by bbor | 2025-08-11 02:17:19+00:00
I was curious what the laws in Michigan might say about that, since it seems both plausible and absurd that attempted murder codes might apply. The below was originally sourced by Claude Opus and written by some random kid, so I would obviously appreciate an actual expert's armchair opinion!

1. Both Michigan[1] and the US[10] have statues that criminally prohibit "Access... to a computer program... to alter... or otherwise use the service of a computer program... without authorization or by exceeding valid authorization." Potentially a stretch, I can't find any super-relevant precedent.

2. The same statute[2] also prohibits ~"using a computer program... to (attempt to-)commit a crime", which obviously doesn't matter on its own, but could be added on to other charges, such as (drum-roll please)...

3. Attempted murder[3]. This one seems like a stretch indeed -- the law does leave room for "any means not constituting the crime of assault," but proving "intent to murder" seems basically impossible (unless there's some absolutely crazy texts to be found in discovery?).

4. More appropriate is assault[4], which leaves room for any "assault" with a "dangerous weapon without intending to commit murder or to inflict great bodily harm less than murder."

That last one is the most plausible+serious potential charge IMHO, but it really gets at the heart of the issue, as my understanding of assault is based on "harmful contact"[5]. Would shutting down someone's pacemaker be "contact"? On one hand it could be seen as akin to throwing something (which is definitely still assault), but on the other hand, the massive distances involved (CA -> MI?) stretch the colloquial understanding of "contact" by a lot.

There's a whole section on Civil(/tort?) penalties, but I'll spare y'all the details since that comes down to contract debates I don't comfortable even vaguely attempting to sorta-kinda speculate about! Namely: "was this authorized by some clause in the bill of sale?" In short, Claude brings up 1. Conversion[6] (" intentionally destroying or altering a chattel in the actor's possession") and 2. a variety of statues[7] prohibiting deceptive advertising. The latter would be particularly tricky in a world where searching "Tesla remote shutdown" returns many hundreds of articles on this being possible!

Claude cites the Michigan precedents of Owens v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. (1982)[12] and Prentis v. Yale Mfg. Co (1984)[13] to establish that you can't sell dangerous cars, but those cases were about manufacturing defects and not intentional tampering.

Finally, on a federal level: the NHTSA has broad authority to regulate therein "vehicle cybersecurity"[8,9] and the FTC is similarly charged to regulate "unfair or deceptive [commercial] acts or practices"[11], tho IDK how helpful those would be in the post-Chevron hellscape that we now reside within, to say nothing of the "First Buddy" angle.

TL;DR: No matter what happens, I think it's clear that there's little precedent on any level for such a brazenly-dangerous act of digital sabotage of a "protected computer" by the computer's manufacturer. I doubt much will happen either way, but I'd really love to see some precedent get made here one way or another!

[1] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-752-7...

[2] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-752-7...

[3] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-750-9...

[4] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-750-8...

[5] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault

[6] https://withoutmyconsent.org/50state/state-guides/michigan/c...

[7] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-445-9...

[8] https://www.nhtsa.gov/research/vehicle-cybersecurity

[9] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/30111

[10] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

[11] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/45

[12] https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/supreme-court/1982/619...

[13] https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/torts/torts-keyed-to-eps...