Slashdot Mirror
Is Hacking Cars a Thing of the Past?
"Ever since electronic ignitions, and especially ones controlled by computers, it seems the "hackability" and user-maintainability of cars has been declining. Your neighborhood grease monkey can't do much to a modern car without a bunch of electronic gear interfacing to the car's computer. It's almost a little anti-competitive.
Carbeurators, and the other mechanical systems which were fairly standard and visible and self-evident, really seem to be the equivalent of "open source", while the new computer-based systems seem to be more closed and proprietary. I know in the early days of cars with computers, there were third party ROM upgrades for performance tweaking; I'm guessing that's falling by the wayside more and more, as these systems get more and more complex.
It almost seems like a Microsoft-like statement, to tell you they're doing all of this to reduce theft, while really they're doing it to ensure you are forced into coming back to their dealerships..."
Jesus, this is on the level of whining that you can't use the windshield wipers from your old car (which were brand new!) on a new car you just bought.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
As the once proud owner of a 1966 Mustang, I remember what it was like to mod the hell out of my car. Now my wife has a Civic and I have a 4Runner (hey, we live in the mountains, so 4WD is a MUST on at least one vehicle). Modern cars are a LOT quiter, ride better, get better fuel economy, and are better for the environment. Equivalent sized (outside dimentions) vehicles actually have MORE room inside them now, more luxuries (all but the cheapest cars now have power windows/locks/disc brakes/etc, are much safer, etc, etc.
All of this comes at a price. You now nearly need to be a rocket scientist (or at least an automotive engineer) to work on them, but IMO, the price is worthwhile. Meanwhile, my 5.0L V8 '66 Mustang used to get about 16 MPG and had about 220HP, yet you can buy a 4-cylinder Subaru WRX with 225HP (Turbo) which gets ~27MPG, and will let you walk away in a crash.
Yes, cars have gotten harder to work on, but they've also gotten safer, lighter, less polluting, and more luxurious. If you want to tinker with your vehicle, buy a 2-door Civic and mod it up, or buy a classic to restore like I did. Or get a kit, and build it from scratch.
I mean.. why break into cars, hotwire them, and drive them off. The smart thief would save up and get himself a tow truck. The ONLY person who would pay any attention at all is the owner. The alarm could be going off and nobody would give it a second glance. Chances are good, nobody would ever even get a plate #. You could steal the car in plain sight, and never hear a peep about it.
No antitheft system in the world will help against a dedicated theif. The most effective system would probably be to just remove the distributor cap, or a kludge to disconnect the battery easily. No car thief is gonna spend time under the hood finding out why the car won't start. Of course, you get bit on convienence issues. But you'll never have to concern yourself with car theft.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I have no problem with installing a breathalizer in the car of someone who has been convicted of DUI/DWI, but it's totally unacceptable to require it of someone who has not even been accused, let alone convicted, of a crime.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Comparing modern computer-controlled cars to closed-source software is a bit unfair, really. Modern cars are VERY hackable, if you know what you're doing and don't mind voiding parts of your warranty. The car-modding game's the same, but the rules have changed is all. If you understand the rules, there is little you cannot mod on a new car.
:-)
To use my own car as an example, there is a program that would allow me to modify the fuel tables, ignition tables and other operational parameters on the on-board computer using a standard PC (program: LS1Edit). This acheives the same thing as playing with the distributor dwell and carb mixture on an older engine, and then some.
Or, for the less adventurous, Hypertech makes a device that allows you to apply "macros" to the onboard computer, doing the same thing as LS1Edit, but to a lesser degree.
Further, modern cars (with the appropriate computer hacks) still respond quite nicely to the old-school tricks: headers, camshafts, intakes, strokers, blowers, etc. It's like having the best of both worlds - the reliability and economy of computer control, and the performance and "hackability" of old-school tricks.
It all comes down to learning new rules to play the same old game.
These guys sell a generic OBDII scan tool for your Palm or Handspring Visor PDA for $329.
On the whole "their making it more complex to make more money for dealers issue", its not even close to that. They make it more complex by adding computer controls to get finer control of the car. Mechanical switches and valves are not as good (emissions, gas mpg, etc..) as computer controlled (electronic) ones. I have a feeling a lot of geeks don't even change their own oil let a lone do something like change an engine. Please go to a local net forum about cars and read a little.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
The car-starter situation is nothing new. For quite a while, the car manufacturers have been making it harder to build knock-off parts, while simultaneously preserving installation revenue for the dealers. Funky tools, fasteners, threads, anything to discourage the non-dealer mechanic or the knock-off manufacturer. Standardization encourages dealer avoidance, hacking, cloning and (in the case of cars) theft. Cars with lots of interchangeable parts are popular with the "chop shops".
To be fair about it, Honda had a big problem with theft. It's no secret that the engine computer is the final frontier of anti-theft technology. How can anyone critize Honda for addressing the problem?
Car hacking is not dead, but it requires more ingenuity than it used to. I remember the old days when I upgraded my home computer by soldering additional memory chips on top of the onboard memory. Just because I can't do that with a modern motherboard, does that make it "unhackable"?
I have a Honda with the chipped key, and the remote starter that this guy was talking about. The security question occurred to me, so I tried to think about how a thief would go about using the key that's in the remote starter against me.
You can't just remove the key and then take the car. You have to remove the key, remove the remote starter, then reconnect the ignition to the car's starter. This job, in an ideal environment would take about an hour to do.
It then occurred to me that the least secure place to leave the car is in my own garage, since that place would provide the thieves with the most cover to work under overnight.
They were talking about that on CNN while I was travelling through Europe. It's quite feasible to implement it. It's also quite feasible to implement automatic ticketing that tickets all speeders all the time. Neither system would stand a chance of hell of ever getting implemented. In the case of the car just refusing to speed, that'd eliminate speeding ticket revenue and a lot of places depend on that revenue. In the case of the automatic ticketing thing, people would force the speed limits to be removed or raised to the actual speeds people drive at (Which again would have the effect of eliminating those lovely ticket revenues.)
What this adds up to is that there is a system that is arbitrairly enforced against a population which more or less completely ignores the posted limits.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hacking a computer is nice and no big deal, because they are cheap (Compared to cars.) and unnecessary for things like getting to work, the grocery store, etc. If I screw up my computer, no big deal, it can wait to be fixed. If I screw up my car, my life is thrown into a screwy loop. If my computer is stolen I go drop $1500 on a new one and wait for the insurance company to reimburse me, if my car is stolen I cannot go anywhere until the insurance company reimburses the creditor of the car and I can buy a new one.
Cars are not meant to be toys anymore. If you really insist on playing with your car, buy an old mustang that you don't need to worry about.
Just because you are use to something doesn't make it right. At the turn of the century most Americans were use to Blacks and Whites being separate, but that wasn't right. People seem to think that technology can solve all of our problems. It can't, as it will always be circumvented. People have to be responsible for their actions. Once they have shown that they aren't, curtail their freedoms. As mentioned in other posts, put the breathalyzer in the car of someone that has committed the crime, not in everyone's car.