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Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

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Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#131

Post by foobarqux »

mehmehshoe wrote: post #49
stfu wrote: post #3

Anybody read through http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-usenixsec2011.pdf already? My car-tech knowledge is way to rudimentary to get a better idea on that stuff.

I've heard about bugs in the throttle position channel from a few coworkers that worked for several different manufacturers. This was awhile ago though and most bugs have been sorted. Creating a car crash through brake or steering manipulation sounds a bit far fetched. Throttle position on the other hand does not have any type of redundancy in most modern cars (no mechanical means of restoring control). If you have a…

You can put the car in neutral or turn off the ignition.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#132

Post by JshWright »

wyck wrote: post #14
corresation wrote: post #5

Another possibility is that he had a nervous breakdown or substance abuse episode, leading to both the paranoid emails and the irrational vehicle operations. Obviously I'm not saying that's the case, but the extremely irrational driving goes fits a theory of paranoid delusions (brought on by any number of mechanisms), just as the hacked car system goes with about to uncover something big.

This first question that comes to mind is what was he doing driving at 4:30 in the morning. His friends describe him as a "grandma diver" so why was he driving so fast and blowing red lights on a residential street? Did he ever display this type of behaviour before? Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.

> Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.

A fuel line is torn in the crash... a few milliliters of gasoline seep onto the ground, while the heat from the catalytic converter ignites some grass that has gotten a little long. The small amount of gasoline and brush cause a fire that is able to quickly spread through the damaged structure of the car, igniting the carpet, fabric, and seat cushions.

Within a minute the fire is well on its way. Within 3 minutes, the car is fully involved.

Obviously I don't know what happened in this case, but I've seen the exact scenario described happen more than once (the gas leak was only confirmed in one case, in two other cases, it was just the brush and debris under the car).

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#133

Post by lawnchair_larry »

simonster wrote: post #31
corresation wrote: post #5

Another possibility is that he had a nervous breakdown or substance abuse episode, leading to both the paranoid emails and the irrational vehicle operations. Obviously I'm not saying that's the case, but the extremely irrational driving goes fits a theory of paranoid delusions (brought on by any number of mechanisms), just as the hacked car system goes with about to uncover something big.

Or, an even less interesting possibility: Hastings might in fact have been under some kind of investigation; he might have not slept well the prior night; and he might have fallen asleep at the wheel. This is consistent with the facts of the case: the crash happened in the middle of the night, just after Hastings sped through a red light.

I'm not trying to suggest foul play by refuting this, but nobody falls asleep at the wheel when driving that fast, no matter how poorly you slept previously. The adrenaline won't let you.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#134

Post by TechNewb »

TechNewb wrote: post #76
LoganCale wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subject of his email was "FBI Investigation, re: NSA". Don't know if the investigation is the same as his big story, however.

Wonder if his notes could be found, I imagine they would have been cloud backed.

@dllthomas

"Of course they were; that's how the NSA found out."

Right. Yet to our knowledge the NSA does not have delete privileges to the data centers, meaning that copies of his notes most likely still survive on either local or cloud based storage.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#135

Post by mzs »

wyck wrote: post #14
corresation wrote: post #5

Another possibility is that he had a nervous breakdown or substance abuse episode, leading to both the paranoid emails and the irrational vehicle operations. Obviously I'm not saying that's the case, but the extremely irrational driving goes fits a theory of paranoid delusions (brought on by any number of mechanisms), just as the hacked car system goes with about to uncover something big.

This first question that comes to mind is what was he doing driving at 4:30 in the morning. His friends describe him as a "grandma diver" so why was he driving so fast and blowing red lights on a residential street? Did he ever display this type of behaviour before? Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.

The engine was yards away from the car meaning the fuel lines broke, that's how it can happen here.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#136

Post by unclebucknasty »

dllthomas wrote: post #87
unclebucknasty wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality? To which reality are you referring? How are you so certain what the reality here is or is not? How is your version of reality any more or less likely to be the truth? So, no one has proven what happened. That cuts both ways. And that's the point: there are unanswered questions. No one is stating for a fact that foul play was involved. People are merely asking questions. And, given the plausibility of foul pl…

"Neither has been proved, therefore either is equally likely" is false, and if you believed that to be the case you would be horribly calibrated in your judgements, and parent would be right to criticize it. Plausibility is of course a much lower standard, but there is still some correct level of belief; I disagree with the parent in asserting that it is clearly below "plausible" but it's a legitimate discussion.

>Neither has been proved, therefore either is equally likely" is false

I didn't say that. Go back and read my post.

In fact, it's the opposite. We have many trying to claim the illegitimacy of asking questions, because there is no direct evidence. The parent went so far as to ridicule those asking questions.

