So in order to keep down the parking posts through the week, the mods have decided to institute a "Shit Parking Sunday" post.
So photo comment below what you've spotted this week!
>TL;DR: > >Modern cars have become networked computers on wheels, vulnerable to hacking, remote manipulation, supply‑chain attacks, data harvesting, and foreign surveillance. With CAN bus insecurity, risky OTA updates, compromised chargers, and constant sensor recording, connected vehicles pose serious safety, privacy, and national‑security risks far beyond traditional mechanical failures.
I have been spending a lot of time lately looking into how much the automotive world has changed, and frankly, it scares me.
If you are used to working on older machines, you know exactly how a car works. You press the pedal, a mechanical cable pulls a butterfly valve open in the carburettor, more air rushes in, the drop in pressure draws fuel through the jets, and the engine revs up. Everything is a physical reaction.
There is a direct mechanical linkage from your foot to the fuel bowl. If the throttle sticks, you know it is either a frayed cable, a broken return spring, or a gummed up valve.
You can see it, you can touch it, and you can fix it with a screwdriver and a can of cleaner.
But in 2026, the modern connected car does not work like that at all.
Today, cars are not really mechanical machines anymore.
They are essentially giant rolling computers wrapped in sheet metal. Every single action you take is translated into digital data, and that data is constantly floating through a complex network inside the machine, or worse, being beamed into the atmosphere to servers thousands of kilometres away.
This realization led me down a rabbit hole of automotive cybersecurity, and the deeper I look, the more I realize that our cars are wide open to being stolen, tracked, and even manipulated by people we will never see.
To understand why this is a nightmare, you have to look at what sits under the dashboard of a modern vehicle.
Instead of mechanical linkages, a 2026 vehicle uses something called a Controller Area Network, or a CAN bus for short.
Think of the CAN bus as the car's central nervous system, which is basically a giant, shared copper wiring loom where every single electronic component shouts its data at the same time. The braking system, the steering column, the electric windows, the headlights, and the radio are all plugged into this same network. In the old days, if someone wanted to steal your car, they had to break the steering lock or hotwire the ignition switch.
Today, car thieves do not carry slide hammers; they carry small digital devices that cost less than fifty dollars.
Because the CAN bus was designed decades ago based on total trust, it has absolutely no built-in verification or security. It assumes that any message running through the wires is legitimate. As noted by cybersecurity researchers at VicOne in their late 2025 automotive threat analysis, a thief can simply pop off a plastic bumper element, tap into the wires leading to the headlight module, and inject a fake message directly onto the CAN bus network.
The car hears a digital command saying the valid key fob is present, unlocks the doors, disables the immobilizer, and allows the thief to drive away without leaving a single scratch. It is the equivalent of a thief whispering to your ignition lock through a straw and the lock just choosing to open up.
This lack of internal security becomes truly terrifying when you look at how these systems are put together through the global automotive software supply chain.
When you buy a modern car, you might think the brand on the badge built the whole machine.
In reality, major global Tier 1 suppliers like Bosch, Continental, and Denso design and manufacture the vast majority of the electronic brains and software modules inside the vehicle. If a highly sophisticated hacker wants to compromise millions of cars at once, they do not bother attacking each individual vehicle on the road.
They attack the supplier. If an attacker manages to inject a tiny bit of malicious code into a standard electronic control unit made by Bosch, that tainted code gets loaded into thousands of different vehicles across dozens of different brands before the cars even leave the assembly factory.
Because the CAN bus allows everything to talk to everything else, a small compromise in a seemingly harmless part, like a digital climate control module or a tyre pressure monitoring receiver, can be used as a stepping stone to send malicious signals to the electronic steering or the master cylinder. It is like a supplier sending out thousands of engine blocks where a hidden defect in the casting allows someone else to choke off the oil supply whenever they want.
To truly appreciate how dangerous a supply chain compromise can be, you have to look at the history of digital weapons, specifically a piece of malicious software called Stuxnet.
Discovered more than a decade ago, Stuxnet was an incredibly complex cyber weapon built by nation states to target a specific nuclear facility in Iran.
It did not target everyday desktop computers to steal passwords.
Instead, it was designed to target programmable logic controllers, which are the specialized industrial computers that run physical factory hardware like valves, motors, and switches.
