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Why Your Phone Gets OTA Updates But Your Car Doesn't
New submitter kjbullis writes with this snippet from Technology Review: "When Toyota recalled over two million cars last week because of flaws with antilock braking systems and other problems, the fix was simple — a few software updates .The implementation of that fix is far from simple. Every one of those cars has to be taken into a dealership to have the new software installed, an expensive process that can take months. Cars that haven't been fixed could, in some cases, suddenly stall and crash. There is an alternative — the same sort of remote software updates used for PCs and smart phones. Indeed, one automaker, Tesla Motors, already provides what it calls 'over-the-air updates,' which allowed it to execute a recent software fix without requiring anybody to bring in their cars. But other automakers are dragging their feet, both because they're worried about security and because they might face resistance from dealers."
Because a bad update on the phone won't cause a high speed fiery wreck.
...but I'd rather not add any more attack vectors than absolutely essential.
Please wait while Windows restarts your......KER-BAM!
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Although it doesn't happen as often these days, I do remember OTA updates bricking my phone in the past, and PCs under my care are still occasionally screwed up by "drive-by updates" in the middle of the night. For something like a car with the potential for property damage or stranding me and mine far from civilization, I'm pretty sure I don't want automatic OTA updates, even if they could arrange that the car not be moving during the time. I want to know exactly what problem the update is solving, the likelihood I will experience that problem, whether the update and backout procedures have been vetted, and the post-update test procedure. I make a living with my camera, and I don't blindly install firmware updates for it either.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Having OTA capability encourages vendors to push out incomplete/buggy firmware ("we can always fix it later") and to push out updates without properly testing them ("if it breaks something, we'll just fix it and re-send"). Suffice to say we definitely do not need these kind of perverse incentives on cars.
And that's without even getting into the trouble that a malicious user could potentially cause if they managed to hack the OTA process and sent out spoofed updates to vehicles...
When you're running late for work, you don't want to wait for your car to reboot to install a software update.
You never expect irony, do you?
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