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Comment by Eliezer | Hacker News Reader

"Automobile accidents are a less satisfactory means of assassination. If the subject is deliberately run down, very exact timing is necessary and investigation is likely to be thorough. If the subject's car is tampered with, reliability is very low. The subject may be stunned or drugged and then placed in the car, but this is only reliable when the car can be run off a high cliff or into deep water without observation."

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Sounds like Hitchcock knew what he was doing after all!

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest#Plot

For those who have not seen the movie, by the way-

1) Go watch it

2) Someone tries to do exactly what was just described as "reliable" to the protagonist

Let's think this further. Witness reports on Hastings are saying that the car was extremely speeding and going through red lights [1]. How about modifying a car so that as soon as it reaches 50m/ph a) goes to maximum speed and b) deactivates its brakes.

The driver will instinctively try to control the car as good as possible. But ultimately it will crash against something. Through the high stress situation chances are that there is relatively little chances of communication possible except that something is wrong with the car.

Any other wild speculations?

[1] http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hastings-crash-witness-1...

This is 1953 though, a time when cars were still a very new and sometimes unreliable thing.

You do realize the modern automobile was first made around 1885?

I imagine s/he was referencing the fact that most modern cars have on-board computers, that are eminently easier to crack (and much less detectable) than through mechanical additions / tweaks.[1]

H.N. trawling the CIA's old files? How I miss thememoryhole.org. 2009, RIP.

For the record - I'm not going to comment on ancient cold war documents that could be Blue Sky Think-Tank work (and certainly don't look like professional training manuals). You'll probably want School of the Americas manuals for that[2](ahem).

[1]For example: Carshark http://jalopnik.com/5539181/carshark-software-lets-you-hack-... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas_Watch

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