There was a time when a "hack" WAS a transportation vehicle

[scarfman]

The blogging assignment this week for CSC 448: Freedom and Security in a Digitally-Divided Society was to find the operator's manual for something, anything, and read it to find an "exploit" - an exploit being that element a hacker looks for as a weakness, the intentional or unintentional back door that lets the hacker in. The professor told us not to go ahead and do the hack (he always makes me think of Nessus going through the Liar's equipment locker when he says things like that, though I don't doubt his sincerity), just identify the exploit.

I decided to go ahead and read the owner's manual for my 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee, since I've owned the damn thing most of a year now.

I was a few pages into it, trying to identify an exploit for a Jeep, when I stopped to consider: What constitutes an exploit for a motor vehicle? What, for that matter, constitutes a hack? Well, what constitutes a motor vehicle's normal, intended operation? Getting you from one place to another without hurting or killing you. So what would a hack do? Hurt or kill you, or provide the opportunity for you to get hurt or killed.

I found my exploits on the page I was looking at.

The highlighted sentences in the fourth paragraph indicate that merely operating this vehicle in a manner other vehicles are operated can result in injury or death. That's an exploit.

The highlighted sentence in the fifth paragraph indicates that failing to use the seatbelts can result in precisely the effects of operating the vehicle that are not intended by its designers and manufacturers. That's an exploit.

The highlighted sentence in the sixth paragraph indicates, or at least suggests, that neglecting to read this owner's manual can result in injury or death. That's an exploit! Despite my professor's best intentions or my own, I've already hacked this device and didn't even know it!