Geek Weekly: Our top tech stories for 8 September 2015

Technology Decisions' weekly wrap of IT fails, latest tech, new must-have gadgets, 'computer says no' moments and more.

Are you up for the challenge? On 30 September–1 October, aspiring Aussie security pros will be put to the test via the federal government's 2015 Cyber Security Challenge, "a 24-hour virtual game that tests cyber penetration and forensic analysis skills in a 'hacking' style environment". Organisers are expecting more than 250 students from over 20 Australian unis to take part. The prize will be a team trip to DEFCON 2016 in Las Vegas.

Cars and computers #1. Toyota will invest US$50 million over the next five years on research and development into AI that it can apply to its cars, with the aim of producing vehicles that are "never responsible for a crash", said the company's Dr Gill Prat. Teaming with MIT and Stanford, the carmaker says it won't be going down the Google self-driving car route, but instead will use technology to monitor the environment to assist the driver drive safely.

Cars and computers #2. But not so fast. What if all those fancy environment-monitoring AI sensors could be spoofed with a $100 home-built gadget that fools the car into thinking it is surrounded by pedestrians or about to hit a brick wall? The car wouldn't move. And that's just what security scientist Jonathan Petit has come up with. All you need is a laser pointer and few bits of electronics. The research will be presented at the Black Hat Europe conference in November.

Cars and computers #3. But assuming your car isn't being spoofed by naughty researchers as you drive along, there are still other dangers out there. Such as the weather. And that's something INRIX Road Weather aims to challenge. Not by changing the weather (they're not that good yet), but by gathering data from cars — such as speed, and whether the windscreen wipers are on — adding in weather information, and making an educated guess about what the road conditions are like… such as black ice or heavy rain. INRIX already supplies similar services to carmakers such as Porsche.

Jackpot or hackpot? An infosec specialist who worked for a US lottery association has been convicted of fraud for his role in a US$14.3 million lottery scam. Eddie Raymond Tipton (pictured) was one of only five people who had access to the association's lottery random number generating room, where he installed a rootkit via a USB stick. He also tampered with security cameras. His efforts resulted in a winning lottery ticket, but he (and accomplices) was unable to cash it (and they tried many times) because of failure to provide a name for the winner (required by law)