In the mechanical world, these controllers act like the automated linkages that tell a machine when to open and close. Stuxnet was terrifying because it cracked the barrier between the digital world and physical reality. Once it infected the facility, it silently altered the rotational speeds of the industrial gas centrifuges used to process uranium. It commanded the machines to spin dangerously fast and then incredibly slow, physically ripping the metal equipment apart through mechanical stress.
The most brilliant and horrifying part of the virus was its deception. While it was actively destroying the hardware on the factory floor, it intercepted the safety data and played back recorded, completely normal operating signals to the technicians in the control room.
The digital gauges showed everything was running perfectly, while the actual physical machines were literally tearing themselves to pieces right under the floorboards. It proved that a string of invisible code could cause catastrophic, real world physical destruction without firing a single bullet.
When you apply the logic of Stuxnet to a connected car in 2026, the implications are chilling. Every new car sold today is equipped with an internal cellular modem, meaning it is permanently connected to the internet just like a smartphone.
Manufacturers use this connection to send over the air software updates to patch bugs or add new features.
However, this creates a massive doorway for hackers. If a bad actor or a hostile group manages to compromise the manufacturer's central update servers, they can push out a malicious update to every single connected vehicle on the road simultaneously.
A hacker does not just want to turn off your radio. By replicating the tactics of Stuxnet, an attacker could write code that directly targets the software governing your anti lock braking system or your electronic power steering.
The driver could be heading down a highway, and the malicious code could suddenly tell the brakes to lock up or tell the steering rack to swerve violently, all while making the digital dashboard display report that everything is operating safely. The driver would have absolutely no mechanical override because there is no physical cable or hydraulic rod connecting their hands directly to the wheels without a computer intercepting it first in many countries.
It is digital warfare weaponized against physical hardware playing out on public motorways.
The risk multiplies when you pull up to a public electric vehicle charging station.
I started digging into how plugging a car into a high powered charger exposes it to external threats, and the research papers paint a bleak picture.
A study published in May 2026 on the arXiv repository titled Cybersecurity of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure highlights that these charging stations sit right at the volatile intersection of the power grid, the internet, and the vehicle client.
When you plug that heavy charging cable into your car, you are not just transferring electrical current to the battery pack. You are establishing a high speed data connection between the car and the charging station using complex communication protocols like the ISO 15118 standard.
Cybersecurity firms like PlaxidityX have previously discovered critical vulnerabilities, such as heap overflow bugs in open source charging firmware stacks, which allow an attacker to use a modified charging station to inject malicious code straight into the vehicle's internal computer system.
It is the automotive equivalent of walking up to a public fuel bowser, but instead of just getting petrol, the nozzle silently pumps a corrosive chemical into your tank that alters the mechanical properties of your engine control valves. Once the car is plugged in, a compromised charger can bypass external firewalls, access the car's internal networks, and plant spyware that sits silently until it is triggered later.
This brings us to the massive problem of data tracking and surveillance, which hits incredibly close to home if you look at how we interact with our infotainment systems.
The minute you climb into a modern car and pair your smartphone via Bluetooth or plug it in with a USB cable for convenience, the vehicle immediately begins siphoning your personal information. It does not just play your music.
The car's computer system rapidly copies your entire contact list, your phone call history, your text message metadata, and your location coordinates.
If a third party in bad faith manages to intercept this information, they do not just know where you are driving; they have a complete map of your entire personal and professional life. They know who you talk to, when you talk to them, and where you spend your time.
This data harvesting becomes outright dangerous when you consider the sheer amount of physical surveillance built into vehicles produced by brands like Tesla, BYD, Geely, and many others.
These modern cars are covered in high definition internal and external cameras, ultrasonic sensors, and radar arrays designed to monitor the environment for safety and self driving features. They are constantly filming and mapping everything around them.
Imagine you are driving through Canberra, passing highly sensitive government buildings, or working on a secure military base. As you drive onto and off the installation, your car's external cameras are capturing high definition footage of security gates, guard changes, building layouts, and restricted areas.
The internal cameras are monitoring who is sitting in the car, watching their expressions, and potentially recording their conversations.
You might think that this data is safe because you do not notice the car uploading massive video files over the cellular network while you drive. But that is exactly the trap.
In early 2026, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner confirmed they are actively investigating the privacy compliance of connected vehicles because of these hidden pipelines.
