To what end? If the hack happens, I think it's much more likely that we see a string of assassinations that look like accidents, or kidnappings that don't look like vehicle-related skulduggery at all. It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once.
Turn all stoplights green (not red!) at the same time. This was actually the idea of a scifi story back in the 1960s--it came out first as a short story (probably in Analog), then as a book. (FWIW, I found the short story better.)
Like many of the ideas in the book 1984, turning all the stoplights green at the same time in New York City was probably not possible in the 1960s. It is now.
The Italian Job has this as a plot point back in 1969. IIRC, it was even more sophisticated than just turning all the lights green.
Retrieving the gold is left as an exercise to the reader.
IMHO: if you want an entertaining movie, watch the 2003 movie. If you're planning a bank heist, the 1969 version is probably more informative. N.B.: I've never done a bank job.
I don't think it is. When you install a signal controller there's this diode board, one diode for each phase. You use a wirecutter and remove diodes in order to tell the controller which phases ought to be allowed at the same time. What you're describing would only be possible if all signals were installed with all diodes removed.
I can't speak for the whole industry, but back when I was part of it, thats how our controllers worked. Admittedly, I don't think New York City was a customer.
A few decades back, Texas law specified that traffic lights must be wired in relays to not allow 2 perpendicular directions to be green at once. I hope this has not changed.
“Because some people just want to see the world burn”, unfortunately.
The idea that someone would actually fly two commercial airliners into downtown manhattan to take out the World Trade Center was also pretty unlikely, circa 2000 and 2001.
The thing about airliners is that they run out of fuel or get shot down. It's not like you can hijack a few and use them repeatedly for decades. They only way they're decent weapons is if you use them immediately.
The US and China go to war, over Taiwan say. This would be part of a general attack on the US, and would include things like the power grid, internet infrastructure, and anything else that can be disabled or turned against us.
Terrorists decide that 9/11 wasn't good enough, and they can do 1000x more damage, death and terror from the comfort of their computers.
Extortionists decide to leverage this capability to extort money from car companies.
More targeted killings would be motivated according to your thought.
This is just the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
It just seems like the degree of premeditation involved here would also come to the conclusion, given how over invested we are in our military, that is better to make it seem like the US is perpetually shooting itself in the foot rather than make it seems like the US has been shot. We tend to get all rambunctious when we know it was an attack, better to have us lose the war before we know we're fighting it.
When it comes to remote vehicle access I think you could do more damage carefully over the course of a decade than you could do rashly in a day.
I think Taiwan is the most logical short-term thread model that could lead to widespread cyber incidents internally.
Other continues be something like NotPetya, localized cyberwar tactic that hits public internet and runs amuck. But to get from that to critical infra in US, let alone personal autos, is hard to picture.
> It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once.
Not if they short-sell the car-manufacturer stock first! Granted, that might increase their odds of being caught, but attackers don't have to be wise to be dangerous.
Depending on what can be hacked, another possibility would be a string of suspiciously-smooth thefts.
I don't want to want to discount the possibility that this would be the ambitious endeavor of an actor with otherwise small-time-crook vibes, but I think it's more likely to be a nation state with bigger plans than getting rich.
