美国国家公共电台 NPR This 'Gray Hat' Hacker Breaks Into Your Car — To Prove A Point

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The Internet is in the midst of a revolution. We won't just be using it to search for stuff, watch videos or send email. It's going to control cars, washers, dryers¹, even toasters. And that's what it means when you hear that phrase - the Internet of things. As part of her series Artists and Criminals, NPR's Laura Sydell looks at what happens when hackers⁴ take control of all these connected devices.

LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE⁵: These days, stealing a car is easy if you have the right gadget⁶. I'm standing⁷ in NPR's parking lot in Culver City, Calif. My accomplice⁸, Samy Kamkar, stands about 20 feet away. We each hold a small circuit board with dangling⁹ wires. Kamkar unlocks a keyless entry Chevy Bolt.

All right. So we're in. We're going to steal this car.

And I press the start button.

And the car is driving.

For the record, the car belonged to a colleague. And she wasn't very happy to see how easy it was to hack² into her car. Kamkar says his gadget can pick up on signals being sent out by the owner's key fob and imitate it. It's easy to use this technology in a crowded parking lot.

SAMY KAMKAR: There are a lot of cars coming in and out. So it's essentially¹⁰ dealer's choice at that point.

SYDELL: Samy Kamkar is one of the most famous hackers in America. He's made a career out of working his way into network devices. It takes a lot of skill. And you have to think a bit like a criminal. That's where Kamkar has an advantage. He's a convicted felon¹¹. Kamkar became notorious at 19 years old. It was 2005. And Kamkar signed up for the biggest social network of the time, MySpace. He didn't have many friends on the site, but he found a hacker³ workaround.

KAMKAR: So now, when someone would visit my profile, I wrote some code so that you'd add me as a friend. And additionally, you would add Samy's my hero to the bottom of your profile. I thought that would be funny.

SYDELL: It worked really, really well. Kamkar had created the fastest-spreading computer worm of its time. MySpace crashed. He was arrested and charged with cyber hacking¹². The judge found a punishment to fit the crime. He was banned from the Internet for life.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SYDELL: As it turns out, Kamkar now thinks time off the computer was exactly what he needed.

KAMKAR: I think it was really good for me because I now - I was forced to partake in other parts of life - things that I'd never done before - right? - like go outside and look at the sun and get a little color, read books, hang out with people, like, in real life - or IRL, as we say online, right?

SYDELL: After three years, they lifted his sentence for good behavior. And Kamkar had changed. He still loved hacking, of course.

KAMKAR: But I do it with a hat now where I think, would I want this done to me?

SYDELL: He's what they call a gray-hat hacker - not all good, not all bad. He works on the edges of the law, breaking into cars, connected doorbells, phones to try and find vulnerabilities. But when he succeeds, he lets the world know, so it can be fixed¹³. And this is a valuable service. Law enforcement is finding that even ordinary household appliances can be turned into weapons.

RICHARD DOWNING: I was, just over the holidays, installing a new smart thermostat¹⁴ in my house and thinking about this very problem because, of course, it's connected to the Internet.

SYDELL: This is Richard Downing, who heads the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. And yes, even a thermostat could potentially be hacked¹⁵. Last year, the Justice Department prosecuted¹⁶ a college student in New Jersey¹⁷ and two of his friends for hacking into hundreds of thousands of Internet devices - DVRs, routers, even baby monitors. Downing says they turned all these little devices into a supercomputer called a botnet.

DOWNING: They were able to sell access to the botnet to others who wanted to cause denial-of-service attacks. They were able to knock offline some of their own competitors. They had a business, and they were able to harm their competitors' businesses as a result of these denial-of-service attacks.

SYDELL: The botnet they created shut down Twitter, Netflix and the network at Rutgers University, where one of them went to school. One of the problems is that security is weak. Manufacturers give thousands of devices the same password.

DOWNING: Unfortunately, these Internet-of-things devices sometimes don't have as robust¹⁸ security as our phones or our computers do.

SYDELL: Manufacturers are rushing to be the first out with an Internet-connected toaster or doorbell. And security isn't the top priority. And that's where a gray-hat hacker like Samy Kamkar comes in. He can embarrass a company into providing more security. For instance, shortly after Amazon announced it was interested in using drones to deliver packages, Kamkar announced he'd found a way to take them over.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

KAMKAR: Hi. I'm Samy. And I am going to do a quick demo here of my zombie drone software.

SYDELL: This is from a video on Kamkar's YouTube channel. He's using an iPad to hack into a nearby drone.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

KAMKAR: Now it's attempting to connect to the drone that it hacked. And then it's going to turn it on and take it over.

SYDELL: It's not hard to imagine the nightmare scenarios¹⁹. What if a terrorist manages to take control of an army of drones. Or what about cars? In the not-too-distant future, autonomous²⁰ vehicles will be clogging²¹ the freeways of Los Angeles. And they'll be hackable. A few years ago, a couple of gray-hat hackers, Charlie Miller²² and a colleague, proved it could be done with an Internet-connected Jeep Cherokee.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We're in a parking lot. And I'm going to remotely hack into the car and turn the steering²³ wheel.

SYDELL: The car drove into a fence.

