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Tesla Model S Has Hidden Ethernet Port, User Runs Firefox On the 17" Screen

Posted by timothy on from the wardriving-in-style dept.

New submitter FikseGTS (3604833) writes "A Tesla Model S owner located a 4 pin connector on the left side of the Tesla Model S dashboard that turns out to be a disguised ethernet networking port. After crafting his owns patch cable to connect with the Tesla's port, a networking connection was established between the Tesla Model S and a laptop computer. The Model S is running a 100 Mbps, full duplex ethernet network and 3 devices were found with assigned IP addresses in the 192.168.90.0 subnet. Some ports and services that were open on the devices were 22 (SSH), 23 (telnet),53 (open domain), 80 (HTTP), 111 (rpcbind), 2049 (NFS), 6000 (X11). Port 80 was serving up a web page with the image or media of the current song being played. The operating system is modified version of Ubuntu using an ext3 filesystem. Using X11 it also appears that someone was able to somewhat run Firefox on both of the Model S screens. Is a jailbroken Tesla Model S on the way?" Some more details on this front would be appreciated, for anyone who has a Tesla they'd like to explore.

41 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Why Ubuntu?! by Noxal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would feel safer on the road with CentOS. :P

    1. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 2

      I want to know how he matched up the pins and the baud rate.
      Screw that up on something like a car you're probably in for expensive repair and a real bad time at the car dealer [...]
      I cant wait to see the data on how he did the whole thing.

      It's Ethernet. I'm pretty sure nothing bad will happen if you accidentally switch two of the wires. You just won't get a connection. Their job was also a bit easier in that they used 4-pin rather than 6, but I guess they decided they wouldn't need GigE for whatever this was designed for. :)

      --
      R.Mo
    2. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Informative

      Their job was also a bit easier in that they used 4-pin rather than 6, but I guess they decided they wouldn't need GigE

      GigE uses 8.

    3. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm pretty sure nothing bad will happen

      BRB, bricking my $100k car ...

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by wolrahnaes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have no idea how they found it, but two possible ideas:

      1. They found something that was more obviously Ethernet elsewhere and just traced it to this port.

      2. They stuck a scope on it and saw something that looked like a link pulse, then assumed it was Ethernet from there.

      --
      I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
    5. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by Redmancometh · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I would feel safer on the road with CentOS. :P"

      "Bug report: Won't turn left"

      To turn left please turn the steering wheel two times to the left, press the brake, and then turn the steering wheel to the right. This is a feature to prevent accidental left turns.

      "Bug report closed"

    6. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly. Ethernet is transfomer coupled, so just try the various combinations until it works. Even worse, I'm pretty sure you don't even need to match tx to rx anymore, it auto-negotiates that now. Remember the blue ethernet cables with the red cable boots? The ones to connect computer to computer? They had crossed wires because ethernet didn't used to check for that. I'm sure you haven't seen a red boot on a cable in many years!

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    7. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by mysidia · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is that the Kay Sievers reply?

      Closed: Wontfix, Not a bug

      Again, move discussions to the mailing list; this is a bug tracker, but there is no bug to track or fix here.

    8. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by dbIII · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm sure you haven't seen a red boot on a cable in many years!

      The crossover cable I've got it black with black boots - there was not an official standard followed of red boots that's just what the vendor of your cable used. There are still crossover cables listed from some online suppliers.

      tx to rx anymore, it auto-negotiates that now

      At the switch end almost always now. I'm not so sure about some of the low end stuff on motherboards for the other end.

      I can see myself using a crossover cable again soon for 10Gb ethernet if it's needed, although the switches are starting to descend from insane prices.

    9. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Funny

      I would feel safer on the road with CentOS.

      What, you want your car to last 10 years?

      Quick, somebody come up with a car analogy to explain this...

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    10. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 2

      No, but it sure means you can't cause much damage by jamming in wires any which way.

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    11. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by at_slashdot · · Score: 3, Funny

      Left is a generic term.

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    12. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by thestuckmud · · Score: 2

      What would constitute the "engine timing" on an all electric car?

      Timing in this case would be the phase of the variable frequency drive that powers the motor.

    13. Re:Why Ubuntu?! by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Funny

      I want to know how he matched up the pins and the baud rate.

      Grandpa ... I told you not to post to /. until after you took your metamucil.

      JK :-P

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  2. SkyNet is here by Laxori666 · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Teslas will be the front-line soldiers when skynet finally awakes and claims its birth-right.

    1. Re:SkyNet is here by nopainogain · · Score: 2, Funny

      the first time one transforms like Bumblebee I am going to be really upset.

