Hezbollah walkie talkie blasts are chilling – what if they did a cyber attack on a car accelerator?

LAST week, if I’d told you it would be possible to make everyone’s iPhone explode simultaneously, you’d have thought I’d gone crackers. Now, though?

I still can’t quite get my head around the mind of a man who not only has the idea of blowing up people’s pagers and walkie-talkies. But then goes ahead and actually does it.

Pagers exploded across Lebanon in a chilling insight into where modern warfare could be headedCredit: TELEGRAM/UNPIXS

Exploding walkie talkies followed, leaving many fearing what else could be hacked intoCredit: X/Rulaelhalabi

The plan to blow up Hezbollah's technology was horrific, and also very clever — The plan to blow up Hezbollah’s technology was horrific, and also very clever

He’s plainly warped and should be in prison. But he’s also extremely clever.

And now he’s got us all thinking: what’s next?

We are told that the next generation of modern weapons will be hypersonic drones and robot dogs that have machine guns instead of faces. And it all seems very fascinating.

But in the light of what happened in Lebanon, is such technology going to be necessary?

READ MORE JEREMY CLARKSON

At the moment, defence contractors, the tech giants in America, banks and governments invest a colossal amount of time and money to ensure their systems can’t be hacked.

But do you have diabetes? And if so, do you have one of those pumps that electronically releases insulin when necessary?

Handy, I’m sure. But I once spoke to a cyber-security guy in Seattle and he said he’d only need a laptop and an aerial to mess that up completely. And do you some serious harm.

And it gets worse. “Could you hack into a car”, I asked.

“I wouldn’t even need the aerial for that”, he replied.

Almost all cars made in the last five or ten years are able to receive weather and traffic information from space.

Israeli bomb blitz sparks global security fears as airlines ban pagers

The pager blasts left devastation around Lebanon when they went off simultaneouslyCredit: X

And it’s not hard, apparently, to piggy back on to this signal, which means someone can get into your car’s electronic brain.

And once they’re in there, they can cause havoc. They could turn your radio up to full volume or the heater to the max.

That would be annoying. But worse, there’s no physical link in a modern car between the accelerator and the engine. It’s all done electronically.

Which means that someone sitting in a room thousands of miles away can decide how fast you should be going.

You can get into a tank if you like — but the enemy will simply drive it into the sea

And don’t bother thinking that you could just switch the engine off because that’s done electronically too.

So he could stop you from doing that as well.

This is not science-fiction. Boffins have already done it.

This means that in theory, Putin could take control of Sir Starmer’s car and drive him at 150mph into a tree. All without leaving the Kremlin.

Certainly, if I was in Hezbollah I wouldn’t be driving a car any time soon because you can bet your bottom dollar Mossad are working on ways of making sure your journey won’t be all that comfortable.

This then, I think, is where modern warfare is heading.

You can get into a tank if you like — but the enemy will simply drive it into the sea.

Keir is taking the VIP

Keir Starmer says he must watch Arsenal from a private box for security reasonsCredit: EPA

IN the sort of truly socialist world that Sir Starmer has dreamed of his entire life, there would be no swanky directors’ box at Arsenal.

All of the fans, Corbyn and Morgan included, would be in the cold, in the stands with everyone else. Because all the animals are equal.

But some, as we know, are more equal than others. And as a result, our glorious leader says he needs to be in a warm room, with nice sandwiches.

He argues that it would be too difficult for his security team to operate in the stands.

Yes, Napoleon – but let’s not forget that when Snowball Sunak was running the show, he used to watch his beloved Southampton from the stands.

And his security guys seemed to manage.

Running a pub has challenges, with requests to ban people from as far away as DorsetCredit: Adrian Sherratt

THREE weeks ago, I put a list on the noticeboard of my new pub to say Sir Starmer and James May are both banned.

Now I’ve received an email from a young lady in Dorset to say her boyfriend has been cheating on her, and she wants him banned as well.

I’d love to help, of course, but someone has stolen the list. Along with all the lightbulbs from the men’s lavatory and most of the glasses.

SO, our amazing new Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, decided this week that the bisexual pride flag should be flown outside his office to commemorate bisexual awareness week.

I’m not sure this was entirely necessary, though, because anyone with access to the internet is already aware that bisexuality is a thing.

Maybe it would have been better, given that the week began on September 16, to fly a flag commemorating the 84th anniversary of the Battle of Britain at its peak.

Or would that have been racist in some way?

What’s wrong with a few ohm truths?

I don't like electric cars and should not have to change my opinion because others disagree — I don’t like electric cars and should not have to change my opinion because others disagreeCredit: Getty

IN the last ever Grand Tour I said one of the reasons I was going to stop making motoring shows is that I don’t like electric cars.

You’ll note that this was a personal opinion. “I ” don’t like them.
But, my God, the eco-Lefties went berserk.

They said I was talking bollocks and bulls**t and that I would kill everyone’s children. And that I should die as soon as possible.

And I couldn’t help thinking, when did it become illegal to have an opinion?

I don’t like marzipan either. So does that mean I must be subjected to a torrent of vitriol from those who do? And murdered?

Whatever happened to the days when you could disagree with someone without wanting to kill them?

Council barking crazy

SO let me see if I’ve got this straight.

At a Cambridgeshire County Council Zoom meeting of BLT+ enthusiasts, a man appeared on the screen with his dog wearing a dress.

He was apparently making some kind of point about trans-genderism, which caused a lesbian on the call to become so agitated that the council formally disciplined her.

She thought this was unfair. A tribunal agreed. And now she has trousered almost £60,000 in compensation and costs.

Remember that, people of Cambridgeshire, when you next drive into a pothole.

The council couldn’t afford to fix it because they reckoned a lesbian wasn’t allowed to comment on a dog in a dress.

Talking’ out yer art

A life-size bronze statue of Sir Frank Whittle would be better than Sadiq Khan's recommendations — A life-size bronze statue of Sir Frank Whittle would be better than Sadiq Khan’s recommendationsCredit: Getty – Contributor

WHEN cars were banned from London’s Oxford Street in 1972, people assumed it would become full of ground-nesting birds and happy people drinking coffee in pavement cafes.

Ha. It didn’t. It became choked with buses, which weren’t banned.

The fog of diesel smoke was so dense, pedestrians couldn’t see where the shops were. It was hell.

And recent figures said the congestion was so bad that the buses averaged only 3.1mph.

So, unlike everyone else, I welcome Sadiq Khan’s plan to ban all traffic from much of the street.

My only worry is that he plans to have various bits of art installed at various points.

Because his idea of what’s art, and mine, are I suspect very different.

Just look at that tribute to transgenderism they’ve put up in Trafalgar Square to see what I’m on about.

Why couldn’t they have commissioned a life-size bronze statue of Sir Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine.

He’s someone Britain can be proud of and, best of all, he was only 5ft tall, so you wouldn’t need much bronze.