My 1996 Ford Bronco (F150) OBDII port is located center on bottom edge 
of dashboard, readily visible. It would be hard not to notice something 
plugged in there! On the other hand the 2002 Mercury Cougar connector is 
tucked under the dash board with a black plastic shield around it. There 
could easily be something, say cell phone controlled and a GPS plugged 
in there, and not found for months. Here in this part of Ohio, E-check 
is every other year, and probably would be when found.

On 5/17/2010 3:45 PM, Vitaliy wrote:
> cdb wrote:
>    
>> Researchers at U of C and U of Washington have been testing how
>> secure car computers are from hacking.
>>
>> The result is that many vehicles have little immunity at all to being
>> remotely controlled, with a remote user able to make the car break,
>> switch the engine off and lock all the doors. All this via the OBD
>> port. However as they point out, as yet, this is not too easy to
>> accomplish.
>>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10119492.stm
>>      
> I understand the hype is needed to sell ad space, but the fact remains that
> you need to plant a device inside a vehicle, in order to be able to do the
> things they describe. This can be done with a bit more difficulty, by wiring
> up the door locks/ignition/etc directly, bypassing OBD.
>
> The only time it becomes truly dangerous, is when there is a wireless comm
> link to OBD. Last year, GM Onstar was used for the first time to remotely
> stop a stolen truck:
>
> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/onstar-gps-carjacking.html
>
> To be honest, I find it kind of creepy.
>
> Althogh doing it on your own car is fun, you can roll windows up/down from
> your cell phone (a customer did it using OBDLink Bluetooth).
>
> Best regards,
>
> Vitaliy Maksimov
> ScanTool.net, LLC
> +1 623 582-2366
> http://www.scantool.net
>
>    
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