Is Hacking Cars a Thing of the Past?

PhotoGuy asks: "I went to install a remote car starter in our Honda last week, which used to be kind of an elegant hack (like a controlled hot-wiring of your car), only to find out that additional expensive parts and modules were required, due to the anti-theft system on the vehicle, where the car's computer would not let it start, unless it received the right code from the magnetic encoding on the key! In order to install a car starter, you have to actually put a spare key to the vehicle *in* the add-on module to let the car starter do it's thing. Yeah, that makes me more comfortable, leaving a key installed the remote car starter. That sucker went back to the store pretty quickly, that's way too much work, when a dealership can do it for me. Is the slight reduction in risk of theft of your vehicle, worth that much loss of freedom of choice and control?"

"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..."

Comments

"Loss of freedom and control"

[Skyshadow]

How on earth do you lose freedom here? You're still free to go buy a car that doesn't use this sort of antitheft system -- get a Kia or something. I don't recall seeing legislation requiring you to go buy a Honda.

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.

Evolution

[uslinux.net]

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.

Car thieves have it all wrong....

[Restil]

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

Re:other ignition technologies

[Tassach]

Sure, let's treat everyone like criminals because the might do somthing bad. Hell, while we're at it let's put speed governers in everyone's car so nobody can drive too fast. Let's put in proximity sensors to force them to slow down if they are tailgating someone. Let's put in a system to shut off the engine if they run a red light. Let's mandate GPS transponders and surveillance devices in all vehicles so the government can track our every move.

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.

Computer Controls are our Friends

[Nightclaw]

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. :-)

Re:Their goal...

[Pyrosz]

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.

Why Write A Ticket?

[Greyfox]

Versus, say, simply having the car refuse to go over the speed limit?

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.