A hacking contest to showcase products with the worst security vulnerabilities wants you to worry about Tesla safety.

[Attacks taking less than two minutes] involved executing what is known as a time-of-check-to-time-of-use (TOCTTOU) attack on Tesla’s Gateway energy management system. They showed how they could then — among other things — open the front trunk or door of a Tesla Model 3 while the car was in motion.

There’s something sadly ironic about so many Tesla owners tragically burned to death because the doors won’t open, yet this big exploit news is how doors can be opened too easily. Tesla has engineered the worst possible mechanism, unsafe when it works and unsafe when it doesn’t work.

And now for the scare quote:

“The biggest vulnerability demonstrated this year was definitely the Tesla exploit,” says Dustin Childs, head of threat awareness at Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which organizes the annual contest. “They went from what’s essentially an external component, the Bluetooth chipset, to systems deep within the vehicle.”

Attackers used the “infotainment” bloat to compromise safety. Yet another reason that Luxury EV are all knobs and buttons, or just more evidence Tesla is below basic engineering standards? A giant TV on the dashboard is basically the white tube socks of automotive design.

…break into Tesla’s infotainment system and, from there, gain root access to other subsystems…

From external to deep root? Not good. Not even remotely safe. Pun intended, of course.

This is exactly what is never supposed to happen with a car on public roads, let alone any security engineering. Next you’ll tell me the Tesla lock design doesn’t even work…

Stories like this make it hard to tell whether Russian children are in prison already when they’re described as going to school.

When Maria Moskaleva drew a picture of missiles next to a Russian flag heading towards a woman and child with a Ukrainian flag at school last year, her teacher called the police, who later discovered comments critical of the war on her father’s social media.

Moskalev has been under house arrest since March 1, while his daughter has been taken to a juvenile rehabilitation center. The charges against him carry a sentence of up to three years in prison. A single father, Moskalev may also lose custody of his daughter in a separate trial set to begin in April.

Her teacher called police.

Without context you’d think a picture of Russian missiles falling on Ukraine is exactly the kind of message Russian police would want to see. In fact, her picture could be described as an illustration of typical Russian leader propaganda.

…Dmitry Medvedev, for his part, wrote, also on Telegram, that ICC judges should start “peering into the sky” because “the use of a hypersonic carrier from a Russian ship in the North Sea against the court building is quite imaginable.”

Unfortunately you can tell from the story about a teen girl’s life in Russia that any representations of enlightenment-like truth — any hint of effeminacy within toxic masculinity — are treated as a direct affront to Putin’s state apparatus.

Her “teacher” played the role of both state spy and punisher, set to destroy a girl’s life on the smallest inkling of any independent thoughts.

Her father will lose his daughter, a family torn apart, because he had dared to speak about a war filling his small town with fresh graves? Seems like police should have arrested Medvedev first for his social media posts about missile strikes raining on civilians.

In somewhat related news, the criminal Wagner group was just criticized so heavily by Putin for throwing away Russian lives in thoughtless suicide attacks on Ukraine, it’s been promoted to destabilize Africa instead.

Wagner apparently is getting a fail-upward transfer after stupidly murdering hundreds of thousands of Russians. Meanwhile an innocent father and daughter in a small town hurting nobody are being ruthlessly punished for simply having coherent thoughts.

If doing the wrong thing is the only thing left to do, and the usually barking Wagner has been thrown a bone to disappear, perhaps Maria’s story will spark new resistance.

It’s a hood, so that’s what I’m calling it. Just like the Nazi Tatra T87.

Musk says Tesla… Hitler said Tatra, where’s the difference in management, seriously?

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has allegedly announced reopening an earlier recall of Tesla Model S imported from California.

…expanded a late 2021 recall to cover more imported Model S electric vehicles due to the risk of their front trunks (frunks) opening unexpectedly while the vehicle is in motion. […] If the secondary latch is not locked when the primary latch is accidentally released, the frunk lid may suddenly open while the vehicle is in motion. If this happens, it will affect the driver’s view, increasing the risk of a crash…

It’s interesting because there has been ongoing global confusion about this safety issue; somehow a bunch of Model S sent to China were dropped out of the 500,000 cars recalled by Tesla in 2021 for the same issue.

According to documents submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are 475,318 vehicles subject to the recall… The Model S recall is particularly concerning because the issue affects the front trunk, which could obstruct the driver’s view of the road if it flies open while driving.

This comes not long after Tesla had to recall last December over 400,000 of its cars in China, which was right after their recall last November for another 80,000.

The numbers seem big because they are, in fact, rediculously high for a company that promised it would be better than all others. Tesla’s 20 recalls in 2022 affected 3,769,581 vehicles putting on par with buying a Kia, worse than a VW.

Worse than a VW.

Have I mentioned VW was basically a copy of the Nazi-killing unsafe Tatra?

Food for thought considering the Chinese-owned (Geely) Swedish Polestar has had just one single recall, affecting under 100 vehicles.