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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.

19 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 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.
    2. 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"

    3. 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.
    4. 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.

    5. 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. 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.
  3. 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

  4. 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.

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

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

  6. 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.
  7. 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 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.

  8. 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.
  9. 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.