So, it is they who are making claims about which is more likely, given a lack of evidence in either direction. That is exactly what my post was about.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#137

Post by edwardunknown »

smoyer wrote: post #107
Taylorious wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foul play is almost always a possibility if you over analyze things and don't have a lot evidence. If someone randomly kills them self by jumping off a bridge and no one sees it happen, there is no suicide note, or any other signs, then there could have been foul play because there is no evidence to prove or disprove it. For all anyone knows the person was pushed off the bridge by a passer by. The whole NSA story is…

And suddenly the conspiracy theorists are wondering if Taylorious works for the NSA ;) Your points are well organized and I tend to agree (especially that there would be an easier way to get rid of him), but I don't think you'll stop those that see a conspiracy around every corner. I tend to see our government (today) as a very mismanaged large corporation. There are people over-reaching and those above them are tryi…

I'm usually happy to beat up on conspiracy theorists, I actually sort of hate them. However this guy took down a General.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#138

Post by snogglethorpe »

brown9-2 wrote: post #91
DigitalSea wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not impossible to crash any car, the alternate reality here is that a brand new car with more safety features than a padded cell crashed by itself at 4:30am in the morning into a tree and exploded on impact. The point is these cars are built to try and avoid these kind of accidents at all cost, the plethora of safety features cars like these have makes it a lot more difficult than say an early 00's vehicle crash…

I believe recent car models, or at least luxury ones, are designed to eject the engine as a safety feature. An engine projected into the cabin sound quite lethal.

Of course, flying car engines don't sound too good for passers-by... oO;

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#139

Post by JshWright »

DigitalSea wrote: post #18

How does a 2013 model Mercedes Benz with a five star ANCAP safety rating (the highest rating you can get) scoring 35.51 points scored out of 37 (an Australian car safety rating for reference) with more airbags than wheels (8 airbags for those of you playing at home including a curtain airbag that drops in-front of the passenger and driver protecting the head and upper-body from impacting anything) crash into a tree w…

Cars crash. Expensive cars crash. Cars catch fire after they crash (certainly not in the majority of cases, but it does happen). I'm a Firefighter/EMT in a department that covers a reasonably affluent area. The vehicle Mr. Hastings was driving would not be unusual around here (and vehicles like it would not be unusual to see in the wrecks we respond to).

Your suggestion that somehow being a late model Mercedes makes it impervious to collisions is just silly. I could run a report of our wrecks over the last year, but I'm sure there have been at least a dozen that involve late model cars like the one in question (from various manufacturers). Two of those included at least one fatality. None of them caught fire (but given the small sample size, that's not surprising, over the last decade I'd guess something like 1 in 50 wrecks I've seen involved a post-crash fire).

Regarding the explosion... I've seen nothing that indicates to me that there was an explosion. People described a loud noise (crashes are loud), and a fire. The video of that fire is completely consistent with a post-crash vehicle fire.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#140

Post by joering2 »

potatolicious wrote: post #29
kiba wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think given the fact that the US is literally Nazi Germany Literally is metaphorically literally? I hate it when people abuse language like that, even though usage dictates conventions.

Not to mention the US is also not metaphorically Nazi Germany. There's bad shit going on, but to equivocate the current state of the US to the Third Reich demonstrates either a supremely poor understanding of history, or hyperbolic melodrama, or both.

Do you happen to know the history or rather just watched Schindler's list and that's all?

Third Reich did not start the day they invade Poland and kick off the World War 2. IT didn't start with profiling Jews and putting people in camps. It started much earlier than that with elements of dictatorships here and there. US is not far from it; it just that times have changed. What before could be called "work camps" because of lack of means of information transportation so most people didn't know (there was no Youtube or Twitter ok?), needs to be called FEMA camps or other 1981-ish words of care and wisdom now. But the system is ready. Billions of bullets bought by DHS, tanks located across major cities, militaries of different countries training together and putting unified system in place, its all ready to go. What we are "missing" is that spark of fire to crank the engine. Like firing up the Reichtag. Some say, "hopefully" that Zimmerman's trial of founding him not guilty could cause a civil unrest and off we go from there. But in a case of emergency, like in Boston Bombing, Boston did look like Nazi Germany: armed forces of an official government "lawfully" but forcibly pulled innocent unarmed citizens out of their safe houses in the name of searching for one fugitive. Guns were pointed at them, regardless if they were guilty or not (they were not). Plus you have more and more check points on the streets, TSA start training with dogs on the airports (Germans loved them didnt they?), you have all communication scooped all the time, plus major monetary abuse in gov entities like IRS (noone held accountable), major huge abuse in security (Bengatzi) and noone held accountable, yep, we are getting close to a tipping point and things speed up rapidly!

Now, if you live on the US soil and understand US constitution, please tell me this is not disturbing to you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MezLoczjfY

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