Mysterious Black Boxes

The answer to the cause(s) of the acceleration problems with Toyota vehicles may lie hidden in the car’s black boxes. These Event Data Recorders keep secret data on what is happening with your modern car and especially what has happened just before and after the air bags deploy in an accident. Accident investigators understandably would like to have access to this data. Insurance companies would be happy to know if there was third party liability and thus someone to blame (and sue). Government regulators, who say they want to keep our highways as safe as possible, would dearly love to get their fingers on the Toyota EDRs. You might like to know what happened to you or a loved one.

The problem for everyone except Toyota is that no one can read the proprietary encrypted data. Unlike most other auto manufacturers, Toyota refuses to give the encrypted code to anyone. Toyota and a few other automobile companies make Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code look like child’s play (which it was). The obvious question arises: what are Toyota and Honda hiding? Is there some magic that makes their cars different? What electronic wizardry have they employed to turn their ho-hum cars into best-sellers?

No doubt other car people have been busy trying to crack the code in other maker’s cars. They have hired geeks and hackers to peer into the mysterious world of electronics that run our automobiles. You know – the same gadgetry that controls almost everything else in today’s electronic world. With all the electrically charged particles zipping around us, it is a wonder that we – they - don’t get confused more often.

And therein may lay the truth. What if those Toyota cars involved in acceleration accidents were confused? What if one of the computers in the car mistook an electronic signal from some other device and made itself accelerate? It might have been something from within the vehicle itself – for instance: a cell phone; a laptop computer; a PS II; a DVR camera; a GPS; a remote garage door opener; a FM/AM/Sirius radio; TV signals; police, marine or aircraft radar; high-voltage power lines; Grandpa’s hearing aid, or a simple accumulation of static electricity caused by the car moving over the roadway. Perchance a passing twin Toyota sent a signal that the car mistook as its own signal. Or a competitor’s vehicle on the same wave length.

Without trying to sound like a 2012 theorist, there are a lot of electronic signals being used for thousands of devices. Cell phone applications that can tell your stove to start cooking dinner in a house in Toronto or detonate a roadside device in Afghanistan might be doing much more than we realize. How discreet are all these devices? I know there is a red 1998 Ford Taurus that uses the same key fob signals as my 2006 Chevy because I locked and unlocked its doors, along with the accompanying horn sound, several times. I did not want to try the remote start in case it worked and the Ford coughed itself into life. The flip side of this is that somewhere there is a Ford owner who can unlock and start my car.

Someone will eventually break or pilfer the Toyota and Honda black box encryption. If not MI 6 or the CIA, then a disgruntled employee will pass along the magic code. In the meantime, rest assured that while you bought the car, black box and all, you may never discover what the car knows about you and your driving habits. Big Brother not only exists on Face Book and Google but under the hood of your car in a Black Box – so behave yourself behind the wheel. And don’t use that cell phone while driving.