Hack Your Ignition (Before Someone Else Does)

guanxi writes: "IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article about hacking and specifically, the "hacker's nirvana on wheels", all the way from hot-rodding to reprogramming your digital ignition. Of course, I neither endorse nor recommend any of the procedures mentioned, any of which may be inherently dangerous to your life and your warranty. "

Comments

Tune with care

[klui]

One of the problems with tuners is that they add more power without accounting for aging of components. This isn't usually a problem in racing since you're rebuilding your components after every or a number of races. But for "hackers," they often tune it and forget it--or tune it and increase the mods. Sometime down the road, they'll blow a piston or apex seal without warning. Not to mention several thousand dollars' down the drain.

I personally prefer more conservative tuning, but then when some guy beats you during an ad-hoc "race," your first instinct is "gotta get mo' power."

A question

[sllort]

Reverse-engineering is fun. Reverse-engineering embedded systems is even more fun, because it's hard. Reverse-engineering safety-critical embedded systems is really challenging, and not for the stupid.

Now, what the author is talking about is reverse-engineering the systems that control AntiLock braking, ignition, and transmission control, among other things. It's a really cheap way to improve performance on a car.

Car companies (well, at least Ford) have a bad history when it comes to electronic civil liberties. At what point in reverse-engineering a throttle control system would you be "bypassing an access protection device"? Probably never. But consider that Adobe got someone jailed for breaking ROT13; Cuecat was XOR. If people start selling hot-rod software (and they are), how long will it be till auto manufacturers start answering Yes to the author's "is it encrypted" question. It might only be ROT13, but it would be enough to bust anyone who was selling firmware upgrades for a Mustang and put them out of business for good.

Anyone remember the 60 minutes Audi 5000 scandal? Where the car's fuel injection system was said to, in rare cases, cause the car to accelerate out of control, causing injury or death? Let your subconcious do the dreaming about the accidents that could come from improperly debugged ABS code or throttle control. Now imagine that someone hacks their car's firmware, crashes in a fireball, and their family sues the automaker. The automaker can't prove that the car was modified... at all.

My prediction: this stuff will scare automakers shitless, and they will fall all overthemselves to find a way to apply the DMCA to stopping the dissemination of reverse-engineering information.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Re:Very common already

[bunyip]

Now how many people out there can spare the time, effort, and money to have a system that really only performs marginally better than anything that can be bought off the shelf? Not many people, that's for sure.

Hmmm - what about overclockers? Submerge your MB in liquid nitrogen to gain a couple o' hundred MHz? I've seen some pretty cool hacks on /. over the last couple of years.

How about spending nights and weekends hacking the Linux kernel to reduce interrupt latency? Would the "average" computer user care or notice?

I would think that many people would do this. We nerds have a kindred spirit in hot-rodders. To them, a generic four-banger is the M$ of the automotive world.

I would like to add that I'm both a computer hacker and car hacker (Subaru WRX). I also brew my own beer (beer hacker?).

Re:Very common already

[milkmandan9]

Hmmm - what about overclockers? Submerge your MB in liquid nitrogen to gain a couple o' hundred MHz? I've seen some pretty cool hacks on /. over the last couple of years.

Very true. They're the same in spirit, and the only difference is in implementation.

You usally (usually!) don't have to worry about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere if your overclocked MB bites the dust, and when it does, it doesn't always (always!) mean that it will make a $4000 engine turn itself into scrap.

The skill sets are different, too. With overclocking, you need good computer skills and some common-sense mechanical and electrical skills. Beyond that, all you need is the cash to buy it all. When deciphering a modern engine management system you need a good background in CS, some workable knowledge of EE, and enough mechanical skills to get the damned thing running.

Or, in the case of some (some!) of the vinyl-sticker-emblazoned, wake-the-neighborhood-up-at-3am types, all you need is a good instruction manual or a mechanic worth his price.

But I definitely agree with you. The spirit is the same.

Re:Hmm..

[John_Booty]

The car manufacturers have another very good reason for keeping the electonics systems relatively simple- so they WORK BETTER. Each flaw costs them millions of dollars in recalls or warrantied repairs. The less extraneous shit they cram into the electronics, the less is likely to go wrong.

Maybe commerical software engineers will realize this, some day? ;-)

Mod this parent up as funny!

[Mustang Matt]

"My Honda Integra Type R manages about three-four times the power of your big-iron block at the same rev range, not to mention around the same torque."

ROFL! You do realize that HP is a function of torque at a particular RPM right? Ummm... Not too many 4 bangers have v8 torque at ANY rpm let alone the same rpm.