Remember James Bond who used a Sony Ericsson handset to control his BMW 750iL in Tomorrow Never Dies? Well, that was clearly something only the MI6 is capable of coming up with in the movies, but what about real life? I guess life is not all that glamorous, where a couple of security experts who happen to work for DARPA have managed to find a way to control a vehicle – and this “hack” is done thanks to the assistance of a laptop as well as an old school NES controller. Yes sir, who would have thought that an controller of an 8-bit video game console would come in handy so many years down the road? As long as the laptop remains plugged into the vehicle’s diagnostic port, one was able to start and stop the engine, in addition to steer the vehicle with the NES controller itself.
We ourselves have seen our fair share of NES controller hacks and modifications, but this one by Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek would certainly rank somewhere at the top of our list. I guess the average car is vulnerable enough to be hacked, considering how more and more of them are starting to be more computerized. Be warned, however, that this duo did brick their fair share of cars before getting it right.