The Defcon Conference comes around each year. It’s when thousands of computer hackers meet up in Los Angles. There are ten thousand attending this time, some employed by companies, most of them not. Dave Lee from our business unit is there. One of the main focuses this year has been the hacking of cars.
And that seems to be the big topic this year. Now of course many modern cars are connected to devices. And obviously computers are hacked and attacked all the time. So obviously the same goes for the cars that are being made in this way. Now we’ve seen several hacks at this event for example remotely controlling a Chrysler. So we saw in one demonstration and someone able to turn the radio up to crazy levels which doesn’t seem too bad. Chrysler has moved to fix that problem. But the concept shows that it’s potentially millions of cars out there. They aren’t as secure as perhaps they should be. So that’s a very very big topic. And we are also here in this week about a hack on the Tesla cars. And there is very futuristic cars that are making ways at the moment. One of the researchers who found vulnerabilities in the Tesla explains to me what they did and why did it.
It is the most connected car on the road. And we want to see how it will handle from security issues. We want to see if there are any lessons that could be learned from it.
Dave in Defcon in Los Angeles.
In Jamaica, there is a mini-war going on between police in transport officials on one side and illegal taxies on the other. The capital Kinston streets are clogged with taxies. Their passengers squashed into every available space. Some are legal but many are unregulated. And they are taking business away from the bus companies. The passengers want them but the authorities are clamping down. As Nick Davis reports.
It’s coming up to midday. It’s incredibly hot. One of the problems there is that you can wait for quite a while for one of these buses. So what often happens is you find normal taxis, red plates, licensed taxis operating around here. But you will also find illegal taxis.
That was me squashing into the back of a taxi. It had a red number plate. So it was legal. Licensed drivers here have insurance and run agreed specific routes. But its driver admits to me even they are pushing their luck with the authorities.