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EFF Fighting Automakers Over Whether You Own Your Car
An anonymous reader writes: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act contains anti-circumvention prohibitions that affect everything from music files to cell phones. The EFF noticed that it could apply to cars as well, so they asked for an exemption to be put in place so car owners would be free to inspect and modify the code running on their vehicles. It turns out U.S. automakers don't agree — they filed opposition comments through trade associations. "They say you shouldn't be allowed to repair your own car because you might not do it right. They say you shouldn't be allowed to modify the code in your car because you might defraud a used car purchaser by changing the mileage. They say no one should be allowed to even look at the code without the manufacturer's permission because letting the public learn how cars work could help malicious hackers, "third-party software developers" (the horror!), and competitors. John Deere even argued that letting people modify car computer systems will result in them pirating music through the on-board entertainment system, which would be one of the more convoluted ways to copy media (and the exemption process doesn't authorize copyright infringement, anyway)."
If I can't work on my car, I will not buy it. Same with my computer.
Just need their forgiveness
They say you shouldn't be allowed to repair your own car because you might not do it right
They say that as if the dealers can do it right. Apparently they've never been to a dealer to get their car serviced.
had an idiot reprogram the brake software. Sure he's 'liable' but you're now dead...
:)
:)
On the same front, I've always marveled that anybody can work on their own brakes...and legally drive on the roads. Sure lots of people are more than capable of doing so, but I know you wouldn't want to be in front of me if I had worked on my brakes
Given how much more complex software can be than a physical mechanism, the implications of every yahoo reprogramming their cars does make me wonder. I agree with the EFF's idea here, it's my car I should be able to work on it, but is there something perhaps too far from that? The odometer is a good example. It's *possible* to roll one back, but there certainly tamper resistant preventions to this in place. Should computers in cars have the same thing?
How far do you take it? Do I simply disable the 'input' to the odometer, but not the spedometer...thereby 'rolling back' my odometer via omission rather than overt act.
It's going to be an interesting, ahem, ride
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I'll agree to regulating the software in my car as soon as they agree to make it completely open so an independent regulator can inspect it.
It would be something like aircraft.
Think Of the Children! They're the future we most protect them.... wut?
It's not a purchase, it's a license agreement.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm sorry, but auto manufacturers have a point. Not anyone is competent to reprogram embedded car software. Unfortunately, bugs can be deadly. How would you feel about, say, 10% of the cars on the road running custom software by the next door kid?
Cars are killing much more people than guns. In fact, I would go further than the auto manufacturers. Nobody should be allowed to drive a car. How many people on the roads shouldn't have even a driver's license at all? A lot. And you are ready to see those people hacking their own car software? No way!
Achille Talon
Hop!
is why I throw money at the EFF every month!
...coming up with a good care analogy for this.
get the god damned software OUT of cars, and all the chips. they weren't present for the first 100 years of the automobile, and they aren't needed now.
I know this comment won't be popular on Slashdot, but the auto makers do have a valid point. Cars today must meet rigid safety, fuel efficiency, and emissions standards. The car's computer is an essential part of the system. A small modification to the software can be the difference between a car being in compliance with these regulations and falling well outside them. The danger is people might start "hot-rodding" their cars through changes to the software, allowing the car to go faster but at the expense of polluting more and burning more fuel. What makes this particularly dangerous is that it would be trivial to set the car back to its factory state when it's time to bring the car in for emissions checks and then back to its "hot-rod" state as soon as you get it home. So these concerns are not unwarranted.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Under existing laws.
They say you shouldn't be allowed to repair your own car because you might not do it right.
I feel like the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is going to come into play at some point here.
I tried to raise this issue before... with the Tesla auto-updating your cars firmware without asking the owner of the car first, and how that means they can literally put anything in there without your consent. (NSA GPS tracking anyone?)
Everyone was too busy going "OMG TESLA RULEZ" to care. (A great car sure, but that doesn't mean we need another Apple walled-garden.)
