07/16/23

🔐 When Everything Becomes Digital, You Are Owned by Those Running Your Infrastructure

High-end Dutch eBike manufacturer Van Moof, beloved by the tech press for its “technology-forward” bicycles (which don’t come cheap), is in the Dutch equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This might be sad and make people worried about the status of their warranty and possible parts availability for the lifetime of their bikes – but it is outright frightening when you consider that you need the Van Moof app on your phone to unlock your bike. No app, no ability to ride your fancy $4,000 bike. But of course, the Internet wouldn’t be the Internet if it wouldn’t hack the API to extract your crypto-keys. It makes you wonder how many Van Moof customers know how to install a Docker image on their servers