The data does not have to be transmitted live over the air to be stolen. Instead, it can be quietly stored on the car's internal solid state hard drives, sitting there completely undetected by the driver.
When you eventually take the vehicle into a manufacturer service centre for routine maintenance or a mechanical check, the technicians plug their diagnostic computers directly into the vehicle's physical data ports. During that service, the entire history of recorded camera footage, location logs, and paired phone data can be completely downloaded onto the service center servers in a matter of minutes. From there, it can be saved, archived, and analyzed for god knows what purpose.
This issue becomes a geopolitical minefield when dealing with foreign owned manufacturers.
Many of these automotive companies are legally bound by national intelligence laws in their home countries.
Under these pieces of legislation, if the foreign government demands that the manufacturer hand over all data collected by their vehicles worldwide for national security purposes, the company has no legal choice but to comply.
This means that a car driving through the streets of Canberra or onto a military base is effectively operating as a mobile intelligence gathering node for a foreign state.
The data harvested during a routine service or trickled back via the cloud could easily be weaponized for espionage, blackmail, or industrial sabotage.
Looking at all of this as someone who appreciates simple, physical engineering, the reality of 2026 is deeply unsettling.
We have traded the safety of mechanical certainty for the convenience of digital connectivity.
When a carburettor fails, the engine sputters and stops, but the failure stays inside the engine bay.
When a connected car's software supply chain is compromised, or when its cameras are turned against secure facilities, the vehicle ceases to be a tool for transportation and instead becomes a tool for surveillance and remote destruction.
The danger is not a far off theory; it is baked right into the wires and code of the vehicles sitting in our driveways today, and the modern driver is completely at the mercy of the digital systems they cannot see, cannot control, and cannot fix.
So how do you feel about connected cars in 2026 and moving forward into the future.
Would you trust one with your family?
Would you trust one if the neighbours bought one and is driving past your children waiting a bus stop to get to school?
Would you trust one on the road next to you while you're riding motorcycle or a push bike?
Would you trust one after you've had a few beers and you get in an Uber to go home while you're talking to your partner or a business colleague?
Hey guys,
Best Nugget in your area for $5k or Less!
Facebook, CarSales, Gumtree, Trading Post, ad on the back of a public shitter door.
What's the best or weirdest car you can find in your area for $5k or less!
PLEASE NOTE: FACEBOOK WILL NOW DOXX YOU IF YOU SHARE LINKS, TAKE A SCREENSHOT OF MARKETPLACE!!
So this will be a weekly post, every Friday and I'll post it at GMT +00:01 Midnight, so it'll be up all Friday
But yeah, drop a comment (yes, we allow screenshot comments here!) of what you saw that was interesting in your area this week!
If it was a good storm, give us some pics too!
The claims presented in this viral social media post are false and misleading. But it's July 1, people will share utter crap for clicks and shares.
Here is the breakdown of the actual Australian tax laws and budget facts:
Motor vehicle exemption: Under long-standing Australian tax law, specifically Section 118-5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, standard passenger cars and motorcycles are completely exempt from Capital Gains Tax (CGT). For tax purposes, a car is defined as a motor vehicle designed to carry a load of less than 1 tonne and fewer than 9 passengers. The government has not announced any measures to remove this exemption for classic passenger cars.
Origin of the rumor: The text in the image is a fabricated distortion of genuine tax overhauls announced in the May 2026 Federal Budget by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Those real reforms, scheduled to take effect on 1 July 2027, will replace the standard 50 percent CGT discount for individuals and trusts with a cost base indexation model and a 30 percent minimum tax rate on real capital gains.
Collectibles and valuations: Because the upcoming 2027 reforms apply to standard CGT assets, professional accounting bodies like CPA Australia have noted that everyday taxpayers will need formal market valuations for non-exempt collectibles (such as artwork, jewelry, or rare coins purchased for more than $500) to establish a baseline value on 1 July 2027. This does not apply to standard classic cars because passenger cars sit entirely outside the CGT regime. Note that certain heavy commercial vintage vehicles, such as vintage trucks with a carrying capacity of 1 tonne or more or buses designed for 9 or more passengers, are already treated as standard personal use or investment assets under existing law rather than exempt cars, but no unique classic vehicle tax has been created.