Yes, the general public should not be able to work on their own cars. Only ASE certified mechanics should be allowed because of that oath they all take when they pass mechanic's school.
Before someone says something stupid, yes, that's sarcasm.
I hope these idiots know that a lot of reputable mechanics are ex-cons.
I'm glad the EFF has taken up this fight. To me there's no symbolic difference between the code controlling the digital throttle in my xB and the cable doing the same thing in my 24 year-old Tercel... except that the Tercel does it better. I'm not sure, but I think the values that represent my throttle pressure aren't as smooth as they could be, and it might be due to it not being a float value.
Wonky throttle values aren't exactly unknown to Toyotas, as Wozniak discovered with his Prius. I probably would be unable to fix this bug, but he could. It's also possible that the somewhat rough transition between super-light pressure and the notch above that is actually a developing issue with my engine (it's not that noticeable, so the nuance leads me to believe it isn't physical - or at least that it could be improved in code).
So what if I could kill someone by editing the code in my xB? I could kill someone by working on my Tercel too. The legal responsibility rests with me either way. There's no real difference except that there exists precedence for controlling what people can do with the code in their gadgets. Perhaps in some crazy parallel universe, not only could automakers argue that the code isn't yours, they could argue that the whole car isn't yours to do with as you please either. I can imagine the same kind of EULA you agree to in software being applicable to the entire vehicle, listing off all the things you can and cannot do to with "your" brand new car. If they say you must go to the dealer for all repairs, then you must do it, and in the event of tempering, they can revoke your license and take your car back from you.
It's really the car analogy come to life. I have no doubt this argument has been made before. It's just that in the past, computers were computers, cars were cars, and if your car had a computer, it was just an 8-bit micro-controller that managed your vacuum control valves and fuel pressure.
I simply don't buy cars with computers, ever. Period. My Daily driver is a 70's Porsche, and my collector car is a 60s VW Beetle. Neither even have power brakes or steering, let alone computers, and both are incredibly easy to repair. Never, ever, will I allow a computer to interfere with my driving. Made that mistake one time and one time only (and ended up with a car I hated and which fought me tooth-and-nail all the time. What a frustrating piece of crap (I kid you not, if you walked away from it, it would lock the doors in 30 seconds! What a pain in the arse! I can lock my own damn doors or leave them unlocked, as I please, thank you very much!). Don't even get me started about the traction-control (which prevented movement in winter conditions) or the stability control (which induced terrifying levels of understeer during any kind of "spirited" driving or emergency handling.) Neither the TCS nor the Stability control could be turned off in this model. But even if we leave out the dangerous stuff like the abysmal TCS/Stability control, the minor annoyances drove me nuts. Automatic lights, automatic locks, etc. Just "feature after feature" of annoying crap that I do faster and more easily myself.
The real issue that we're going to be up against is whether 3rd parties will be permitted to continue to manufacture replacement parts. Soon every part incorporates an RFID, and the car refuses to start without all the RFID tags matching the authorization database. Perhaps they'll start with all the parts that they can justify as safety-critical, 'cause, you know, for the children. The government could even push for this in order to make sure that mileage and pollution critical parts are kept unmodified, 'cause, you know, for the environment. Then when the complaints pour in that it's anticompetitive, they'll authorize third parties so long as they tithe back to the original manufacturer, 'cause, you know, for the corporations. Finally, after some number of years, they'll just deauthorize all the parts, so you have to scrap the car, 'cause, you know, you need a new car, or just because they can't be bothered to keep supplying security updates for the buggy software.
.....sell cars which maybe used to kill people.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
I'll take my stand with the automakers on this one.
The only way to gain popular acceptance of the substantially automated or fully driverless car is to guarantee that the technology is trustworthy and reliable ---
that all hardware and software changes are fully documented, competently performed, meet all statutory requirements and will not leave the owner or manufacturer exposed to civil or criminal action somewhere down the road.
The geek may obsess over his "ownership" of a vehicle. I care more about avoiding a crash and a lawsuit that may cripple me financially.
