have to know what you are doing.