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How the Car Industry Has Hidden Its Software Behind the DMCA
Lucas123 writes: The DCMA has allowed carmakers to keep third parties from looking at the code in their electronic control modules. The effect has been that independent researchers are wary of probing vehicle code, which may have lead companies like Volkswagen to get away with cheating emissions tests far longer than necessary. In a July letter to the U.S. Copyright Office, the Environmental Protection Agency expressed its own concern of the protection provided by the DMCA to carmakers, saying it's "difficult for anyone other than the vehicle manufacturer to obtain access to the software." Kit Walsh, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the legal uncertainly created by the DMCA "makes it easier for manufacturers to conceal intentional wrongdoing. The EFF has petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office for an exemption to the DMCA for embedded vehicle code so that independent research can be performed on electronic control modules (ECMs), which run a myriad of systems, including emissions.
Eben Moglen was right.
Eben Moglen is always right. Now take some time and watch some of his lectures on internet freedom, privacy and open source software
may have lead companies
The past tense of "lead" is "led".
Captcha: mislead
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make your own ecm with a arduino or raspberry pi? Last one I had to replace was $700.
That would be great. Until it broke after about two miles.
Cars are generally considered to one of the toughest environments for electronics. For example, there's so much electrical noise that you really, really, really don't want to be using RAM without error correction.
Not going to happen. Honda wouldn't even let me replace the battery in my hybrid. That's right, they refuse to sell you a new hybrid battery, you can only get one by having the Honda dealer install it! They didn't even listen to my argument that I had a degree in Electronics Engineering and had worked as an Electronics technician, so I probably understood the fact that batteries are dangerous.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Here you go:
http://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Again, read the court documents on the Toyota ECU in the 'unintended acceleration' cases. The people who examined the software showed that a single bit flip could cause the ECU to stop reading the throttle, because there was no ECC to correct it.
Actually, in some countries/states/provinces, there are laws that protect AND also can prosecute engineers who are guilty of such offenses. For example, here in Canada, to use the term engineer, means a professional engineer (a P. Eng). It's a protected professional designation bound by various laws and regulations. A large portion of the profession is ethics and the legal requirement to whistle-blow, REGARDLESS of who pays your salary. If you want proof of this, and why this is a good thing, here is an example:
In Ontario, Canada, there was a mechanical or structural engineer (can't remember which) who signed off that a mall parking garage (was built on the roof of the mall, oddly), was in fact structurally safe. Even though there was numerous concerns by tenants and visitors about the safety of the structure, weeks after the engineers last 'pass' inspection, the roof collapsed killing two people. (see story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...).
The gist is, the engineer knew there was deficiencies and signed off on it anyway. Needless to say, he is facing criminal charges, and likely has had his licence revoked, and his career is over! If you are an engineer in Canada, you can't pull the 'my boss told me to' excuse. I know this because my father worked 35+ years as a licensed electrical engineer in Canada. You tend to pick up on things like this growing up. However, I can't speak about engineering in other countries but I would hope this is the case in the US.
While I do think the code should be available for third-party review for safety reasons, I want to disagree with the claim that they don't sell software. They do not sell the hardware without the software, and the products always have the software. To put it another way, they distribute software, and the only way to receive it is to buy the controller with it. Saying they're not selling the software makes as little sense as saying they're not selling the hardware, they just give it away free when they sell the software. But no, they sell the software and hardware together.
The funny part of this whole story is that the linked PDF letter from EPA counsels against a DMCA exception for automobile enthusiasts specifically because they're concerned the main purpose it would be used for would be to reduce emission controls. And they're probably right about that point. The speculation here that this VW cheating will cause things to open up is exactly backwards. It will just create pressure to have the testing and validation process include a code review. But that won't actually happen, because road tests already solves the whole problem more cheaply.
While I agree it is not feasible to home-brew an internal combustion ECM for a modern automobile,
You guys are all sitting around arguing if it can be done, when it has already been done. Megasquirt is a homebrewed ECU which can be twiddled in build for different injector drivers etc. You can use it as a replacement PCM for tuning or you can use it for adding EFI to a carbureted vehicle.
You guys think that ECMs are rocket surgery or something, but they frankly are not. Yes, there's a lot of noise underhood, but the ECM is located in a metal box. Yes, there's a lot of vibration in a car, but the metal box of the ECM is normally shock-mounted. And you think it's hard to do better than the real guys, but they screw it up too, and they don't try particularly hard.
Remember, companies were throwing together working ECMs back in the eighties out of discrete components and one dinky microcontroller. Hitachi used a 3 MHz 6800-series chip in the computers that ran the Impreza, 240SX and some of its other contemporaries.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"