Congress May Force Revealing of Car Computer Secrets

marksven writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that there is a bill with 86 co-sponsors in the House to force automakers to open up their proprietary interfaces to car computers. Small car repair shops are more and more becoming locked out of the repair business because most late model cars can only be fixed by accessing their computers with codes that are secret."

Comments

woo

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress to Automakers: "G1bb0rz u5 j00r l337 c0d3x0r5555!"

I'm sorry, Dave...

[rasafras]

...I'm afraid I can't do that.

Re:I don't get Congress.

[dspfreak]

Because in this case, politicians were actually able to make the mental leap necessary to understand the analogy "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?"

Apple ./. IBM Microprocessor

[Star_Gazer]

... Territo said. "It's like the difference between an Apple microprocessor and an IBM microprocessor."

Hmmh, and I thought Apples G5 Microprocessors come from IBM...

Re:This has been done before

[cgenman]

This really isn't much different than open-source vs closed-source though, is it...if the person selling it wants to lock you out of the internals, well, your choices include not buying from them.

#:apt-get install camaro
No package by that name.
#:apt-get install thunderbird
Try "apt-get install firefox"
#:apt-get install mini
Downloading "mini-dinstall" from repos
Ctrl-C
Process interrupted

#:apt-get install pinto
Warning: you are about to install package "pinto" from repository "www.ford.com/unstable" Do you wish to continue?

Ctrl-C