THE MORNING RANT: Perhaps Cars and Grocery Freezers Shouldn’t Be Subject to Hacking and Bad Programming

Here are three unrelated stories, but they share a theme, specifically that “improving” machinery with complicated software and remote internet access often renders the machinery compromised and inoperable. (h/t to @ComradeArthur for a couple of these tips.)

First: Chinese electric vehicles that were rented to the Norwegian military by a Chinese-controlled rental car company made video recordings of confidential military information.

“Chinese-Owned Rental Cars Recorded Norwegian Military Drill” [Defence Blog – 12/12/2026]

Rental cars used by Norway’s Home Guard during a large exercise in September recorded video of soldiers, their routes, and the codes they typed into military gates, according to a soldier who took part, Norwegian business daily Dagens Næringsliv reported.

The cars were rented by the Norwegian Armed Forces from Hertz in Norway, which belongs to Volvo Cars and, through Volvo, to China’s Geely group. At least two of them were electric cars from Deepal, a brand of Chinese automaker Changan.

America’s principled free traders dream of allowing China and its electric spy cars into our market, and if you seek to protect private-sector American industrial jobs from being lost to Chinese state-controlled industries, those same “free traders” will call you a socialist.

Second: The start of the recent Formula One race in Malaysia had to be aborted because bad programming rendered many of the supercars unable to move faster than a slow crawl, if they weren’t bricked altogether.

“FIA to Investigate Software Bug after Bahrain GP in Malaysia” [Reuters – 10/02/2026]

The governing FIA said afterwards that "an unprecedented combination of low engine speed, low-grip conditions, wet-weather energy management settings and the Sepang circuit’s sector configuration led to an unintended loss of power for a number of cars."

F1 cars are now part electric and part internal combustion, and there is programming required to make the two forms of propulsion integrate. That software apparently didn’t take into account such unforeseen things as low speed and wet roads, which rendered the cars undriveable.

Traditional gasoline-powered cars without internet connectivity can drive in pretty much any weather condition. So of course, all the smart people are determined to proceed with technology that flakes out in bad weather, or when software hasn’t anticipated every permutation of temperature, precipitation, rpm, and speed.

Any car that needs software updates to keep operating is a car than can be kept from running due to malicious software.

Third: If I ran a business in which much of my inventory must be kept refrigerated or frozen, I would certainly maintain remote monitoring systems so I would know if any refrigerators were broken or not holding temperature. Inventory obviously must be protected from spoilage. What I would not do is create remote internet controls so that anyone hacking into the remote monitoring system can also sabotage the refrigeration equipment.

“French Supermarket Fridges Get Hacked, Heating to 122°F and Sparking Fires” [10/13/2026]

Hackers targeted hundreds of French supermarkets in a cyberattack that reportedly caused refrigerators and freezers to overheat, spoiling food and sparking fires. Fridges at [various supermarket chains] saw fridges heat up to as much as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.

While this incident was in France, not the U.S., I can’t help but believe that the corporate obsession with automation and elimination of labor expense contributed to this cyber-attack on the food supply. Too many business executives are antagonistic toward the blue-collar tradesmen who keep their machinery running. They desperately want to believe that AI, or software, or a slick presentation from an expensive consultant can rid them of the annoyance of paying professional compensation to a skilled laborer.

Remote monitoring is obviously required. Remote access and control, however, is an invitation to destructive hacking. That invitation was obviously accepted.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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