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Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

samcurry.net

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Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#51

Post by duxup »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #26
mavdi wrote: post #20

Not surprised. I've had a few interactions with Subaru connected services dev team as an external contractor from another car company, everyone was everyone else's cousin, friend, homeboy from India. Nepotism was rampant, no one wanted to listen to advice, a strong culture of corporate antibodies had formed. I'm surprised they even got it to work at this level.

[flagged]

Working across cultures is so wild.

I worked in situations where things were outsourced and yeah the Indian experience was horrific. But that also was influenced by the nature of the relationship.... they didn't work "for us" in any real way.

I worked for a company where we (a Midwestern company) were acquired by a valley company and at HQ there was a clear divide between the Indian (US citizens, not H1B) folks and the local CA team. It wasn't bad, but you could see it socially and feel the vibe and such.

I traveled there a few times and I was just friendly and ... man they were great. Very friendly, very professional, and highly capable.

Sometimes I think the business relationships also creates the informal "working culture" too.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#52

Post by rjmunro »

> After reporting the vulnerability, the affected system was patched within 24 hours and never exploited maliciously.

How did they verify the never exploited maliciously part?

Did the person who's password they changed ever notice that their password didn't work any more and report the problem?

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#54

Post by fullofideas »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #26
mavdi wrote: post #20

Not surprised. I've had a few interactions with Subaru connected services dev team as an external contractor from another car company, everyone was everyone else's cousin, friend, homeboy from India. Nepotism was rampant, no one wanted to listen to advice, a strong culture of corporate antibodies had formed. I'm surprised they even got it to work at this level.

[flagged]

The linked article is about a fraud conducted by a few bad apples. I can see people colluding with others that are similar to them for criminal activities - gangs, drug smuggling, and probably other frauds too. I am not sure how you inferred caste based nepotism among *all* indians in tech from that article.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#55

Post by tonyedgecombe »

gedy wrote: post #39
kccqzy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of this claim so often that I assume it to be true, though personally I've only had the fortune to work in better environments where my Indian colleagues aren't nepotistic. I suspect this might be related to the hiring bar: if a company only hires the top talent perhaps this would not be an issue.

Unfortunately I think it depends on the number and position of Indian folks. Small numbers where you deal with people individually, I've not seen issues and it's nice to work with Indian devs. In larger numbers or when in charge of hiring, there seems to be a prevalent issue of Indian cultural norms and favors kicking in and it can happen fast.

Monocultures are almost always bad, if nothing else they are a signal that you aren't hiring on merit.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#56

Post by ajsnigrutin »

duxup wrote: post #41
mavdi wrote: post #20

Not surprised. I've had a few interactions with Subaru connected services dev team as an external contractor from another car company, everyone was everyone else's cousin, friend, homeboy from India. Nepotism was rampant, no one wanted to listen to advice, a strong culture of corporate antibodies had formed. I'm surprised they even got it to work at this level.

I love my Subaru as far as reliability, all wheel drive performance in snow and ice, and such. But OMG it's consumer tech was dated when I bough it, and it's just full of inexplicable issues and caveats and such. Even just the limitations and the UX issues are so obvious that it sends a message that if they tried to fix them they would introduce just as many new issues. I'm at the point where despite the car being go…

yep...

there was a tv ad for subaru vehicles a couple of years ago (not that long!), and during the ad, they showed the infotainment system, where the user pans the map on the navigation touchscreen, and the map moves at maybe 1fps! in an ad!

I kinda wish they standardized the car interface for tablets (like android auto, but more features), where you could just buy a tablet and insert it in (like din slots for radio, but tablet-sized), and the car would expose some non-critical interfaces to the tablet (AC,...), and you could just buy a replacement tablet if needed. Cars are made to last 10, 15, even more years, while the computers/entertainment devices move a lot faster, and that includes the connectivity (many cars on the streets today were made before 4g, and 3g is mostly dead).

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#57

Post by potato3732842 »

_yb2s wrote: post #17
stn8188 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely my biggest concern for when I inevitably am forced to replace our aging vehicles. The unfortunate reality of living in the Northeast is that it's near impossible to find decent (not rusted) older cars for sale. Sure, I'm within the 99.9999% of Americans who have nothing to hide, but that unequivocally does not justify the physical capability of remote monitoring or control.

Why not just take a weekend to fly to where used cars are unrusted, and drive one back? Also, there are quite a few well made older cars that are fully galvanized and don’t rust. I know a few people in the Northeast still driving 1980s Volvo 740s, still unrusted after nearly 40 years of salty roads. 1987 and later had the best rustproofing. I believe many older Audis also are galvanized.

The best galvanization was in the 80s when the OEMs were scrambling in the "surprise, lead just got banned" era (lead acts like an anode, think of it like a lesser version of a high zinc primer).

That said, it's not the thick hot dip you see on I beams or on bolts at the hardware store and a modern car with modern coatings and attention to corrosion is still better.

Of the three continents that produce a lot of cars the Europeans still take corrosion more seriously than anyone else.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#58

Post by Cumpiler69 »

fullofideas wrote: post #54
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The linked article is about a fraud conducted by a few bad apples. I can see people colluding with others that are similar to them for criminal activities - gangs, drug smuggling, and probably other frauds too. I am not sure how you inferred caste based nepotism among *all* indians in tech from that article.

For one, I didn't say "all Indians" are bad apples, just that the nepotism and cast issues are rampant enough that it's a know issue at this point in the tech industry where Indians are sometimes overrepresented.

Secondly, do you expect people to post links to all cases of Indian nepotism/cast issues in the tech industry, when Google is at your fingertips with enough cases that it's not an isolated incident? That link was one an Indian friend shared right now when I sent him the Subaru link, when I asked him if the nepotism is real.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#59

Post by beezle »

jeroenhd wrote: post #22
bilekas wrote: post #19

> I didn’t realize this data was being collected, but it seemed that we had agreed to the STARLINK enrollment when we purchased it. This is mind blowing to me.. Number 1 why you need a car connected to the internet all the time ? And how you're not required to sign at least 10 forms to confirm you understand that ALL of your travel data will be recorded and distributed at will.

> Number 1 why you need a car connected to the internet all the time To open the car with an app (programming against Bluetooth is harder than calling a web API), or honk the horn if you lost it in a large parking lot. > And how you're not required to sign at least 10 forms to confirm you understand that ALL of your travel data will be recorded and distributed at will. Legally speaking, I believe that depends on your…

Just as an aside - a friend had their car nicked in NYC this winter. He was able to tell the cops the car location from some Toyota find my car type thing. The cops said they saw nothing on the street so unless he could come and make the horn beep infront of a garage - and then get a warrant - there was nothing more to do.

He now has a new vehicle.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#60

Post by bityard »

willis936 wrote: post #7
niij wrote: post #3

How do you disable this in a Subaru? Can you tell Subaru to turn it off or is there a low-effort way to disable it (fuse pull)?

I can't speak for Subaru, but I did this on my Toyota last weekend (cell radio, not space radio). The fuse pull on Toyota DCM affected other systems (GPS, microphone). I got a hold of the service manual, identified the cell antenna cables, and simply unplugged them. Now "simply unplugging them" required ripping apart quite a few things and dealing with some annoyingly deep bolts, but it wasn't too terrible. Pulling t…

Would you be willing to share the details of this either publicly or privately? (My email is in my profile.) I'm trying to do the exact same thing on my 2021 Highlander and have not been able to find any info. I found threads where people have asked how to do this on forums and reddit, but the responses are ALL along the lines of, "first, get a sheet of tinfoil, then shape it into a hat..." etc etc.
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