The New York Times reports that in a “paper, which will be presented at a computer security conference next week in Oakland, Calif., computer security specialists at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, report that while modern cars have extensive safety engineering in the design of their computer control systems, little thought has been given to the potential threat of hackers who may want to take over the networks that increasingly control modern cars. …The researchers asked what could happen if a hacker could gain access to the network of a car, said Tadayoshi Kohno, a University of Washington computer scientist. He said the research teams were able to demonstrate their ability to circumvent a wide variety of systems critical to the safety of drivers and passengers. …They also demonstrated what they described as “composite attacks” that showed their ability to insert malicious software and then erase any evidence of tampering after a crash. … The researchers were able to activate dozens of functions and almost all of them while the car was in motion.”