Nintendo Controller Used to Drive Hacked Cars

StewShearerOld

Geekdad News Writer
Jan 5, 2013
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Nintendo Controller Used to Drive Hacked Cars


Pentagon security experts have demonstrated a system allowing them to drive a car with an NES controller.

Save for the Atari 2600, you're going to have a hard time finding a game controller simpler than the NES's. Including the D-Pad it has a paltry five buttons to its name, a mere fraction of its modern equivalents. That being the case, there's a beauty to its simplicity. It possesses a pick-up-and-play quality that arguably helped countless gamers take their first steps into new digital experiences. Experiences that now include driving a car.

In an attempt to demonstrate the increasing presence and vulnerability of technology in cars, security experts Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek recently devised a hack that allowed them, with the aid of a laptop, to take control of a car and then drive it with an NES controller. With their system in place they were able to manipulate everything from acceleration, breaking and steering right down to the dashboard displays and the horn. The cars hacked in the tests included a 2010 Ford Escape and a Toyota Prius. Miller and Valasek's research is being funded by the Pentagon and its research facility Darpa.

Setting aside the fact that there are likely countless old school gamers who dreamed of doing this very thing during the NES's heyday, the success of these tests make a fairly serious point not just about the prevalence of technology in our every day lives, but also its vulnerability. Hackers don't need Pentagon funding to do some pretty serious things. The gaming industry itself is able to provide proof to that point. That being the case, it's Miller and Valasek's hope that future automobiles will include deeper security measures to help prevent outside manipulation similar to their own.


Source: <a href=http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/07/weirdness_hackers_use_nes_pad_to_drive_car>Nintendo Life

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Roxor

New member
Nov 4, 2010
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This is worrying news. I agree that the car manufacturers really need to beef up the security on the computers they're putting into their cars.
 

idarkphoenixi

New member
May 2, 2011
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Apparently, remote hacking is already a thing and may or may not have been used for terrible purposes.

This is the danger that comes with modern cars but as we see all the time, people will almost always put convenience before safety.
 

Mr.Mattress

Level 2 Lumberjack
Jul 17, 2009
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I don't see what's wrong with this. In fact, I wanna drive a car with a Controller! It seems a lot easier.
 

J Tyran

New member
Dec 15, 2011
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Good I will remember this the next time someone tries to burst into my car clutching a NES controller when I am driving.
 

evilneko

Fall in line!
Jun 16, 2011
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Check out the video of them [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/24/hackers-reveal-nasty-new-car-attacks-with-me-behind-the-wheel-video/] hacking a car from this article a couple days ago.

Also notable, quote from the article:
Gaining wireless access to a car's network is old news. A team of researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, experimenting on a sedan from an unnamed company in 2010, found that they could wirelessly penetrate the same critical systems Miller and Valasek targeted using the car's OnStar-like cellular connection, Bluetooth bugs, a rogue Android app that synched with the car's network from the driver's smartphone or even a malicious audio file on a CD in the car?s stereo system.
How's that OnStar feel now, huh?
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
If you're going to hack a car with a Nintendo controller, why would you do with with a NES gamepad, and not the perfection that is the Gamecube controller?
I'd use a game and watch.
 

Guffe

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Jul 12, 2009
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Evil Smurf said:
j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
If you're going to hack a car with a Nintendo controller, why would you do with with a NES gamepad, and not the perfection that is the Gamecube controller?
I'd use a game and watch.
OH now, everyone knows that the N64 controller is the best controller ever created!

This seemed like a bit of fun :D
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
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Guffe said:
Evil Smurf said:
j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
If you're going to hack a car with a Nintendo controller, why would you do with with a NES gamepad, and not the perfection that is the Gamecube controller?
I'd use a game and watch.
OH now, everyone knows that the N64 controller is the best controller ever created!

This seemed like a bit of fun :D
Come on, N64 was a noob console, keyboard and mouse forever! On a serious note, if someone can make it possible to drive with "w, a, s, d, control and space" I'd marry them.
 

MCerberus

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Jun 26, 2013
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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
If you're going to hack a car with a Nintendo controller, why would you do with with a NES gamepad, and not the perfection that is the Gamecube controller?
The researcher's hands were adult-human sized, so prolonged use caused cramping.
 

CrazyCapnMorgan

Is not insane, just crazy >:)
Jan 5, 2011
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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
If you're going to hack a car with a Nintendo controller, why would you do with with a NES gamepad, and not the perfection that is the Gamecube controller?
Pffft, that's nothing. I'm waiting until someone hacks a car with R.O.B., the Power Glove or the Virtual Boy.

Better yet, I'm going to wait until someone can program either an XBox or PS3 controller to completely control every aspect of someone else's vehicle.
 

The White Hunter

Basment Abomination
Oct 19, 2011
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StewShearer said:
Nintendo Controller Used to Drive Hacked Cars


Pentagon security experts have demonstrated a system allowing them to drive a car with an NES controller.

Save for the Atari 2600, you're going to have a hard time finding a game controller simpler than the NES's. Including the D-Pad it has a paltry five buttons to its name, a mere fraction of its modern equivalents.
Sega Master System has 3 includin the D-pad. D-pad, 1 and 2. Pause on the console xP Sorry I had to.

Thats pretty cool, can they hack it so I can use control methods suitable for car control?
I also Imagine this only really works well with an automatic.
 

OrionXIV

New member
May 24, 2013
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...and this is why, boys and girls, you don't COMBINE computers in a car to be cheap.

Seriously, there is no excuse why the audio system/video system/navigation system should EVER be tied to the controls of an automobile. That should be separate, air gapped, and locked down so no one can access it (except for analysis when it is no longer used, and then it shouldn't be able to be re-used again). If you want to have computerized controls, it should be a magic black box.

Sorry about the rant, but anyone with any common sense wouldn't do this.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

Henchgoat Emperor
May 15, 2010
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I knew this was a thing. I figure that since the Government "knows", other black hat hackers have already done this and are about 20 steps ahead. One more reason why I am adamantly opposed to cars that are run solely off computers or that can drive themselves.
Easy to hack and fuck with.