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Can Your GPS Kill You?

by Tim Stevens on April 2, 2007 at 07:58 AM

If your in-car GPS system told you to drive off a bridge, would you? We hope not, because that humble dashboard navigator may be out to get you, according to Engadget. Okay, so it's not the device itself that has evil intents, but apparently GPS systems in general are just awfully impressionable. The signals used to broadcast traffic and accident information to in-car systems have been shown to be completely hackable, enabling illicit navigators to create fake accidents and send drivers on deranged detours to their doom.

Now, we usually take our GPS devices' directions with a grain of salt and keep our eyes on the road, and we expect you to do the same. But then again, people do crazy things all the time: Witness the British couple that drove right into a river after unquestioningly following their dumb GPS device's directions.

So, the next time your TomTom tells you to take a right onto a cliff-side drive leading to a spooky mansion, think twice...


From Engadget [via ITPro]

Tags: GPS, Hacking, Hacks

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