1) fully programmable ecus have been around (and cheap) for ages. Over 13 years ago, I took out my project car's factory ecu and plugged the same wiring harness into an ecu that let me run larger injectors, a large range of manifold pressures, wideband O2 instead of narrowband, etc. This was part of a pretty crazy (for the time) turbo build. Since then, ecus have only gotten cheaper and more capable.
2) many factory ECUs are programmable and have been for ages. A lot of the american cars have readily available programmers, so that swapping in bigger injectors, cams, a blower, etc is all pretty straghtforward. I'm sure there's a ton of advancements I haven't even heard of in the past 10 years.
3) piggyback ECUs and sensor fooling setups are less capable than a full race computer, but they can easily accomplish a lot of the less crazy tunes. Back in the old old days, you could get extra fuel for your turbo with tricks like raising the fuel pressure without changing the fuel injectors, triggering extra TB mounted injectors with pressure switches, etc. And in the even older days, people didn't even have fuel injectors. People have been going fast without factory support for ages.
The real question is whether companies realize that it's to their benefit to make it easier for customers to use their product as a modding platform or not. Rather than being scared, they should see it as an opportunity to steer modders in the right direction so they don't blow up their engines. The truth is, I think car makers do an awful job of serving the enthusiast market- a lot of people like me don't want an expensive car with a safe warranty (which stealerships always try to weasel out of anyway)- we want something reliable, cheap and reasonably fast that they can wrench on, with decent support in terms of parts and factory knowledge.
>by changing the mileage.
If only there were some way to digitally sign that.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
They have no business complaining about people repairing their own cars or stealing music.
They might have a claim about selling cars that have been modified. No big deal, put in a "return to default setting" function and perhaps a warning "Default setting not in use" light on their dashboard.
Nigga please.
I guess you don't own anything.
Got source code for your coffee maker? Any applience?
PCB schematics?
Mechanical Drawings?
Patterns for your shirt?
By you definition you own nothing.
Apparently this is news to slashdotters, but hot rod enthusiasts are able to completely build replicas early model cars. You can build a 1940 Ford Coupe with steel frame and steel body, 1965 small block built to moderrn quality. Not one bit of electronics except for the radio. Street legal.
Nowadays building your own car is like paint by numbers. Note: possessing an indoor garage and automotive tools is recommended before attempting to build your own car.
They want dealer only service just think what they can do with that? lock out jiffy lube and make you pay $50-$60 + labor at the dealer each 3000 miles or 3 months with a light you can't turn off and or locked in limp mode.
try software updates end after one 1 year want that fix buy a new car.
It's very easy to show that code isn't factory standard, voiding any automaker liability.
No exemption does not mean no access. Those with malicious intent do not care about laws so the lack of an exemption will not slow them down. The criminals that want to cause crashes, steal cars, defraud buyers, etc. really don't care about the DMCA.
Exemptions are only for the rest of use, that want to be able to legally work on things that we purchased and should have every right to work on. That said, people should not be modifying the software that could leave the car unsafe to drive and there should be some sort of protections. Reading and understanding the software is perfectly reasonable. We have already seen manufacturers releasing flawed software that has caused dangerous situations which provides a strong case for third party review of the code.
If you give people control over their own stuff, people will die!!!!
"The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!"
If Dell can do this, I am pretty sure General Motors could figure it out.
Is seems most folks don't know the true definition of ownership. Ownership of something is proportional to your control over it. If you control something, you own it. If you have no control over it, you don't own it.
If you look at how products and their various support and delivery mechanisms have changed in the last decade+, you will see a cross-industry trend whereby consumers that purchase products are losing more control over them.
BTW, it doesn't matter if you elect to personally exercise control you hold over something, perhaps due to interest, skill, or time. To the extent that consumers have control, commercial opportunities become available that don't exist if control stays with the manufacturer. In other words, you might exercise your ownership rights through a third party.
Already answered. Smartphones are very programmable,
- except you don't have root (which is to ensure the system works like the OS maker),
- except the FCC-approved radio chip (to ensure you use public airspace inappropriately).