Fiat²⁴ Chrysler did fix that. But Kamkar says there will always be other bugs²⁵.

KAMKAR: I'm worried that someone really young will do something really stupid because they don't understand what they're doing, ultimately. So I'm worried about someone who hasn't had a lot of life experience but has a lot of power. And that's simply because we're making things more accessible.

SYDELL: In other words, someone just like the 19-year-old Samy Kamkar, who created the world's fastest-spreading worm. Only this time, the potential for inflicting²⁶ damage is so much greater. Companies could make their devices more secure, but it might make them harder to use.

KAMKAR: I only see change when you have customers demanding that change. It's only when everyone, you know, yells at a company and says, this needs to change, this needs to occur - that's when change occurs.

SYDELL: Kamkar will keep raising the alarm. But ultimately, it's up to us to decide whether to buy the most convenient, new gadget or the most secure. We may not be able to have both. Laura Sydell, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAMTIN ARABLOUEI'S "MUSIC FOR HACKING THE INTERNET OF THINGS")

1 dryers   

n.干燥机( dryer的名词复数 )；干燥器；干燥剂；干燥工

参考例句：

• Men also have hair dryers and, if they suffer from baldness, they use a growth stimulator, buy hairpieces, or have hair transplanted from the hirsute part of the scalp to the bare areas. 男士也有他们的吹风机，而且如果他们秃顶的话，还会用毛发生长剂、买假发，或者把头发从密集的地方移植到谢顶的地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dryers can be automated. 干燥机可以自动化作业。 来自辞典例句

2 hack   

n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳

参考例句：

• He made a hack at the log.他朝圆木上砍了一下。
• Early settlers had to hack out a clearing in the forest where they could grow crops.早期移民不得不在森林里劈出空地种庄稼。

3 hacker   

n.能盗用或偷改电脑中信息的人，电脑黑客

参考例句：

• The computer hacker wrote that he was from Russia.这个计算机黑客自称他来自俄罗斯。
• This site was attacked by a hacker last week.上周这个网站被黑客攻击了。

4 hackers   

n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客”

参考例句：

• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks againoff-again email exchanges. 通过几星期电子邮件往来安排见面，他们最终同意了。 来自互联网

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 gadget   

n.小巧的机械，精巧的装置，小玩意儿

参考例句：

• This gadget isn't much good.这小机械没什么用处。
• She has invented a nifty little gadget for undoing stubborn nuts and bolts.她发明了一种灵巧的小工具用来松开紧固的螺母和螺栓。

7 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

8 accomplice   

n.从犯，帮凶，同谋

参考例句：

• She was her husband's accomplice in murdering a rich old man.她是她丈夫谋杀一个老富翁的帮凶。
• He is suspected as an accomplice of the murder.他涉嫌为这次凶杀案的同谋。

9 dangling   

悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口

参考例句：

• The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now. 结果，那颗牙就晃来晃去吊在床柱上了。
• The children sat on the high wall,their legs dangling. 孩子们坐在一堵高墙上，摇晃着他们的双腿。

10 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

11 felon   

n.重罪犯；adj.残忍的

参考例句：

• He's a convicted felon.他是个已定罪的重犯。
• Hitler's early "successes" were only the startling depredations of a resolute felon.希特勒的早期“胜利 ”，只不过是一个死心塌地的恶棍出人意料地抢掠得手而已。

12 hacking   

n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动

参考例句：

• The patient with emphysema is hacking all day. 这个肺气肿病人整天不断地干咳。
• We undertook the task of hacking our way through the jungle. 我们负责在丛林中开路。

13 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

14 thermostat   

n.恒温器

参考例句：

• The thermostat is connected by a link to the carburetor.恒温控制器是由一根连杆与汽化器相连的。
• The temperature is controlled by electronic thermostat with high accuracy.电子恒温器，准确性高。

15 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。

16 prosecuted   

a.被起诉的

参考例句：

• The editors are being prosecuted for obscenity. 编辑因刊载污秽文字而被起诉。
• The company was prosecuted for breaching the Health and Safety Act. 这家公司被控违反《卫生安全条例》。

17 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

18 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。

19 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

20 autonomous   

adj.自治的；独立的

参考例句：

• They proudly declared themselves part of a new autonomous province.他们自豪地宣布成为新自治省的一部分。
• This is a matter that comes within the jurisdiction of the autonomous region.这件事是属于自治区权限以内的事务。

21 clogging   

堵塞，闭合

参考例句：

• This process suffers mainly from clogging the membrane. 这种过程的主要问题是滤膜的堵塞。
• And you know that eyewitness that's been clogging up the airwaves? 你知道那个充斥着电视广播的目击证人？

22 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

23 steering   

n.操舵装置

参考例句：

• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. 他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。
• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。

24 fiat   

n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布

参考例句：

• The opening of a market stall is governed by municipal fiat.开设市场摊位受市政法令管制。
• He has tried to impose solutions to the country's problems by fiat.他试图下令强行解决该国的问题。

25 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

26 inflicting   

把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He was charged with maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm. 他被控蓄意严重伤害他人身体。
• It's impossible to do research without inflicting some pain on animals. 搞研究不让动物遭点罪是不可能的。