Hacking? It’s a gas, gas, gas

Pity the poor service station attendant who has to deal with the low blow of someone doing a runner with lots of lovely petrol sloshing about in their gas tank, but no money in the till. As petrol prices rise, it’s probably inevitable that more people will try it on, despite more and more oil chains employing pay-first-fill-later pump security.

Some petrol thieves in the US have just got a little bit smarter than Johnny Lawman though. Or Mike Caltex.

According to local news in Detroit, thieves hacked into a gas station’s computer-controlled pump system and electronically persuaded it to dispense fossil fuel into 10 vehicles over the course of 90 minutes. The pinched petrol equated to US$1800 worth and about 600 gallons (nearly 2800 litres). The rather worrying aspect for the petrol station (and, indeed, all petrol stations), is that once the attendant realised something was up, the software hack meant that the pump ignored commands to stop pumping, effectively preventing itself from being shut off. The system could be shut down only when the attendant used an emergency close-off measure.

Just the one gas station was involved, and Detroit police aren’t sure if all

10 cars that took advantage of the hack were in on the scam. (Regardless, you have to presume that’s

10 rather dishonest motorists all the same.) Then again, 10 cars and 600 gallons means those vehicles had to be carrying jerry cans in order to get away with so much petroleum. Mix together global warming and rising petrol costs forcing brazen theft against the backdrop of post-apocalyptic Detroit and all of a sudden Mad

Max starts to look like a documentary.