  3. touch screens in cars, bad idea? by jaymz666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think touch screens are kind of dangerous in a car. I know what my dials and buttons do and can control them by feel while watching the road. touch screens not so much

    1. Re:touch screens in cars, bad idea? by iluvcapra · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hate to tell you, but touch screens have been a staple for fighter jets for a few days now,

      Hate to tell you, but fighter pilots are trained professionals who spend years learning how to use their equipment in an efficient way that doesn't interfere with their flying of the plane.

      Also, the obvious complexity of flying a supersonic $10e9 machine designed to blow stuff up notwithstanding, the problem domain of flying a fighter jet does not involve such things as traffic and obstacles, which is why we've had automatic pilots 60 years ago, but we're only barely beginning to have auto-driving cars.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    2. Re:touch screens in cars, bad idea? by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bet you fighter jet pilots are 900,000 times more trained than the idiots that I drive to work in the morning with on the highway. The people I see driving can barely keep a car between two painted lines and off of rumble strips.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:touch screens in cars, bad idea? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Worse, flown it. Touchscreens are a miserable failure in aviation. Hate that bullshit, and, oh by the way, the idiots in texas finally gave in and added radio tuning knobs because the touchscreen is so useless. Similarly, many civillian avioncs have given up on the touchscreen only, and have gone to bezel buttons for primary and touchscreeen for marketing.

    4. Re:touch screens in cars, bad idea? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      millions of products are designed by idiots for idiots.

      what exactly are you trying to prove, here?

      any experienced UI designer (for things like cars, planes, boats, etc) knows that TACTILE is important and not something you give away. pressing on glass is the worst you can get in tactile.

      only an idiot designs those for cars.

      yes, I called musk an idiot. in this area, he let idiots design a UI that had no business doing it. he is clearly appealing to other rich idiots who don't really want a good UI design. they mostly buy the car for a fashion statement.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    5. Re:touch screens in cars, bad idea? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      99.9999% of all work a fighter pilot does in normal operation is HOTAS - hands on throttle and stick. There are enough controls on those inputs, or within close reach to them, that you can operate the aircraft without ever taking your hands off them.

      And while multifunctional displays are a staple in cockpits these days, they are invariably not touch screen in military aircraft.

  4. Should void warranty by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you want to jailbreak your phone/tablet/television/refrigerator/etc., power to you. If you do anything that impairs reliability, the worst case is that you can't make a phone call, or your ice-cream melts. You're not having any impact on other people.

    If you jailbreak your car, however, and inadvertently change something that impairs reliability, you're compromising the safety of everybody else on the road. Everything (including braking) in Tesla cars is tied into the software, and this is not something you should mess around with.

    1. Re:Should void warranty by TrekkieGod · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you jailbreak your car, however, and inadvertently change something that impairs reliability, you're compromising the safety of everybody else on the road. Everything (including braking) in Tesla cars is tied into the software, and this is not something you should mess around with.

      Bullshit. Tesla has stated that the computer that controls the 17" and panel LCDs are completely separated from the important stuff in the car. They'd be stupid not to. Case in point, you can reboot both systems by holding left and right buttons on the steering wheel. You can do so while driving, I've personally done it. The music stops playing, and you need to put your gps destination in again after it finishes rebooting. If you reboot the panel screen, you lose your speedometer until it boots back up. Steering, acceleration, braking, cruise control, it all continues to work normally.

      Yes, you can change driving settings from that interface, but it doesn't mean the functionality resides in that interface. It just passes the message through to much more robust computer handling actual car functions, and I'm sure said messages are sanitized to the extreme on the receiving end.

      --

      Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

    2. Re:Should void warranty by bmo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you jailbreak your car, however, and inadvertently change something that impairs reliability, you're compromising the safety of everybody else on the road.

      Yeah? So? That's what insurance is for.

      Secondly, you don't seem to have remembered that there are over 100 years of DIY automobile engineering (commonly called hotrodding).

      Are you German or something?

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

      --
      BMO

    3. Re:Should void warranty by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      If you jailbreak your car, however, and inadvertently change something that impairs reliability, you're compromising the safety of everybody else on the road.

      I share your outrage. Can you imagine if people were allowed to make modifications to their cars? We'd better stuff this cat back in the bag before someone overheats their pushrods.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    4. Re:Should void warranty by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Funny

      If the attacker loaded up a whole playlist full of Justin Bieber? you be your will be in a buttload of trouble if you lose touchscreen control...