Fabricated revenue figures: The claim that a classic car tax will generate $6.0 billion over the forward estimates is entirely made up. Official Treasury data and parliamentary debates show that the entire package of CGT overhauls and negative gearing reforms combined is projected to generate a total of $3.6 billion over the forward estimates. Furthermore, the government confirmed that roughly 85 percent of that $3.6 billion revenue is derived strictly from the negative gearing changes on established residential property, leaving the CGT changes across all assets (shares, property, and business assets) to account for only 15 percent of the total.
Seems the prices haven't gone ballistic like people said would happen today...people saying "Oh they'll go back over $2/l easy!"
I think people are missing the fact that I was basing this on the general assumption and general tactics used by petrol stations that when global crude oil prices spike in the morning, fuel retailers immediately adjust afternoon pump prices based on replacement cost pricing.
Even though the physical fuel being pumped today was purchased weeks ago and takes up to two months to arrive from the Middle East, stations do not price based on past costs.
Instead, they price based on the predicted cost of their next inventory shipment. If retailers kept prices low, the revenue from current sales would be insufficient to buy the next, more expensive load. Raising prices quickly protects their cash flow and covers future wholesale replacement costs.
So on the basis of that logic and the fact that the fuel exercise tax is ending on the 2nd of August, it was still assumed the prices would start going up from today, based on the "future planning" that most service stations participate in.
So I saw these on Facebook and then saw them shared on a couple of Subs this morning (which now seem to have been taken down while I was investigating), as this would be fucking huge news.
The only place it still seems to appear is r/WhatIfCars, which is a subreddit aimed at fictional cars.
The first image displays a simulated Road and Track news article with a headline announcing that Holden is back from the dead. The main graphic is a digital rendering of four modern, square-jawed vehicles sporting the Holden lion badge on a white background.
These vehicles include a white single cab tray back ute, a tan four wheel drive wagon, a blue SUV, and a white commercial delivery van. The text below the headline claims the brand is returning as an independent manufacturer backed by engineering firms and mining consortiums, with a fictional publication date of June 2027.
The second image depicts a mock vehicle review from the "Which Car?" website for a 2028 Holden Brumby DX. The featured photograph shows a white single cab workhorse ute equipped with black steel wheels, a black steel tray, a robust front bull bar, and a snorkel. The vehicle is parked in a industrial or construction setting with dirt mounds in the background. The article includes a rating score of 8.2 out of 10 and is dated July 2027.
But most obvious, the Brumby is owned by Subaru, they still own that nameplate, would be massive news if they bought it.
The third image is a fabricated ABC News article reporting that a domestic consortium has acquired Holden's intellectual property to support local parts manufacturing. It uses a real, historical press photograph from October 2017 showing assembly line workers posing around the final red Holden Commodore sedan produced at the Elizabeth plant in South Australia. The bulleted summary states that a private transaction was finalized to buy the assets and naming rights of the dormant brand.
The fourth image is a screenshot designed to look like a LinkedIn post from the official General Motors corporate account. The text states that GM has finalized the transfer of the Holden brand identity and legacy tooling assets to an Australian consortium, while wishing them well and noting that GM will remain focused on GM Specialty Vehicles. The attached image is a close up shot of a chrome Holden lion emblem fixed to a silver vehicle body.
Obviously this is clear fabrication, and I thought I'd make a post here that all of this is a clear fake and it's a horrible attempt to stoke the fires of people that want the brand back.
So in order to keep down the parking posts through the week, the mods have decided to institute a "Shit Parking Sunday" post.
So photo comment below what you've spotted this week!
For those that don't know where exactly, here is a google maps pin
There's been one campground there for a few months now, and that's fine, homeless people need to be somewhere.
But when I drove past the other day, there's now 2 more tents set up and 3 caravans.
As I said, obviously these people need somewhere to go and be and live, it's not right to harass them...but the facilities to support them, showers, drinking water, etc...things to make people comfortable in society.
Obviously housing is bad, but why isn't Council or State Government doing something to help? Olympics is a couple of years away and we should hopefully be on top of this by then.
Hey guys,
Best Nugget in your area for $5k or Less!
Facebook, CarSales, Gumtree, Trading Post, ad on the back of a public shitter door.
What's the best or weirdest car you can find in your area for $5k or less!
PLEASE NOTE: FACEBOOK WILL NOW DOXX YOU IF YOU SHARE LINKS, TAKE A SCREENSHOT OF MARKETPLACE!!