[dsfyu404ed]

>But to be clear, drug cartels, spy agencies and criminal organizations have been able to do that for quite some time. They've just had to send a person to plant the bomb or the bug or the location tracker in person. And it's not generally regarded as the car manufacturer's problem to deal with that threat.

But those sorts of methods require orders of magnitude less plausible deniability.

When people hear on the news that some controversial political activist (in any country) died during an armed robbery, from a propane explosion, suicide or a car crash which one do you think they'll question the least?

You're a fool if you think intelligence agencies (around the world) haven't been weaponizing these sorts of vulnerabilities (and they're fools if they haven't been). The major hurdle I see is that the people they'd risk exposing this sort of capability on, don't ride around in cars with the required features or live somewhere where it's more sensible to get them some other way.

[jameshart]

"live somewhere where it's more sensible to get them some other way"

Yes, the main remote exploit you're exposed to driving round Yemen in a Grand Cherokee is probably a Reaper-launched Maverick strike, rather than having your transmission remotely cut :)