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    5. Re:Should void warranty by amxcoder · · Score: 3, Informative

      You do realize that people have been hacking and reprogramming normal car ECU's for quite awhile, probably since shortly after cars got ECU's. Not only are there aftermarket "chips", and "reprogrammers" (which really only alter basic parameters), but there are also more sofisticated "Piggyback ECU's" that go inline between normal ECU and engine, and can change received signals to the ECU, and/or alter sent signals to the engine, to override much of the built-in programming on them.

      They even sell completely tunable aftermarket ECU's (for racing purposes) which completely replace the factory computer and you program to suit your needs. The Hydra and Link come to mind.

      I have one of the more advanced "Piggyback" type ECU on my Subaru (UTEC), and it lets me program and run custom Fuel, Timing, and boost maps. Is programmed with a normal laptop and a RS232 cable (or USB on newer models) and even adds features to the car that weren't there originally, like launch control, multi-stage redlines (for flat foot shifting). It even has addtional relay output to aid in control of nitrous or water injection systems. You can also raise/change some of the limits, like RPM and boost limiters.

      Not to mention, the community of many types of cars have open source projects, that reverse engineered some of the stock ECU's to allow complete remapping of the factory units. Subaru's for instance, had an online community cataloging all the different revisions of ECU's hardware, extracting the ROM images of each, reverse engineering the contents of the ROM images (byte by byte), and developing software that let you modify the ROM's. This combined with open sourced hardware, that allows for re flashing through the OBDII port (similar to the proprietary capabilities of the manufacturers hardware). Very sophisticated and dedicated work on the car communities part.

  5. damn hackers, don't they know this is *dangerous*? by meeotch · · Score: 5, Funny

    For the love of God, if you're going to hack while driving, at least get yourself a safety device.

  6. ... modified version of Ubuntu by snikulin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I assume they made all their sources available to Tesla owners, right?

  7. Connector type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    That connector seems to be a M12 standard industrial ethernet connector (IEC 61067–2–101 Amendment 1)

    1. Re:Connector type by Pulzar · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, it is. "Disguised", my ass.

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
  8. Re:While driving? by mythosaz · · Score: 2

    totally separate

    We have a word for that. It's "separate."

    Anyway, your guess is wrong. While this system may only be a receiver of data, it is most certainly connected to "the stuff that actually matters."

  9. Everything is watching you these days... by Lothsahn · · Score: 5, Informative

    The craziest thing in the article that I saw was that Tesla contacted him to tell him he couldn't do that on his car, or it'd void his warranty. Not only is he not allowed to reverse engineer how his car works, they're apparently watching his car at all times.

    It won't be long before people will know what we do, 24/7.

    --
    -=Lothsahn=-
    1. Re:Everything is watching you these days... by jafac · · Score: 2

      Yeah. Running Ubuntu? It was probably Amazon that notified Tesla that he was modding his car.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    2. Re:Everything is watching you these days... by Spoke · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, what's more likely is that they saw his post on the Tesla Motors Club forum detailing what he'd done and then connect the dots between the forum post and ownership data:

      Successful connection on the Model S internal Ethernet network

      Tesla has been known to connect forum users to actual owners and proactively contact the owners via phone when they report problems with their car there.

  10. Re:The Most Important Question Is.... by Salgamma · · Score: 2

    Can I mime Bitcoins with it?

    A mime is a terrible thing to bitcoin.

    --

    Plus ca changes, plus c'est les meme choses.

  11. Re:While driving? by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Funny

    totally separate

    We have a word for that. It's "separate."

    Yes! Thank you! Redundant superlatives are a bugaboo of mine too. Our struggle against them never ends.

    It's a shame. People like us are really unique.

    Wait...

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  12. Do they distribute the source? by fgouget · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There's a lot of GPL software in Ubuntu, starting with the Linux kernel. Does Tesla distribute the source code to Model S owners that ask?

    1. Re:Do they distribute the source? by Spoke · · Score: 2

      There's a lot of GPL software in Ubuntu, starting with the Linux kernel. Does Tesla distribute the source code to Model S owners that ask?

      I am not aware, yet. Have only see one owner be vocal in the past about trying to get it, but haven't . A few relevant threads. Lots of noise and general ignorance about Copyright in there, so prepare yourself.

      Anyone want to get the source code for the Linux (etc.) in your car?
      Running on Linux
      Copyright (and Libel) Discussion

  13. Update story description **Attention Moderators** by BurningSpiral · · Score: 5, Informative

    The connector is an M12 Industrial Ethernet Connector - as seen at http://www.designworldonline.c... The story description should be updated so that more readers find out that they can connect to their Tesla's on-board computer via a easy to find cable.