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Hackers show how to steal a Tesla with a hack that has nothing to do with Tesla…

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Connected cars, like Tesla’s vehicles, are the latest fashionable device for hackers to crack. As we’ve previously discussed, if done right this is actually making the vehicles safer, but we need to walk the line between that and fear-mongering very carefully.

A group of hackers from Norway failed to do just that today in releasing what they claim to be a way to steal a Tesla with a software hack, when in fact their claim amounts to nothing more than stealing the key and driving away with it like you would with any other vehicle.
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Tesla releases more details on the Chinese hack and the subsequent fix

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Earlier this month, we reported on a Chinese whitehat hacker group, the Keen Security Lab at Tencent, managing to remotely hack the Tesla Model S through a malicious wifi hotspot. It is believed to be the first remote hack of a Tesla vehicle.

The hackers reported the vulnerability to Tesla before going public and the automaker pushed an update fairly quickly, but now they released more details on the fix and it shows how serious Tesla is when it comes to security.
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First Tesla Model S remotely controlled by hackers, Tesla already pushed a fix

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Connected cars are often talked about for their potential vulnerabilities to hackers. The idea that someone could cause an accident by remotely veering your car off the road or applying the brakes is terrifying, but so far the risk has been fairly limited.

As a flagship “connected car”, the Tesla Model S has been a constant target for hackers. Some have demonstrated being able to take control of the vehicle, but only through a physical connection to the car, which is not very different from any car-jacking by “hot-wiring” the vehicle.

Now a group of hackers from China demonstrated what they describe as the first remote hack of a Tesla Model S.
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Hacker gets Pokemon Go to work on his Tesla Model S touchscreen and reverse-camera [confirmed fake]

PokeGo tesla

As you probably know, Tesla blocks video playback on the Model S touchscreen and it has yet to enable app mirroring, a feature owners have been waiting for a while and that was announced for a release this summer. Yet, it doesn’t stop some hackers to try bypass Tesla’s system and implement some of those features (to a certain level) themselves.

Earlier this year, we reported on a hacker installing Gentoo on her car and getting around Tesla’s video playback block to watch Terminator. Now we learn of a hacker claiming to have managed to make Pokemon Go work on his Model S. Update: the “hacker” has since confirmed that he faked the hack.
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‘Tesla Hacker’ building a 1,000hp electric car using Tesla drivetrain and Chevy Volt batteries

WK057 madness

When Jason Hughes, best known as the ‘Tesla Hacker’ who first spotted the upcoming 100 kWh battery pack in the Model S’ OS, retrofitted a classic Tesla Model S P85 with an entire Autopilot hardware suite, something Tesla itself refuses to do because of the cost and complexity, we thought we just witnessed the apogee of his ‘Tesla hardware hacking’ experiments, but we were so very wrong.

We learned a little more about Hughes’ latest project this week and it could prove even more impressive technically speaking than his Autopilot retrofit, and certainly more spectacular.
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Tesla hacker retrofitted a classic Model S P85 with Autopilot hardware as a proof-of-concept [Video]

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wko57 AP retrofit 2016-05-12 10.02 - complete no errors

When Tesla first introduced the Autopilot in October 2014, it announced that every car from now on would be equipped with the Autopilot hardware suite which consists of a forward-looking camera, radar and 360° ultrasonic sensors. Tesla has since been pushing updates to enable new features to the cars equipped with the system.

Of course, existing Tesla owners asked if a retrofit would be available for their vehicles. Tesla was quick to suppress any hope that a retrofit would be made available citing a workload too important to make a retrofit cost-effective versus simply trading up for a Model S equipped with Autopilot hardware.

Now a Tesla hacker proved the automaker’s point by himself retrofitting a classic Model P85 with new and salvaged Autopilot parts and sensors, and actually making it work.
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