"Programmable cars" have been here since they put in radio tuners. The level of programmability should increase, but they should retain control of safety-critical operations.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
As far as I can tell the cost of a Toyota Corolla is basically the same number of dollars as it was 10 years ago. Which means that after factoring in inflation the car is significantly cheaper than it used to be.
I have a 2005 Toyota Matrix, and aside from oil changes and tires I've only had to replace one part (the airbag clockspring) which cost a few hundred bucks and which I installed myself.
Hey no problem. They want dealer only service for the life of the car, then go ahead and supply it under warranty.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Well bad people dont give a damn what car manufacturer thinks.. They are going to look throw the code anyways to find holes they can use to benefit. Want to steal a car? Find security hole that allows you to unlock doors and start the car.
I remember when the standard analogy comparing open source to proprietary software was, "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?" Sound to me like they are wanting to weld the hood shut.
I don't know about you guys but I'm running down to John Deere as we speak to get me a tractor so I can copy those MP3s.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
But what about modifying the computer to no longer send data to the (nowadays electronic) odometer?
I'm sorry, but auto manufacturers have a point. Not anyone is competent to reprogram embedded car software. Unfortunately, bugs can be deadly. How would you feel about, say, 10% of the cars on the road running custom software by the next door kid?
Cars are killing much more people than guns. In fact, I would go further than the auto manufacturers. Nobody should be allowed to drive a car. How many people on the roads shouldn't have even a driver's license at all? A lot. And you are ready to see those people hacking their own car software? No way!
What an unreasonable argument. I doubt any time in modern times has the ability to modify a car resulted in 10% of the cars on the road being modified from stock, not by experienced and qualified auto shops much less by some pimply faced kid next door. And confusing the argument by bringing driver skill into the equation is nonsensical -- that is entirely a separate subject that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
This is all about using questionable digital asset laws like the DMCA to fundamentally change the landscape of the auto service industry (and other things). An automotive mechanical system can be reverse engineered by taking it apart. A manufacturer comes up with a mechanical systems improvement, and pretty soon third party parts companies are offering cheaper if not sometimes better replacement parts. Customers get choice, competition flourishes, etc. Now take a new digital auto system. It could be reverse engineered by "taking it apart" digitally, but DMCA makes that illegal. Worse yet, the communications protocols that allow auto subsystems to talk to each other will soon be encrypted and will also fall under the DMCA. The end result is that third parties will not be able to offer replacement parts. Customer choice plummets, competition is non-existent, and the end result is a capture of recurring revenue by the auto manufacturer.
Don't fool yourself into thinking this is a little thing. This is a big deal. It's like buying Keurig and forever buying chipped K-cup coffee instead of using an old Mr. Coffee and using any old ground coffee. The digital trends in automotive engineering are far more subtle and complex, but the end result -- and the reasons to pursue some of these changes -- are exactly the same.
There is something to be said for a '68 mustang with a 302 in it
i was getting 18 freeway
No, what should have applied here was the Motor Vehicle Owners Right to Repair Act of 2009 http://righttorepair.org/about/default.aspx, but after several years of fighting the bill the automakers finally killed it last year by agreeing to allow independent repair shops access to the necessary information http://www.autonews.com/article/20140125/RETAIL05/301279936/automakers-agree-to-right-to-repair-deal.
This deal allowed them to continue to withhold the information from car owners and shade tree mechanics, since they can (and do) put up process hoops to make repair shops prove they are a commercial enterprise.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/20/2219236/right-to-repair-law-to-get-drm-out-of-your-car
Lack of relevant editorial references like this is what you get from editors who have the attention span of a meth-addicted goldfish. *sigh*
I swear to god the shills on this website...this has nothing to do with the code.
Actually this thread is really about the code. Re-read and note: "The EFF ... asked for an exemption to be put in place so car owners would be free to inspect and modify the code running on their vehicles."
Car companies want to stop independent mechanics using software than bypasses the manufacturers electronic locks.
