wrote:

Well, we'll have to differ on this.
Everything is updated via the Internet these
days including things like the control
software for a Tesla.

Well, I use the Debian repositories for
software and upgrades, and I suppose that
counts as "via the Internet", but unless those
archives are compromised it should be safe.

There are also systems of verification, hashes,
checksums, and such, not that I ever bothered,
but there are people who are more
paranoid/careful or have just taken an active
interest in computer security who do that
every time.

The most difficult password systems in the
world can be broken with quantum computers.
And those things calculate probabilities and
not actualities as a normal computer does.

Brute force attacks, no matter the level of
sophistication, still require that many, many
such attempts can be made. It's a big operation
to carry it out from many laps around the world
and compile the results because a fraction of
those attempts from a single source or in
a short time-frame should raise a red flag at
the admin's HQ.

There is an entire underworld of possible
control and a great deal of it is based on
errors introduced by higher level languages.

The only such language specific vulnerability
I'm aware of is the so called seekwell
injection. SQL, a domain-specific query
language (relational algebra) used for
databases, anyway it prompts the user for
input, like ask for a name, only the user
(hacker-cracker) inputs SQL commands, which the
database executes, which worst-case can bring
the system down instantly even with a trivial
error (e.g., division by zero). However scary
this might sound, if the database just
quotes/escapes the input - automatically, every
time, most likely by a single line of code -
then the system can't be harmed that way.

Are you aware that the Americans cracked the
software in the uranium centrifuges in Iran
and was able to make them break down?

The little I know of that is that they had
access to very specific details from the guys
who built it - Germans? I don't remember.

--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573