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Luxury Car Hacker To Speak At USENIX Despite Injunction

Posted by Unknown on from the insecurity-through-obscurity dept.

alphadogg writes "The lead author of a controversial research paper about flaws in luxury car lock systems will deliver a presentation at this month's USENIX Security Symposium even though a UK court ruling (inspired by a Volkswagen complaint) has forced the paper to be pulled from the event's proceedings. USENIX has announced that 'in keeping with its commitment to academic freedom and open access to research,' researcher Roel Verdult will speak at the Aug. 14-16 conference, to be held in Washington, D.C. Verdult and 2 co-authors were recently prohibited by the High Court of Justice in the U.K. from publishing certain portions of their paper, 'Dismantling Megamos Crypto: Wireless Lockpicking a Vehicle Immobilizer.' Among the most sensitive information: Codes for cracking the car security system in Porsches, Audis, etc."

3 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. You Tell'em! by oldhack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fuck the limey court.

    Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.

    Seriously, what's the difference between Ayatollah-mullah fatwas encouraging violence to cartoon drawers, and multinational industrial outfits threatening legal/financial ruins to those who tell truth to power?

    --
    Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
  2. Re:UK court jurisdiction... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Which is the Netherlands. A German company is taking legal action against a Dutch hacker giving a presentation in the US using British law. This is like the poster child for jurisdictional WTFery. Do all laws of all EU member states now apply to every country in the EU? That doesn't sound quite right.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  3. Re:Well maybe there will be some time to fix thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23487928 :

    "The researchers informed the chipmaker nine months before the intended publication - November 2012 - so that measures could be taken. The Dutch government considers six months to be a reasonable notification period for responsible disclosure. The researchers have insisted from the start that the chipmaker inform its own clients."

    So essentially they have followed the responsible disclosure protocol but are now being blocked anyway