Yes, that is also true. However that does not negate the reality that the EFF wants people to be able to MODIFY code. That is something FAR beyond simply getting the error codes and diagnostic data that would allow non-dealership mechanics to work on the car. Its a related but quite separate issue.
Already had this problem with my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. The hybrid battery went dead. I went to the dealer and asked them to sell me a new battery so I could put it in. They refused, insisting THEY had to install it, and they would not sell me the battery! That's right, kids -- they refused to let me fix my own car, despite the fact that I am a trained electronics technician and hold a Bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This is one of the main reasons I absolutely reject the "Internet of Things". It's because it will inevitably lead to you not actually owning any of those "things" that you buy.
As long as we have these cockamamie "intellectual property" laws in place, I see the "Internet of things" as an assault on my rights and counter to my preferences as a consumer.
You are welcome on my lawn.
A few years ago my 2006 Hyudai Elantra car alarm started acting up. It would go off and not respond to the key-fob, unless I damn near stomped on the fob. I went to a my mechanic and a couple of aftermarket car alarm companies seeing if they could simply disarm the alarm. They all made the Sign of the Cross (metaphorically), and I was basically told that if any car mechanic of any sort other than a dealer ever working on any car alarm and the local police found out about it, they, the mechanics, would be assumed to be working with auto theft rings. Then they (the mechanics), shot me with their grease guns.
It doesn't matter. In a few years cars will be unrepairable or not worth repairing, like everything else.
Lets remember their arguments when the self driving cars get here...
*I* don't need car insurance! I'm not driving. I don't even own the car!
Someone got killed? Automakers problem! I'm going home. Send me a new car...
In the case of autonomous cars, I'm perfectly OK with a layer of access that consumers don't get... We're going to want car makers / car OS makers to assume liability for accidents where software is at fault; giving consumer access to the autonomous vehicle control code could be not only dangerous, but a way to pass that liability on to the consumer.
Not to mention is anyone else worried that once cars are autonomous, if hackers aver gain the ability to hijack them, the results could be catastrophic: kidnapping, using cars as weapons, holding people hostage in their on vehicles. The potential there is pretty scary.... So I for one am quite ok with keeping vehicle code in the hands of the automakers, let them stay responsible for it.
1981-89 Volvos FTW.
Car makers may not want to win such a suit. By getting the courts to force them to make code available the companies establish a legal shield against law suits caused by people who incorrectly use the code. They can not be held liable if they are forced by the government to reveal that code. Sometimes suits are filed with the intention of loss or at least with the hope of establishing "clean hands" to show a jury that everything possible was done to prevent a situation.
Wikipedia has a brief entry on open-source cars.
because you tried to code them to let you drift and impress your friends, I'm sure that you will somehow manage to bring them back to life. Unless you are able to prove to the same degree as the real engineers that you know what you are doing, I don't want any hacked up critical systems out on the public streets.
to have everyone drive tanks so the big bad government doesn't intrude on you so called right to get plastered and drive home?
simply repeating the same BS over and over does not make it true. I know that young children like to repeat themselves, but you probably want to have people actually consider what you have to say.
people preparing food in their own home cant sell to the public without, guess what, a lot of rules and regulations. If you were planning on keeping you car in your garage you could modify the heck out of it and nobody would care. If you plan on driving on public streets, then the public has the right and duty to stop you from putting everyone else in danger due to your over inflated sense of self-importance.
that I should be able to do whatever I want and expect the grownups to clean up my mess with a smile.
so there is no difference!
I'd taxi drivers, drives our crown vic police interceptors to 400,000 miles with very minimal maintenance.
Okay , I messed up the first part. Anyway, we get another 250K to 300K after getting ex police cars with 100k
With the security in the car. Regardless of what they tell you all new cars have GPS, record your every move, and record the care you take to keep up the car (for warranty and engine service needs) . If they call you crazy when they tell you they don't do this.... think again. This is why they don't want you tinkering under the hood. Chances are it would be the first things disabled.