Judge Rules In Favor of Volkswagen and Silences Scientist 254
sl4shd0rk writes "Samsung-is-not-as-cool-as-Apple Judge Colin Birss, rules in favor of Volkswagon to ban Flavio Garcia, a computer scientist, from revealing details about 'Wirelessly Lockpicking a Vehicle Immobiliser' at USENIX in August. Volkswagen says the flaw could allow someone to 'break the security and steal a car' so it is justifiable grounds for blocking Flavio's paper. No word yet on how soon Volkswagen will have a patch."
Not a US case. No First Amend. (Score:5, Informative)
Spellcheck! (Score:4, Informative)
FFS, it's Volkswagen, with an E.
Too little, too late. (Score:5, Informative)
These cars with remote/keyless entry and start are already being stolen, even directly off of dealer lots. The criminals have already figured out what he was going to present, and are using it to their advantage.
Re:Solution timetable (Score:5, Informative)
Suspending the first... amendment? This didn't happen in the USA.
Re:This is why we have a first amendment. (Score:5, Informative)
A limey writes (Score:5, Informative)
No we don't have a Bill of Rights, but we do have the European Convention on Human Rights incorporated into UK Law, which does have an Article 10: Freedom of Expression [wikipedia.org]. There are restrictions in the European version as opposed to the simpler US one though....
Yet another misleading slashdot summary/headline (Score:4, Informative)
I almost don't want to post this, rather than continue to watch the slashdot flock get herded around the meadow yet again. But guess what. The arstechnia article (ironically headlined "High court bans publication of car-hacking paper") states:
"The company asked the scientists to publish a redacted version of the paper without the crucial codes, but the researchers declined, claiming that the information is publicly available online."
So yeah, the publication of the paper was never at stake.
This little tidbit makes most of the above comments (including those already up to +5) look pretty ridiculous.
Re:This is why we have a first amendment. (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah and our scumbag leaders wipe their ass with it daily.
Oh that right is protected by the constitution? Now you are an enemy combatant, it doesn't protect you anymore. Yes, we are calling you that for wearing blue on orange mondays... to the waterboarding with you!
Re:This is why we have a first amendment. (Score:5, Informative)
, it's relatively trivial for someone to repeat Garcia's work and publish it.
The speculation is that Garcia sliced the chip layer by layer to reconstruct the logic and algorithms that VW's Megamos Crypto uses.
That's neither quick to do, nor trivial to recreate.
Misleading article and summary. (Score:5, Informative)
In the article:
"The judge, Colin Birss, ultimately sided with the car companies, despite saying he "recognized the importance of the right for academics to publish.""
This is very misleading. The judge did not "ultimately" side with anyone because this is an *interim* injunction during the course of more prolonged litigation. Citation:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23487928 [bbc.co.uk]
and
http://www.itpro.co.uk/security/20291/vw-gets-high-court-bans-scientists-revealing-luxury-car-security-codes [itpro.co.uk]
The purpose of the interim injunction is to temporarily maintain the status quo while further evidence and arguments are presented, prior to any actual and significant judgement.
Once again slashdot avoids objective reporting and instead offers its readers what they actually prefer and craze: dishonest, misleading, untrue versions of the world that play to the infantile prejudices of the average self righteous and privileged pseudo liberal.
String of burgluars already using tech. (Score:4, Informative)
There is already some people using tech to break into cars in California.
http://news.msn.com/science-technology/high-tech-car-thieves-break-into-vehicles-without-leaving-a-trace [msn.com]
http://jalopnik.com/whats-the-secret-device-thieves-in-california-are-usin-471782175 [jalopnik.com]
Re:This is why we have a first amendment. (Score:5, Informative)
Company A uses reprogrammable chips and does the responsible thing. When their chips get hacked, they issue a recall, and people go to the dealer to get theirs reprogrammed.
Company B is Volkswagen.
John Doe goes in to but a new car. They look at the vehicle report for the car from Company A, and they see it's been recalled for a failure in the security system. They look at the vehicle report for a Volkswagen, and they see no recalls. So they buy the Volkswagen.
Your assertion is only valid in a world where all consumers carefully research every purchase. *Nobody* does this -- it's not possible. Not enough hours in the day. For something as big as a car there's a decent chance they will, but even then I bet plenty of people don't.