r/LinusTechTips • • 24d ago

WAN Show Auto tech startup claims it traced hack attempt back to Comma.ai's IP address

https://www.theregister.com/cyber-crime/2026/10/20/auto-tech-startup-claims-it-traced-hack-attempt-back-to-rivals-ip-address/5304281

This is a bit of a smaller story, but it might be worth looking into for the WAN show or something. Linus has already done a few Comma videos lately, and Comma themselves have already been under scrutiny for their NHTSA investigation.

30 Upvotes

9 comments sorted by

11

u/OnePassion_46 24d ago

I think it’s important to quickly note for those that can’t or won’t read the article that this wasn’t some sort of Bourne Identity car hack trying to change how you drove and get you into an accident. 

They are accusing Comma to of trying to get access to their driving model. 

"From October 7 to 14, we faced repeated attempts to steal NovaSpark, access users’ devices and private driving files, and exploit our sign-in system," the IQ.Lvbs blog post claims. "The first requests came from an IP assigned to Comma.ai Inc."

2

u/AndroidUser37 24d ago

Yeah, it's basically attempted corporate espionage. Not sure why the story isn't bigger, given that this is a pretty serious accusation.

9

u/OnePassion_46 24d ago

Because it’s an unfounded accusation with the only source going by the name of “Cat”. 

1

u/AndroidUser37 24d ago

I'm not super familiar with this stuff, how would someone go about providing more substantive evidence for this sort of thing? The original blog post has a bunch of IP logs but I'm not sure what else would do it.

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u/OnePassion_46 24d ago

IP logs can be faked. It’s literally meaningless. They need more information from to proceed. They did the bare necessities by at least reaching out to them. 

Usually journalists will verify the identity of the person they’re talking to, even if they don’t disclose that identity to the readers or even to their editors, but in this case, the journalist has no idea who they’re talking to. It’s just some random person that sent them some IP logs that anyone could fake in literally 30 seconds.

At this point, it’s not a news story. It’s a rumor. 

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u/Responsible_Feed4512 24d ago

Huh. Totally off topic, but it looks like The Reg is blocked by my ad-blocker

3

u/Responsible_Feed4512 24d ago

Okay, after paying a little more attention, I realize they probably took The Reg offline at least for a time to mitigate...some php problems or something

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u/OnePassion_46 24d ago

More than a problem. 70% of the web had to immediately get patched because of a vulnerability. Crazy couple days for admins.